A Scribbled Story on the back of my Ob/Gyn Orientation Packet

The woman was clutching her left shoulder with her right hand. Intermittently, as she spoke, she would press against it, as though she could fix her heart by coaxing the arm into a well-massaged, relaxed and quiescent state. Her skin was loose and wrinkled, falling away from her hands, her arms, her face, her bones that were most likely thinned out and brittle. Despite drowning in her own skin, she looked her stated age of 82. Maybe even a few years younger. I had originally approached her and let my crossed arms lay on the railing that had been pulled up from her emergency room bed. But regardless of my physical closeness and what many have told me is a great bed side manner, the woman did not warm up to me initially. She was serious. She had a serious complaint, of course, otherwise why bother taking a day off work going to the emergency room. She would later tell me that she worked as a Walmart cashier. She loved working there, being surrounded by people. She didn't want this job--this world--to be taken away from her because she didn't take the warning signs of a heart attack seriously. 

- true story from my emergency medicine rotation -

So this is emergent care?

My teammate and I were sitting on the plethora of abandoned chairs in the emergency room. It was an odd time of the day for people to show up--right around lunch time--and it wasn't the right weather: too cold to be outside and accidentally or intentionally get hurt. Yet there were still patients in about half of the rooms, and because we were on call, all those patients who could be deemed fit for admission had to be processed by us. While we had been interviewing a man with suprapubic pain suspicious for bladder cancer, nearly continuous screams were emanating from a female patient nearby, drowning out the sounds of televisions, beeping monitors, and phone calls. I've been getting better and better at ignoring people screaming in hospitals. But this woman was loud and persistent and every once in a while I could hear the crashing of equipment or cheap furniture, and I'd wonder why a code hadn't been called yet or why nobody had tried to administer drugs.

I was incredibly saddened that the screaming had stopped--it is secretly my dream to rush in to help with a "Paging Dr. Strong" or "Code Grey" (combative patient/person). Alas, today was not going to be that day. Our intern had disappeared again so we had little to do except periodically check up on our patients through their electronic medical records. And then... an Emergency Medicine resident swept by and without hardly stopping asked: "You medical students?" "Yea," we both answered. "I need one of you to follow me." I started asking why as my friend was already standing up to follow him--she is way more instinctively helpful than I am. "To chaperone." Only as they were entering one of the private rooms did I kind of understand. Female patient. Delicate issues. Male doctors needed a female in the room. How obnoxious and unnecessary. So this is where politically correctness was taking us, that male doctors were no longer trusted enough to perform gyne check-ups without female supervision. 

Shortly thereafter, I was pulled away by one of the resident's on my internal medicine team to help out with ABG draws and paper work and phone calls. Eventually my teammate pages me.

"Hi Elora. It's Rebecca. Where are you?"

"The residence room. Why?"

"Okay. I need to tell you something. Will you be in the residence room for long?"

I looked at my computer screen, at the list of patients who were awaiting results of labs and imaging.

"Yea I'll be here."

to be continued.