"Just a little note.. I've lost my first patient."
From the new intern at Realspace:
I mean, it's happened before, when we were students in our med rotations, and certainly when I was doing palliative care, but this is the first that I've had a hand in arranging things for, following up, that I saw almost every day.. Heck, he'd been in this hospital longer than I had. He was quite young too, hadn't even made 50 years old. He always had a smile for when we came around, even on his not-so-good days. It wasn't entirely unexpected...
It's strange not seeing his name on the list, and not seeing him on the round..but we don't have time to stop. No such thing. It all goes on. There will always be people in the beds. The hospital never stops. And neither can we.
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2 Comments:
Don't you ever take a break after a bad loss? That's what you're always telling us to do.
Joel, sometimes you can't. At least from an ER nurse's standpoint there are other people waiting for you. If I'm lucky, I wait until the shift is over and THEN I break down. Doesn't happen often, but when it does.....whoa.....
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