Third Observation

This past week I got to visit the Emergency room. Unfortunately it wasn’t exactly as planned because I had to take my roommate instead of going free willed to interview nurses. My roommate became very sick the other night, complaining of shooting pains in her lower back. The pain was so bad she was crying so I suggested that we go to the E.R. We were relieved when we got there at 9pm and there weren’t that many people, but I’ve learned that sometimes doesn’t mean anything. Once they took her name, it was a few minutes until they called her into triage. That’s where a nurse will ask you the basics: what happened? When? Where does it hurt? They also take all your vitals when you are in there like your blood pressure. After a few minutes she came out, and said it was only going to be a few minutes because it was pretty serious. From the few times I have been in the E.R. everything goes by severity, which in reality makes sense. You will obviously take the more serious case and treat the one who needs urgent care versus the one who can wait if they have to.
When we were called back, we were lead to your typical hospital room. Hospital bed, chair for a guest, and a T.V. Although we got passed waiting in the waiting room that didn’t mean we weren’t going to have to wait to see the actual doctor. The first nurse came in at around 10pm and she seemed nice. She told us briefly what was going to happen during her visit and that was the last time we saw her. About a half an hour later, a doctor came in to inform my roommate that she would need a cat scan, or a CT scan. They needed to take a closer look before diagnosing her. Within another half an hour another one of our friends showed up because we told her we were in the hospital. Shortly after our friend arrived, they came to take heather to get the CT scan. It was about another thirty minutes before she came back and she was still in a decent amount of pain. By now it is 11:30 and they just came in to give my roommate an IV. They said it was most likely a kidney infection so it would help with the pain. The IV usually takes about an hour until it is fully gone so we knew it was going to be a long time before we got to leave. We killed time by talking and watching T.V. My roommate was exhausted and fell asleep while my friend Heather and I stayed up in case they came back with the results from the CT scan. Around 12:10 the nurse that put the IV in came to check on it. I guess she noticed that we were pretty cold so she asked us if we wanted blankets. It was a nice gesture and we had to accept because it was freezing in there. Once the IV was done, a little after 12:30, it was awhile before someone came in. It felt like they forgot about us but we knew that wasn’t the case. There are obvious a lot of people in a hospital, and of course they are busy, so we just waited and waited. At one they finally came in and took the IV out. They said they were just waiting for the doctor to come with the results. When he finally came in, twenty minutes later, he told us that it was a kidney infection after all and all we needed was a prescription and we could be on our way. When he left the room we thought we were about to leave, but it felt like forever before someone came back. It was to the point where Heather got up and searched for a nurse to ask if we would ever leave. She apologized for the wait and told us there was only one doctor on call; now we knew why it was taking so long. Once we got the prescription we left and finally got home at 2:30am. It was a 5 hour trip to the hospital but what absolutely necessary.
Overall I got a feel for the night life at the Hospital, but I wish a nurse could have stayed a few minutes longer so I could ask her a few questions. I realized that the graveyard shift might not be for me, maybe I will look into trauma centers for my next observation.