The wonder of Emed

Stupid Things to do when you're already shagged:

We were all in the resuscitation area of the SGH A&E dept. A friend of mine (we'll call him Sam for privacy) had just finished placing a urinary catheter for an comatose female patient.

After meticulously observing an aseptic technique for the entire procedure, Sam stripped of his gloves in a sigh of relief. In the moments proceeding, the patient started to desaturate and began to twitch and shake violently. A decision was made to intubate the patient and everyone's attention turned to the drama at hand - all thoughts of the dirtied tray for catheterization were momentarily forgotten.

With the patient was successfully intubated, Sam industriously began to clear up the mess - with his bare hands...

Me: Hey, dude, gloves man... GLOVES!
Sam: *Odd look* Huh? this is dirty already... don't need glove lah *stares at his work*
Me: *um* dirty...dirty...dirty... precisely.
Sam: ohhhhhhhhh shitttt.....
Me: yeaaahh rigght.

The moment of realization was priceless.

In a similar incident which might not have gone so well, another one of my friends was recanting his flirtation with death. He nearly got a sharps injury from a HIV and Hep C positive patient. He was assisting in venipuncture when he was nearly stabbed by the bloodied needle. It came close enough to stick to and smear blood on his gloves. Thankfully, a water test later revealed that the glove had maintained its integrity.

Its a chilling reminder.
Please look after sharps!

sniff sniff. im sick damnit.

haven't written in sometime. generally because ive been busy busy busy.

however seems that ive overdone it recently, no thanks to my wonderful mentor whos been hounding be for more nightcalls and ortho cases.

as such i spent wednesday night in NUH, leaving at about 4.45 am.
got to see quite a few things though - henoch schonlein purpura, galeazzi fracture, supracondylar fracture and a fractured clavicle. all this as well as a few other crush injuries.

have more pharmaco and ortho to do. so im spiralling into a hopeless panic. damn.

oh. haha. interesting anecdote. the fractured clavicle guy was damn tough! he fractured it during the day at around 2pm at a rugby match whilst blocking off a tackle. when asked why he only decided to present at the A&E at around 11.3opm, he casually shrugged and said - it wasn't that painful with a splint on.. and besides he had to go for his post N'levels prom.

Can you imagine how garung that must have been? imagine a guy walking around during prom with a triangular sling because of a fractured clavicle. he was still smiling when he said this.