trauma, trauma, trauma

I witnessed my first code tonight. It was intense, and it didn't end well. Of course, it wasn't sounding good from the get go... MVC with prolonged extraction and a BP in the 60s on scene... but then to see the stretcher coming down from the heli-pad with a nurse already straddling the patient and doing chest compressions? Yeah, not good. It was kind of cool though, from an observer's perspective, to see the way everyone came together in that room. I've seen several traumas now, with the ER docs, trauma surgeons, and nurses all doing their thing to get the patient stabilized, but this was different. This was everybody doing everything they could all for the exact same goal, to get that heart to start beating again. Unfortunately, it didn't happen. After about 15 minutes (plus another 10 before they landed), they called it. Almost anticlimatic actually, after everything that had been going on before that. So there you have it, my first code and my first witnessed death... what a way to start the night.

In other news, I think I'm finally getting comfortable and confident in the ER. I had my first suturing experience yesterday, and although it didn't go as smoothly as I'd hoped it would, I still did it. And tonight I attempted to get an arterial line in a patient. I almost had it too! Hit the artery relatively easily, but the stupid wire wouldn't thread. I felt a little bummed, but it helped when the resident couldn't get one either. I also watched a fellow student intubate a patient. That's next on my list. I just wish it wasn't almost my last week already! I foresee a lot of "free time" trips back down there in the future.