Yes, I have finished my first week's worth of shifts for placement - 3 consecutive stints in Dr Gray's A&E department.
Dr G's; it's like I can't get enough. I've even been back on ward 7 twice, just to say hello and to transfer a patient. I'll never get away now. I guess it's good to know I'm still remembered. Whether those memories are of a fond nature, well, that's yet to be said...
But A&E - that's right where I want to be!
In the midst of the quiet corridors, empty cubicles, abandoned resus rooms...
Not quite right, is it?
Yet that's what my three days have been like (for the mornings at least) until things pick up slightly towards the evening time. The time when, having already been on for almost 10 hours, you can't quite be bothered to deal with drunken patients, screeching kids, and what ever other trivial condition walks through the doors.
Saying that, A&E has not been entirely uneventful. In my opinion it's still better than a ward, because of the great variety that comes with the job.
In the past 3 shifts I have learnt quite a lot, and any confidence with some procedures or equipment is partly thanks to the RC experience. Already I have had to put someone in an arm sling and elevation sling, and help log roll someone off a spinal board and onto the bed. Surprisingly, you don't learn these basics in Uni.
Anyway, this is what I've witnessed/been involved in so far (not in any precise order of events as my memory isn't that good - patient confidentiality taken into account):
- An elderly lady who had fallen and hurt her shoulder, ?fracture.
- A paediatric resus alert, where a baby had lost consciousness - this turned out to be a false alarm, as when the baby arrived from the ambo it was crying its lungs out and fully awake and alert, and had apparently been this way since the call out. Phew...
- A burnt penis.
- A Myocardial Infarction (MI, or a.k.a. heart attack) and the protocol which comes with it - the patient was still alert and conscious by the way (prior to RC/nursing, I always used to think of MIs as collapsed/unconscious/dead, but obviously this isn't always true).
- A construction site worker whose circular saw thing (the spinny one with a serrated edge) had bounced off the metal he had been cutting, and had sliced back into him, cutting through his chest. Thankfully it hadn't quite reached the bone, and being rather stocky his thick fleshy layers had taken the blow. A very nice, deep laceration.
- Suspected CVA (a.k.a. stroke)
- A man who had jacked his van up to check on a tyre. The jack gave way, and the van fell, crushing the man underneath. He entered A&E with a ?spinal and a very sore ?broken shoulder. Apparently this incident is also classed as an RTC.
- A fractured femur.
- A variety of old breaks and torn ligaments/tendons, which were all plaster-casted. Myself and my fellow student even got the chance to practice plastering thanks to the very nice Orthopedic technicians of the A&E dept. Very good fun, and very funny.
- A patient with a head injury who was choking on his own saliva (very briefly, before he was whisked away to get a CT scan).
Now one of the nurses has organised a day out for me and my friend with the ambulance crews, to observe the emergency work from a paramedic's point of view.
Obviously I am ecstatic over this, and can't wait until November when I get to join a crew for the day. I might try and pursuade my mentor for another day out. Thankfully she's very cool, hip and trendy, and if I ask nice enough she might just sort that out for me.
So yes, from the list it doesn't sound like a quiet stint, but it's very slow for Elgin A&E and even the nurses agree with me on that point!
Of course I have another 8 weeks to spend in the company of the emergency care workers, so there's plenty of time for things to pick up to full speed.
As one nurse commented on our first day, "it's just like Casualty off the telly."
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