A Family Doctor's Tale - EMERGENCIES AND NIGHT DUTIES

 EMERGENCIES AND NIGHT DUTIES


During an emergency or code blue, the nurses will rush out all the resuscitation trolley and respirator to the bed of the patient requiring it for you to do the resuscitation. 

If the resuscitation trolley was not ready, then we had to do mouth to mouth resuscitation until the mouth pieces arrive and you can use mouth piece to do the resuscitation.

In those days we do not think of possible HIV or H1N1 infection through the mouth to mouth resuscitation. 
We only think of how to save the patient so that after a successful resuscitation, even if you end up with a bad taste of the patient saliva in your mouth which also make you lose appetite for food, you were still happy because you have saved a life.
If you happened to be having lunch or dinner given to you while on duty when this happened, you will definitely be unable to eat your food especially with the bad taste in your mouth.

It was one of the reason I ended up with gastric problems.

Once resuscitated ( the heart rate and breathing returns), an endotracheal tube can be easily inserted into the windpipe and a respirator attached to it for the patient to breathe . 
Only a handful of doctors was able to insert the endotracheal intubation. I was one of them because of my experience in the Anesthetic department.

My medical officer and I teamed up to do most of these resuscitation efforts. 
I remember one particular old Malay man  with heart failure whom we manage to resuscitate his hear stoppage to life 5 times.
Each time the relatives who has gathered were so happy to have him back. Then one morning we came to the ward and found him gone.
It seem that the house woman who was on duty the previous night was called to the same patient. The nursing staff has prepared the resuscitation equipment all ready for the resuscitation. The house doctor instead just put her stethoscope to the heart and pronounce him dead. She then signed the death certificate and went back to sleep.
That really make us mad. All our resuscitation efforts has come to nought.


When you are on night duty, you are given a room to sleep. Normally you will be able to sleep unless there was an emergency when you will be rudely waken up by the nurse. 

Night duty means work from 8am in the morning to 1pm the next day, later if the paperwork has not being completed.
Food was provided during lunch and dinner on the same day and breakfast the next day. 
Most night duty was fairly quiet because few patients turned up at our small hospital.
The patients usually prefer the bigger Hospitals like the Singapore General Hospital or National University Hospital. 
So after dinner I was able to do a quiet round of the ward myself talking to the patients or the nurses if they are free.

Some of the nurses are a cynical lot having seen all types of doctors coming in and out of the hospital.
There was the doctor who was lazy and pushed most of the work to the nurses  or the house doctor. 
There were those sycophants who always curried favors with the consultant and do all their research in the journals for them while leaving the ward work for doctors like us.

The nurses' term for these people was "FON" or "Full of Nonsense. "

While talking to the nurses I also try to do some of their work for them especially when they were short handed.

Similarly when I was busy, some of them will just helped me out without my knowing, such was my rapport with the nursing staff.