Old Journal Excerpts

Here's some excerpts from a journal I kept while in med school:

"Most of the things we do in medicine would earn us a ticket into society's penal system if done outside the title of "M.D." We mutilate corpses, we place our fingers in the orifices of the opposite sex, we play with poop, dip urine, stab people in linear manners and then procede to rip out their intestines. We ask our patients to bend over, roll over, cough, spit, swallow, and any other activity of kinsesis humanly possible. We probe the surface and the fundus of the soul from "Hi, how are you?" to "Are you suicidal?" Then we hang up our coats, warm up our meal, and go to our home as if our day had had no more excitement than a coffee spill on the cubicle desk."

"Today, I found Mr. E sitting in his bed, his pale yellow standard issue VA gown barely covering his otherwise naked body. His face was covered in stubble and his voice was stubbly as well, the kind of voice produced after years of smoking. His primary diagnosis was COPD/CHF exacerbation. I suspect his secondary diagnosis was hard-knocks and loneliness."

"I went to check on Mr. G, my 86yo patient after my pager beeped. The covers of the call room bed were still warm and my eyes almost refused to be roused from slumber long enough to gaze at Mr. G's O2 sats. 60% on the vent. 30 minutes later I was presenting to the attending. "Are you sure Mr. G's sats are 60%?" Though my eyes were barely open, they were open enough to notice the 60 on the monitor. "No, Mr. G's sats are 0%." I started to argue. I had read the sat correctly. Then I paused and thought. 0%. 0% equals nothing, no breath, no oxygen, no life. The attending meant that Mr. G was no more-just a zero. My mouth began to form an "O" as I thought about the unsensitive manner in which my attending had informed me of Mr.G's untimely expiration...."