(picture above not directly related to entry) July.  The most dangerous month of the year to be in the hospital, but also the month with the freshest faces. The interns with bright coats and loaded pockets rush from room to nurse to computer to attending, trying to stay afloat in the miasmal maelstrom. One of the new nurses pops [...]

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I’m sorry…? I just called to … tell you it wasn’t my fault?  To see how you were doing?  Express my condolences?  (What does that even mean?  Does anyone ever express just a single condolence?) No, I don’t know how things changed so quickly.  Or why we couldn’t stop it. No.  I don’t know what [...]

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One of the worst things about this job is coming in to discover that a patient that you least expected to run into problems, died overnight.  You backtrack through the chart notes reading what happened while you were off, seeing the whirlpool unfold, sucking in more physicians, tests, data, as the lab numbers and vital [...]

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GURNEY TALK Nurses pushing a gurney down the hall. Nurse 1:  “I hate going down to the ER.  When I work there, it’s just organized chaos.” Nurse 2:  “If you don’t, it’s just chaos.” — LIKE A LADY The old lady with endstage emphysema goes on and on about her family and her “genius” nephew [...]

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My mind keeps turning over as I turn over in bed once again, feeling one sinus empty as another sinus fills up, like secretions though the hourglass. “Take something so I can go to sleep,” Amy says from her side of the bed. “So you can go to sleep?” Did I hear something?  Those windows [...]

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