The Results Are In....Sort Of.

Well, I received notice today that I have been accepted for my residency in Emergency Medicine. I have to wait until Thursday to find out where. It is either at my current hospital St Vincent's in Toledo, The University of Toledo, or Texas Tech in El Paso. Any of them would be great. Of course, we have our favorite, but we'll wait to see what happens.

I also had a pretty cool experience yesterday. One of my patients had been slowly going downhill overnight. About 1:00, there was an overhead page for the "Rapid Assistance" team. This team is called when someone looks likely to go into cardiac arrest. If they are found already in arrest, a "Code Blue" announcement is called.

Well, I was the first Doc to arrive on the scene. There was also an ER resident that arrived shortly after. In the hospital, the ER residents generally run codes. Once he arrived, I turned over management to him. However, I continued to do the compressions. It is a sickly feeling as you feel the ribs crack, but given the alternative. I like to think that it was my miraculous hands that brought him around, but I guess that it might have had something to do with the meds we gave him. We stabilized him and transferred him to the ICU. Unfortunately, he ended up passing away later in the day, but not on my watch. Thankfully, it doesn't happen that often, but it is nice to feel a bit more confident. It is always very different to study it in lectures and practice on mannequins than to do it for real.