"A Funny Story To Break The Ice"

I am a failed orthopedic surgeon.

Yesterday morning I woke up and thought: “What better than a visit to the emergency room???” So with no second thoughts or haste I get my robes, find my stethoscope, and early in the morning (at around noon…) I walk into the hospital.

The situation I found myself in the ER was totally unforgivable. It was a mess. There where beds and chairs everywhere you could see, all crammed up in the corridor, words cannot express the environment there. Just like when the media want to tear the tower of medicine down and point every little detail of corruption and dysfunction in the hospital, only this time, “the little detail” was all over the place. Very few nurses – no doctors in sight.

Somewhere in the haven of mess I recognised a familiar door with the sign “Orthopaedic Surgery” and I ‘m thinking “I have it goin’ on” and I strut in. At the beginning I was alone with an intern (oh there’s one!) and he was on the phone. On the bed lay a young man with no definite signs of trauma and next to him a tall, obese man with a T-Shirt reading “pame peraia – pame parea, ouzo 12” which in Greek means “let’s go to the docks, all together and drink ouzo” holding his hand with a handkerchief (later on I found out that he was a chef and got cut while opening a can). Few minutes afterwards, a group of 5th year medical students (an all-girl group) walked in…

MY GOD THEY WHERE STUPID !

Two of them had broken arms and did comedy with the man on the bed that they would be the ones to perform the stitches. The other girl stole stuff from the cabinets and put everything in her purse (no I am NOT kidding), all of this right in front of the intern and the patients. No sense of right or wrong behaviour.

AND THE BEST PART: the fish looking stupid-girls were flirting with the intern. I was stunned. I definitely, absolutely, totally and completely frown upon all of this…!

Anyway, sometime after that, I got to realise that the man-on-the-bed had a very deep and bad cut on the palm of his hand… and the stitching began. Standing right by the doctor where me and one of the stupid-girls. The rest of them where gazing out the window and some had departed, claiming that there where too many of us in the room and they would go somewhere where they would actually be helpful (I choose not to believe them).

And just as the doc purred the anaesthetic over the man’s hand I felt something strong pull on my stomach, I thought I was going to be sick. I tried to sit on the side of the next bed but it got worse and worse and suddenly it felt hot and I couldn’t bear it. That’s when I thought that the sight of a student emptying her stomach in the bin by a patient’s bed while he suffers without any complaint whatsoever wouldn’t be exactly sympathising for him and I decided to leave the room to get some air.

NOT! :-) Just as I entered the corridor I fell on some patients. Oh the stink… They hadn’t had a bath for more than a week I’m sure. I bent in half from disgust but I took a hold of my self and I ran (literally) across the corridor. I wanted to reach the canteen and breathe…

Well if you can believe it - right in my way was a cart loaded with cartons coming out of the elevator, blocking the corridor. I mean REALLY… When that obstacle too was surpassed I kept running, but it was too late . . .

(-thriller music on background…)

I held on to the bar along the wall of the corridor and everything went black. I opened my eyes and I tried to reach the wall on the other side of the corridor (Why? I’ll never know… :-) ) But everything went black again and I knocked on the wall (!), I searched in blindness for the bar to help myself to not fall down and far away from me I could hear voices “the girl is not well, the girl! Hurry!”.

Two patients where holding my shoulders and shuddering me so I would snap back while I was repeating “I’m ok I’m ok thanks” (yeah right!). In the dark I understood a doctor/intern/young man standing in front of me (- joyous music on the background…) who grabbed my shoulders, forced me on the ground and raised my legs to my chest. The patients where correcting him “no no no, not down here, on a bed” :-) and he was saying “no, it has to be done here, right now”.

Afterwards I got to realise that people had gathered all around me and they where shouting “the girl the girl”, each and every one of them with a different opinion of what should have been done with my case. The doctor steadied my legs on his knee, pulled my hands from my head and put his fingers under my nose, on my lips and cheeks. That’s when I realised that I was seriously sweating all over and everybody around me was cheering “she’s so white she’s so white” while the stupid-girls (all five of them had come, I should give them credit for that, it was kind of them) where smiling at me to regain consciousness.

Meanwhile the doctor was asking me a series of questions which I answered (I hope out loud, to be honest I can’t remember…) and among them was “what happened?”, “are you on a diet?” and “have you eaten anything?”. And I – THE DOOFUS – thought “hey, he is taking my history”. (someone shoot me) .

At that point I must have snapped back because I remember everything that followed clearly, but they wouldn’t let me get up. (“but you ‘re so white!!!! :-)”) The doctor yelled at the stupid-girls to get me to the boxes in the ER for examination, BP and stuff. (They didn’t, they where too bored to) and he actually bellowed to one of them to get me some juice (“go get her some juice – why are you standing staring???”) and another to get me a wheel chair.

Three doctors passing by, stood above me, asked what the problem was, repeated the diagnosis and proposed treatment and went on.

-So they did again on the return of their walk.

Two patients (other than the first two) stood by and complained to the doctors “why are you keeping her here? She needs to be in the emergency room” (oh please, no, I just came back from in there!) :-)

All of this I observed laying on the hospital floor with my feet resting on the wheel chair, baring a stupid smile of non-comprehension.

The kind doctor, before leaving, handed my stethoscope to me, which had fallen when I fainted. When I saw it all dirty and smudged up with some white stuff from the wall I wanted to cry. POOR ME and so on... :-) But I didn’t and I got up (I almost lost balance again) and I sat in the wheelchair drinking my juice like a dork. The stupid-girls where on my side (again – kind of them) and we introduced ourselves to each other and sth good came out of all this, as 45’minutes had already passed with me on my back.

The girls didn’t tell me where to go or what to ask for in the emergency room and when I asked for information, they even argued that after the juice the blood sample would be false. And I still felt too faint to go and see for myself.

All’s well that ends well, I got back to the emergency room, not the surgery (brrrrr...) but it still made me feel sick because of the smell and I felt oozy and I left, because I didn’t want to make a complete fool of myself. I went to the library (home sweet home) I scanned a pathology book (no profit came out of that either) and when I felt ready to drive I went over to my boyfriend’s. I took a bath, he fed me, and he put me to bed :-)

Conclusion?
1. I felt like a failure. Everybody told me to go home and rest, which felt strange for sth I did voluntarily. I hope to get used to it because I love orthopaedics. I guess I got bothered by some kind of smell from the anaesthetic or the blood combined with the heat. And that doctor, really, couldn’t he just not spill the whole bottle on the patient’s hand?
2. All of the doctors watched over me and the stupid-girls where by my side constantly. Between strangers I guess the practice of medicine does bring comfort – imagine sth worse than a student fainting...!
3. There actually where doctors in the ER, but the patients where just too many for them to be easily spotted.
4. Later on I found out that one of the students saw me falling in the corridor, ran in the surgery and shouted “the girl that was here is fainting in the hallway”, and that’s how everybody showed up :-)

........ and 5. Next time I’ll go swimming instead ! :-)

PS. The title was conjured by one of my best friends. When I told her what had happened, she said "Don't worry, at least you 'll have a funny story to break the ice" :-)