What a Night!

The very first thing in my mind as I walked out of the hospital entrance in this warm Sunday morning: "Is this what I signed up for??" I was overwhelmed. At the beginning it looked cool wearing so many gears on your scrub pants - an on-call phone, a trauma pager, and my own pager. 20 minutes later the trauma pager went off - "scheduled c-section for a twin gestation, OR#1". Alright, what do I do... luckily my R2 was next to me and she went to the OR with me (it's a twin afterall...we need two residents there). I walked into the room and help prepared the resuscitation kits, and then boom - we have a newborn covered with a sticky layer of cheese... alright what to do next...

"dry the baby first!" said the respiratory therapist.
"Here, suction the baby"...
"Give the kiddo oxygen"...
"Ok, let's let go of the O2 mask"...
"Here, remember how to put in the OG tube?"
"Yeah, just stick the whole tube down the throat... you are not going to hurt him."

At the end it was a job well done because the baby is breathing pretty well on his own. I wrote my little resuscitation note and walked out of the OR.

"Maybe I should get some water," I thought.
"Emergency c-section for a non-reassuring FHR tracing. OR#3."
"Darn it!!"

So there I go again - back to the OR. Another 20 minutes have gone by. Out of the OR.

"I could really use some water now," I said to myself. Ring~~Ring~~
"Hi, this is nurse xxx calling from the peds floor... the baby in room xxxx is NPO tonight but no IVF is ordered. Do you want to give him some fluid doctor?"

Whoa. What did you just called me? Oh yeah I am a doctor alright, even though I don't feel like one.

"Geez, what kind of fluid should I give?" I was speechless for about 10 seconds. I've decided if anything, the nurse on the other side of the phone should know more about this than this clueless doctor here.

"So what do we usually give?"
"We usually give D5 1/2NS doctor."
"Okie, let's do that then. Just a moment while I calculate the amount."

Another problem solved. This went on until around 1:30am. I tried to take a nap...

4:00am - Ring~~Ring~~. "Yes doctor, we have a few newborns for you to examine in the nursery."

5:30am - finished examining 3 babies. Time to work on the progress notes for the ones that are here.

7:40am - Finally my shift is over and I am a free man. I graciously handed over my call phone and pager to the Day Call person.

It was a warm Sunday morning. The morning sun warmth has never felt so good. Time to get some sleep and prepare for tonight - Round 2.