All I can say is.....WOW, what a day! I woke up very early this morning around 4:15
which is very early but we are also still on Belize time so we basically woke
up at 2:15 AM. Then we headed down to Grady and gathered in a meeting room to
listen to a briefing about last nights ER situations and the conditions of the
new patients. This was a lot more casual than I would have expected and
everyone in the room was very different ages. After a short presentation on a
new medical “balloon” to help someone breathe, we gathered into the small
groups based on each persons medical field. Dr. Morse, one of 3 ER surgeons at
Grady, got his group together in the back and they discussed how each patient
was with their vitals and recovery process in ICU. This was also VERY casual,
but still very professional.
All of the
sudden everyone in our “groups” phones buzzed and alerted that a man who was
shot (at 8 AM) was just picked up by the ambulance they were on the way to the
ER. So we all walked down to the ER (not like movies where they run down) and
waited for the patient to arrive. As we were standing there all of the nurses
were setting up for him to arrive and we were there freaking out about what was
about to happen. As we were standing there, I did not know what to expect. Was
I going to faint? Was I going to cry? Was I going to close my eyes? The entire
time (18 minutes) that we waited for the paramedics to arrive with this guy,
episodes from Grey’s Anatomy kept popping into my head. Once he finally
arrived, everyone got serious and did their job. After about 45 seconds they
called his life and everyone acted normal again. I had never experienced
something like this and everyone acted so casual about a man dying, which I
quickly realized was a daily situation for them. One lady was going through his
clothes after she had cut them off and was looking for identification, wallet,
etc. Another woman was listening to the
nurses call out where the gun shots were and how many there were. There were 11
gun shot holes (left side of head, left arm pit, left side of chest, in between
his butt cheeks, right hip, etc.), one bullet still in his body, and one bullet
that fell out. I failed to mention we were also in gloves touching his bullet
holes and air pockets of blood while it was rushing out of this dead man’s body
and somehow it did not gross me out. I quickly realized that I indeed could do
this daily and experience situations like these very often. Standing there I
could only help to think, why am I not sad and crying.
By this
point of the day it was only 9:30 AM and I felt like I could see whatever now
and not be grossed out. However, since Dr. Morse was not on call for the ER we
went into surgery clinic with the same group that we met with in the morning.
During clinic we went around room to room seeing patients who either needed
surgery or were coming back for their check up right after surgery. We saw
people with hernias, kidney stones, gallbladder issues, etc. I quickly realized
that I definitely do not want to do surgery because it does not interest me.
After we left Grady around 1:30, I
went to the senior talent show and then came home and slept for 19 hours! It is
easy to say that I was exhausted after the past few days.
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