Dr. Carter Wasn't There

I spent time in the ER department last Wednesday. I ended up cutting this visit short, as I had to drive back to SB for a day-long meeting at Corporate on Thursday. I intended to be in the ER through second shift, so I could see all the crazies coming in. My other intent was to watch the new ER processes that we just put in place, to facilitate patient throughput. This has been one of my projects these last several weeks and I wanted to witness the process and how it worked. It's one thing to see it on paper and diagnose problems that way...it's a whole other issue to watch events unfold in real life and see how the staff chooses to respond to these situations.

So it was great. We had a couple of cardiac arrests, some confirmed swine flu, a couple of massively-intoxicated drunks, some strep throat, gallbladders, and a ruptured appendicitis who after being diagnosed, jumped off the bed because she had a flight from O'Hare to Orlando. I laughed under my breath as the doctor told her bluntly that she could easily DIE in DISNEYWORLD. She still left. Two hours later, she comes back into the ER, vomiting and doubled-over and was soon wheeled up to the OR. She claims she missed her flight. We think she (rightly so!) had the fear of God put into her! The joke's on her, as she'll receive two separate hospital bills!

Thursday's meeting at Corporate was exhausting and highly intellectually stimulating. In other words, I felt like brain matter would leak out of my ear if I turned my head too far sideways. But I had to turn around and drive back to Chicago that night, for meetings Friday morning. Because I had a dentist appointment Monday morning, I opted to drive BACK to SB Friday evening. I drove something like 600 miles in 3 days. It wouldn't have been so exhausting if I were driving to Disneyworld. Y'know, with the appenditicitis lady?!