Chapter 3: Go forth and heal

I finally found the courage to walk thru those double doors. It was almost as if they were taunting me, daring me to cross thru them, to face what ever might be on the other side. I looked at my watch, well on the bright side, all my stuttering and stammering outside hadn't made me late. That would have not been good; after all I needed to make a good impression on my resident. If I didn't I wouldn't stand a chance and getting out of here with good marks. Well if I killed someone that could really ruin good marks now couldn't it? 'Oh stop it Erica you are not going to kill anyone, who in their right mind would let a third year medical student treat patients'. I let out a little laugh again; it was how I dealt with the pressure and fear. It had always worked, gotten me some evil looks from professors but it made me feel better and relax which is what I needed to do right now.

It took a few minute but I found the person that I thought was my resident. "Doctor Carter?" I asked with a shaky voice. It was not that I was scared of her, but that I was more nervous than anything else.

"Yes, I'm Doctor Carter." I hear her say as I watch her turn around to look at me.

"I'm Erica Ross, your new med student." I said almost sizing up my resident as I extend my hand to her. I'm not shocked when she doesn't take it to shake.

"Well then let's get started shall we." She said as she started to walk again. I hurried after her not wanting to get left behind. "This is the admit desk, all charts can be picked up here, no picking thru take the first one that's there. Put your initials on the board, patient complaint and any tests or diagnostics that you are waiting for. DR does not stand for doctor those really are his initials." Abby said to me, "nursing orders go in here, remember to treat them with respect, they will make your job a hell of a lot harder if you don't. Take the patient work them up and then find me and we'll go over what you came up with and go from there."

I nod as I am still following her, listening to her instructions. I was getting thrown into the deep end and expected to sink or swim. I could handle this, I knew that I could. "Whenever possible take your own patients up to radiology, they have a tendency to scare them and make them wait longer than necessary. This is trauma one and two. You'll spend most of your time in exam rooms, but you will be working with me in there. Do you know how to start IV's?"

"Yes," I said to her as I was now almost at a steady jog to keep up with her.

"Well that's a good thing." I hear her say to me as she hands me a chart. "Get to work."

My knees start to shake a little as I hold the chart in my hand. Oh my god I was about to have my first real patient, a real sick human being. My heart is almost pounding now in my chest as I wonder if I really am ready to do this. I hear her footsteps stop in the hallway, "Miss Ross, is there a problem?"

"Uh no, there's not." I respond almost automatically as I take a deep breath and head into the exam room to treat my first patient. Right now I am wondering why I was keeping my married name the initials I would be putting up on the board were ER. I had to laugh to myself. It was not that my maiden name was any better; a new name was the only good thing that I was taking out of this marriage. Well as I looked at it, Ross was a lot better than Dejanski. I walk into the room introduce myself to the patient and started to do a work up getting the patients history and chief complaint. My hands shake a little as I write down the pertinent information writing down only what I thought was necessary. If it was charted then we would be there all night with a LOL with multiple medical problems, and I didn't want Dr. Carter to yell at me for taking to much of a history or writing down every little complaint that she had. It wasn't a scary as I thought that it would be. I walked out of the room going over what the symptoms were, what tests might need to be ordered and just what I was going to say to my resident. That was going to be the hard part because I didn't want to be wrong in front of her. And I have never presented a case to someone other than classmates.

I found Abby standing at the admit desk. I walked up and started to present my case to her; the entire time trying to stick to just the important factors, and hoped that I didn't leave anything important out of it. When asked I rattled off what tests I thought should be ordered and my differential diagnosis. Oh wow I had just made my first diagnosis. Abby agreed with me and told me to proceed with treating the patient which made my entire night to bad that I had another eleven hours to keep doing this.

I didn't stay at the admit desk very long because I didn't want her to think that I couldn't do this. I had finally found the confidence that I had been lacking and now felt like this was something that I could do. I could really make this work. I had the ability to go forth and heal.

I worked up several more patients for Doctor Carter before she told me that it was time to grab a quick bite to eat. I did not realize that the night was flying by so fast. I was staying busy and it felt good to know that I was doing things right. I ran across the street to get something to eat quickly from the little deli that was next door. It wasn't much but it was the only thing open this late, or was it early. I looked at my watch, almost surprised that it was nearly three in the morning. That meant that I only had another 4 hours left. Where had the night gone? Seven to seven was not going to be as bad as I thought it was going to be if all my nights went like this. I had this feeling that it would be a long time before I saw any daytime shifts.

This did not really bother me all that much. I sat at ate since I actually was hungry. I didn't know that it would be this long before I got the chance to eat, but since time had flown by so fast it was cool. I ran back to the hospital because the cold Chicago wind was blowing against my bare arms. I should have grabbed my coat but wasn't thinking when I left the hospital. I got inside and headed back to work.

It didn't seem like more than an hour had passed when I was getting ready to pick up yet another chart when Dr. Carter stopped me, "that's enough, it's almost 7 now, what do you say you call it a night and get out of here."

"Okay if you're sure." I said putting it back down.

"You don't have to save all of Chicago in one night." Dr. Carter said to me.

"I know." I was actually smiling now. What I had done couldn't have gotten any better than it had been that night. I packed up my stuff and headed for the door. Slowly with tired steps I left behind my first night as an med student at County General.