Cardiology

I can't wait to get back to the ER.

The dearth of stories is basically because I find none of my cardiology patients particularly interesting, other than for the fact that most of them seem hell-bent on their own destruction via smoking, obesity and generally awful lifestyles.

Take the Iceman the other day, who was trundled in by the paramedics in cardiac arrest.

While the hubbub of resuscitation was ongoing, I slipped out since there were way too many doctors crammed into the resus room, and got on the computer to pull up what I could of his history. Only to discover, as is typical, that this certainly wasn't my patient's first visit for a heart attack - in fact it was his third. And in the previous discharge note, one of the physicians had recorded that "he told the team in no uncertain terms he did not intend to change his lifestyle, give up smoking or take his medications".

G-r-e-at. Here I go again, making Darwin roll over in his grave...

Anyway we packed him up in ice and off to the CCU where he now lies in induced slumber. It's anyone's guess as to what sort of brain function he will have. Though I have doubts as to whether there was any to begin with.

Not all is lost, though. I had another patient the other day whom I was delighted to see. She had essentially arrested in the pickup truck her friend was driving to the hospital where she had been headed to see us for her awful chest pain. And we brought her back. That was some months ago. Last week, I chanced upon her in the ER (for something fairly benign) and we got to talking. Unlike the majority of our patients, the arrest seems to have successfully woken her up to the fact that she needed to change many things about her lifestyle if she wanted to avoid going towards the light prematurely - she'd lost a lot of weight, was exercising, had quit smoking, etc.

Patients like the first are a dime a dozen - patients like the second are the ones that keep me going. Sometimes, just sometimes, I guess we do save a life for the better and that makes me feel as if I am a force for good.