Sorry I didn't update sooner, like I promised! The first day felt long, and I had two night shifts right after that, and between being tired and having some assignments to do for school, I just didn't feel like posting. Plus, the ER was nowhere near as dramatic as I feared it was going to be!
On my first day, I was with a PA, which was really nice. It was actually the first time I'd worked with a PA or even seen one in action since shadowing in college. He was really nice, and let me do a lot! I would go see each patient first, then present to him, then he would go see them and we would decide together what would be best to do. Unlike working with doctors, he actually seemed to value any input I had in terms of what should be done for workup, which was nice. Of course, I still have a lot to learn, but at least he asked me what I thought! We didn't see anything too stressful - a couple people with chest pain that wasn't likely to be a heart attack or pulmonary embolism (MI and PE, respectively, for future reference), some dental abscesses (way more common than I would have thought), one guy with pneumonia, and a couple hypochondriacs. Like I said, nothing too thrilling. What was interesting was how crazy busy the ER was! That first day, I was there from 8am-6pm, and people were just running all over the place all the time. Not really in a stressful life-saving way, just a busy way. It runs like a well-oiled machine!
My second day, I was there for a night shift (5pm-3am) with a resident. This particular resident was a little socially awkward and kind of timid at signing up for patients, so we only saw about seven people over the course of the 10-hour shift. There was a lot of downtime, especially toward the end of the shift, which made it even harder to stay awake! Our patients weren't even very exciting - mostly hypochondriacs, with one very intoxicated guy thrown in. So that night wasn't very fun, and trying to find street parking within a half-mile of my apartment at 3:30am when it was over was the icing on the cake.
But! Last night I worked the 5pm-3am shift again, this time with a different resident, and had a completely different experience. This resident was really nice, and totally on top of signing up for patients, so we were busy pretty much the whole shift. He also signed up for a trauma patient, which was exciting! There was a car accident with a bunch of young college girls (they got rear-ended by a drunk driver and the car flipped), and they all ended up in the trauma bay. No serious injuries - the girl we worked on just had a big cut on her knee. So I got to clean that up and put in a couple stitches, which was good! All of the other girls were fine, too, just scared. Other than that, we saw a bunch of dental abscesses, a nurse who passed out on the job and turned out to be pregnant, some chest pain cases, and a guy with HIV and a productive cough, so most likely PCP pneumonia (common in immunocompromised patients). The time seemed to fly by, and it was a much more interesting night!
Now, I have two days off before going back in on both Saturday and Sunday from 7am-5pm. Hopefully the weekends are busy!
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