Scott's Spiel

It’s the end of day 4 of my first week in intensive care and intensive is a pretty good summary.

Generally the days have consisted of me turning up around 9am (earlier than that is pushing it) and joining the ward round. This lasts a variable length of time usually finishing by around 11am with a plan for all the patients on the unit. The rest of the morning is spent following up on any tasks needing done with a break for lunch slotted in somewhere. Early afternoon a rather brisker round takes place to catch up on any developments and again tasks from these are dealt with.

Typically around this time there seems to be something happening elsewhere in the hospital which needs attention such as a transfer into the unit or someone wanting advice.

Today’s highlight was my ability to bleed a patient on a general ward that neither the FY1 or Reg could find a vein on. Finding somewhere to put a cannula was a bit more awkward, it finally ended up on a thumb – thankfully by the anaesthetist and not me!

I’m certainly enjoying the week so far, probably far more than if I were doing an SSM from a set list. I’m hoping to try, by the end of my stint in ITU, to get a good grip of how to cope with a patient going poorly. This seems to be a struggling point for FY1s so hopefully my time now will actually help in the future.

After this I will have only 2 SSMs (and another elective) left to pick things like this. I was considering doing some more of anaesthesia/critical care but I’m now thinking that wouldn’t really help me. Will be a tough decision over doing something sounding interesting or something that’ll be useful (not that they are mutually exclusive…).