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7.22.2010

My medical short story

*ahem*

If a respiratory patient has problems breathing, it means she was probably going to be sent home before this happened.

And if she has breathing problems, she's probably going to have a super-ventricular tachycardia (SVT) to go with it.

And although she is put on a BiPap breathing machine to help her breathing, it's probably not going to help her heart rate, and with her heart rate tachy (going really, really fast), she'll probably drop her blood pressure in to the toilet.

If her heart rate is that high, then Dr Hospitalist will most likely try a medication to bring it down, which will have a side effect of dropping her BP in to the sewers.

At that time, the doctor will order a bolus, freak out, and call a cardiologist to consult.

When the cardiologist comes to consult, she'll whine and complain that the first doctor didn't do anything right, and order STAT tests (without telling anyone), and start her on a IV medication drip to help control her heart rate.

While she's there, she'll probably try to print out 30 pages, which our wonky printer will flip out at, and refuse to print it unless it can add a blank page every 3rd page.

And, probably, while the patient's nurse is at lunch, the aforementioned blood pressure that had stabilized will finally react to all the medication in her system and plummet even further.

Then, trying to save a life, I'll get chewed out, all the while praying that this doctor won't remember who I am as I play dumb.

And chances are, once all the systems return to normal, the patient will want the BiPap to come off because she feels "better."

But because she's not "better," her breathing will probably revert to it's previous stage . . . which will throw her heart into SVT again . . .

So, any one want to illustrate it for me?

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