Tonight will be my first night shift in the medical ICU (MICU) since COVID began ravaging New York City. I was on the hospital floors as an internal medicine resident during the early period of the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, my clinic block was can…
“Hey buddy, can you spare some ventilators?” No, this is not an attempt at dark humor. This is the preamble of numerous calls that are going on across the nation right now. Whether the call is made to a ventilator manufacturer or to other medical cente…
I am sure this comes as a surprise to no one, but taking care of hospitalized COVID-19 patients outside of the intensive care unit (ICU) is really emotionally draining. The absolute fear and loneliness in their voices pierce into you. They keep asking …
The image of patients dying in the intensive care unit is changing. Over the phone, family members cry on the other end as I tell them that we are not allowing visitors due to “the coronavirus” at this time. They tell me, “but I help make his decisions…
No break for 12 hours. We beg to go to the bathroom just for a nano-second. You know, in between not skipping a beat to hang life-saving IV drips, assisting with central line insertions and arterial lines and intubations of the sickest. We pretty much …
In the neonatal ICU, a baby dies from necrotizing enterocolitis or NEC. It’s not the first, nor the last time I’ll experience death during my medical career. Doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, surgeons, and the rest of the team spent the days pr…
We were told to wear masks before entering this patient’s ICU room. Entering his room, you could smell his rotting flesh. He was 92 years old. His skin would slough off if you dared to bathe him. His decubitus ulcers were raging with infection. As long…
The best teacher of medicine I ever had was during my medical residency. He was a tough, old-school physician, trained at one of the premier institutions in the country, and specialized in pulmonology and intensive care. Before I had even rotated throu…
Let’s talk about the doctor who is excessively defensive. I divide this kind of communication blocker into two varieties: physician personality and physician mode of practice. The physician with a defensive personality is one who interprets quest…
I am a critical care RN, and I violated my patients’ rights. For decades, every day that I worked in the emergency department or the intensive care unit, I violated my patients’ federally protected rights to participate in their plan of care. I didn’t …
