Under my Care

He was 53, and had been a lifelong asthmatic. Earlier this morning, he suffered from a severe asthma attack and an ambulance was called, which took him straight the Southampton General, by which time his airway had deteriorated considerably. All he had to count on for survival was me, and another third year medic. We tried our best, tried to remember which procedures to do and which regimes of drugs to give, and via which route. He didn't improve with nebulisers, and as we were getting an IV line in and bleeping the registrar, I noticed his BP had dropped. As I struggled to think of a way to improve matters, his heart rate dropped from 180 to 40, then to 30, 20 and then, finally zero. We started resuscitation, but after 2 cycles we had to stop. He was dead.


Thank fuck he was made from plastic. The Simulation Suite is a great learning tool.

It was a rather too realistic experience with the life-size doll that can talk, breathe, get injected, crash, recover and die, but it was a very useful hour. If there's one way to remember the pathway for treatment for a certain disease, it's to learn it after you've panicked over a dying "patient" wishing you'd learnt it already. It's crazy-we learn the basics over and over and OVER again in lectures, seminars, and during bedside teaching. But today when the guy crashed we didn't even ring 2222 for the cardiac arrest team, probably the most essential rule on the list.

On a lighter note, I handed in my long-suffering essay over the net today. To make things "easier" the School of Medicine makes us hand it in twice, so I'll have to hand some paper copies in tomorrow, but I can't change it now. My "grade sense" is fairly good, and I'm sensing a B.