A Night in the ER

Spent last night in the Emergency Room at Lions Gate Hospital. I was shadowing one of the ER doctors there, he's a family friend of ours. So I spent seven hours there just watching, talking, learning - real fun. I got to learn about the setup of the ER at LGH. The first section is the resuscitation room. These two beds are for critical patients. The second section is the emergency room. These twelve beds are for patients which aren't critical, but are emergencies nonetheless. The emergency room also has a seperate section for paediatrics, with a few beds there. The third and final section is the first aid section. These dozen or so beds are for non emergencies. Patients here may wait over two hours to have a chance to see a doctor. A shift for an ER doctor is split about 4 hours in emergency and 4 hours in first aid. I got to experience both last night.

So what kind of stuff did I see? Well, there were no critical traumas while I was there. I was kinda hoping to see something critical, but at the same time I'm happy that no people (and families) have to go through major trauma on Thanksgiving. There was one trauma, and that was a crushed lumbar vertebra of someone who fell from a height, but besides that the patient (as far as I heard) was stable. There were a number of TIA's last night (Transient Ischemic Attack), also known as mini strokes. This gave me a chance to see the examination done when there is a possible stroke or TIA, and I got to look at a bunch of CT scans. I sure got to see a lot of tests last night: CT scans, X-Rays, blood tests, urine tests. And my, those tests seem very useful. There were few pregnant patients with bleeding and/or abdominal pain. We had a couple of kids who had bonked their heads, but nothing too serious came out of that. A few patients were feeling sick - nausia, vomitting, etc... On the first aid side, most the people there had abdominal/chest pain of some sort.

All in all, an excellent night, and a great experience.

Cheers,
Kev