The Resident Sleeps Alone Tonight

The rounds I had with my consultant this afternoon reminded me of the reason why I entered the Internal Medicine Program in PGH. It was comprehensive and it summarizes what you had learned in med school for 5 years with just a short visit with a patient. I learned alot today and I miss days like these. Rounds like this one stimulates students and residents to think and to study more for their cases.

It also feels great seeing your students performing well during the rounds. Its really good to be surrounded with bright minds and equally hardworking people. Nowhere but in UP.

My straight wards stint will be soon ending and I’m now going to rotate in the Medical ICU. More time to study and more time to improve on my Mechanical Ventilator and Inotrope Skills.

Now I am wondering how my residents feel about me when I was their student.

Earlier this morning, one of my very first patients followed up after three months.

She was a case of an hepatic Abscess which went into Sepsis and eventually seeded a complex abscess on her right lung. She was cachectic and really ill when I saw her. 

We transfused her multiple times and we changed our antibiotics a number of times more. She was then maintained on an extracorporeal system which sucked her lung and hepatic abscess for a month.

I promised to send her home before New Year and I found myself rushing blood products and rushing diagnostics to get everything done that 31st of December. I managed to discharge her at 11AM and she was in Bacolod that night celebrating New Year with her family. We were short of 1 unit of blood and we were short of about 3 days of IV antibiotics but that was a compromise I made just to grant her wish because she knew it could be her last.

 I never expected her to come back since she’s from Bacolod but she did. She told me she just want to surprise me that she got really well. She even added that her neighbors were shocked that she was still alive.

I made her a medical certification of being fit to resume work. She’s now excited to go back to being a yaya. She said she missed the kids she used to take care of.

These things remind me that I can cure and I really love what I am doing right now despite of my usual rants and my unfriendly vindications. 

Hehe! Consultant rounds tomorrow. whew!

This is what happens to me duty after duty.

It feels really bad when you’re reading and you’re realizing what you should have done and what you should have not done when a patient was dying on your watch. Next time an acute hear failure presents on my face I should know what to do. I should know because I read that chapter for five times now. This is the stupidest point of my life and I want to throw up and disappear into this world if I’m going to be called in an audit. Owning to my mistake is not an issue for me but thinking what others are thinking of me is probably the worst feeling in the world. It is easy to be looked down unto in my situation.

I, myself is in acute on top of chronic heart failure and I don’t know what to do. Realizing what I should have and should have not done makes me crazier each time i think about it.