Wednesday, June 6, 2007

Survival to Discharge

I found out today that my "code-save" from the other day actually was a code save. A paramedic student doing a rotation in the CICU caught up with me, excited to tell the story of a man who was wheeled in with tubes and wires, wrecked and posturing, only to walk out - under his own power and without neuro deficits - 6 days later.

It boosted my whole week, thats for sure. I wonder if some day I will bump into him walking on the street or in line at a store, a vague recgonition as, yes, that's the guy I helped resuscitate. I wonder if it would be prudent to say anything to him, if that oppertunity were to ever arise. What would I say? What could I expect him to say?

I probably wouldnt say anything.

I got around to digitizing (in my own halfway manner) the strips from that call. With the good news in mind, I thought I'd post them. A story told by EKGs. (You can click on any one of these to get a more detailed view)







I skipped a few to make the story a little more succinct, but please rest assured that there do indeed exist strips with regular 3 leads, and a perfect square-like capinography output overshooting first in the 60's, then coming to rest around 40. The tube was good the whole time, I made damn sure of that.

**

In other good news, I got word from my preceptor that he is "about ready to kick me out," meaning release me from my preceptorship and set me off on my own. We need to schedule a day when I can ride along with one of the company's administrators, to be evaluated and checked just one last time before I am allowed to practice without supervision. I am acutely aware of how much I have yet to learn, but even still I am eager to be given leave to make my own decisions. Peter Canning's preceptee is in a similar position, and she confided in me the other day that she might "never feel like [she has] learned enough," but the time is soon approaching where she is "going to have to learn on her own."

Both of us are just about ready to be cut loose, free to make our own mistakes, pick ourselves up, and learn our own lessons.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations on the code save dude, thats awesome. I bet you made the patients week also!?

Ambulance Driver said...

Dancing rodents on your save, Baby Medic. Feels good, doesn't it?