The calls began as I entered the cafeteria and was just starting to have breakfast.
“Dr.Mitchell….ER Six…..Dr.Mitchell…….ER Six…”
“We have a patient with a fractured rib……”
“Mr Miles is complaining about chest pains……”
“The patient in Ward Two has a headache. Is it alright to give him an acetaminophen…..?”
At midnight I’d just been about to doze off when the telephone rang again.
“Report to OR One”
It was a knife wound and by the time I’d taken care of it, it was one-thirty in the morning.
I unlocked the door to my call-on room and was about to throw myself on the bed when the cursed object started ringing again.
“Dr.Mitchell…….Emergency Room Two. Stat”
I had a flashback of my first rounds here
“.….my stomach’s hurting” said the patient
Dr. Isler turned to the senior resident. “What did the proctoscopy show?”
“No sign of any problem”
“Give him a barium enema and an upper GI, stat”
The senior resident made a note.
The resident standing next to me leaned close and whispered in my ear.
“I guess you know what stat stands for. “Shake that ass tootsie!”
Dr. Isler heard, “ ”Stat” comes from the Latin, statim. Immediately”
In the years ahead, I was to hear it often
“Right” I said groggily, my mind snapping back to the present.
I forced myself up and moved down the corridor.
A patient had been brought in with a broken leg. He was screaming with pain.
“Get an X-ray” I ordered. “And give him Demerol, 50 milligrams”
I put my hand on the patient’s arm. “You’re going to be fine. Try to relax”
Over the PA system, the awfully familiar metallic disembodied voice said,
“Dr.Mitchell….Ward Five. Stat”
I looked at the howling patient reluctantly.
The voice came on again, “Dr.Mitchell…Ward Five. Stat”
“Coming” I mumbled.
I hurried down the door and down the corridor to Ward Five. A patient had vomited, aspirated, and he was choking.
“He can’t breathe” the nurse said
“Suction him” I commanded. As I watched the patient begin to catch his breath, I heard my name again on the PA system.
“Dr.Mitchell…Ward Two. Ward Two.”
I shook my head and ran down to Ward Two, to a screaming patient with abdominal spasms. I gave him a quick examination.
“It could be intestinal dysfunction. Get an ultrasound” I said
By the time I returned to the patient with the broken leg, the pain reliever had taken effect. I had him moved to the operating room and set the leg.
As I was finishing, I heard my name again.
“Dr.Mitchell, report to Emergency Room Three. Stat”
“The stomach ulcer in Ward Eight is having a pain…”
At 3:30am : “Dr.Mitchell, the patient in Room 310 is hemorrhaging…”
There was a heart attack in one of the wards, and I was nervously listening to the patient’s heartbeat when I heard my name called over the PA system: “Dr.Mitchell…ER Two. Stat….Dr.Mitchell…ER Two. Stat….”
I must not panic, I thought.
I've got to stay calm and cool.
I panicked.
Who was more important, the patient I was examining or the next patient?
“You stay here” I said inanely. “I’ll be right back”
As I hurried toward ER Two, I heard my name called again, “Dr.Mitchell…..ER Seven. Stat…Dr.Mitchell…..ER Seven. Stat..”
Oh my God! I thought. I felt as though I were caught up in the middle of some endless terrifying nightmare.
During what was left of the night, I was awakened to attend to a case of food poisoning, a broken arm, a hiatal hernia, and a fractured rib. By the time I stumbled back into the on-call room, I was so exhausted I could hardly move.
I crawled on to the bed and had barely closed my eyes when the telephone rang.
I reached out for it with my eyes closed. “Hello..?”
“Dr.Mitchell, we’re waiting for you”
“Wha’?” I lay there, trying to remember where I was.
“Your rounds are starting, the junior residents are waiting”
“My rounds?”
This is some kind of bad joke
I thought
It’s inhuman. They can’t work anyone like this!
But they were waiting for me.
Ten minutes later, I was leading the rounds, half asleep.
I stumbled against Dr. Harrison, who kept a check on how things were going.
“Excuse me” I mumbled, “but I haven’t had any sleep....”
He patted me on the shoulder sympathetically “You must get used to it by now”
When I finally got off duty, I slept for sixteen straight hours.
