My third day in the Emergency Department. Somehow I'm more flustered today and only managed to handle 2 and a half patients. This is vastly worse than the 3 patients I handled yesterday.
Today's patients included a woman who thought she had another stroke this morning but turned out not to have any significant neurological deficit and no abnormality on a CT scan of her head. She was a highly anxious patient, so much so that testing her reflexes were difficult because she would not relax. An interesting point in her history was that she was a heavy smoker for many years ... up until her previous stroke 2 years ago, when she quit cold turkey, no doubt after getting the shock of her life.
My "half" patient was a 55 year old man who came in with chest pain (of the appropriate type) and an ECG from his local doctor confirming a likely new myocardial infarct. It was near the end of my shift and I only had time to insert an IV cannula, take blood, order blood tests (FBC, EUC, CK, CK-MB), order a Chest X-Ray for him and order up a first dose of clexane (an anticoagulant, as directed by one of the registrars) before handing him over to one of the other interns doing the evening shift.
Today is also Australia Day. I have turned down going into the city to watch the fireworks as I'm feeling really tired. Might still go and watch the (likely smaller) fireworks display in Parramatta though, which starts in about an hour's time.