I blogged T.O.D.A.Y @ 21:37

last day in ICU

and ended it with a bang!
i actually have 2 new admissions in HD today (that never happened during my 1 week stint in HD coverage) and the last case came at around 5pm - which i eventually clerked and finished off the changes. and this makes the HD ward full (yup, that never happened too).

i think the new MOs taking over us have relatively bad karma, which makes my last day quite busy. 2 of them came today cos it was supposed to be their first day today, and that makes an overlap between the incoming and outgoing MOs. so we actually have 5 MOs today (4 in ICU, 1 aka me in HD)! I must say that we (the three of us - jm, sy and myself) have relatively good karma during our one month in ICU, cos:
1) there were hardly any overflows, in the best of my knowledge, we had two overflows in CCU and NICU respectively before; and a couple in HD outside.
2) workload is generally manageable still, although we are short of one MO (supposed to have 4 in total, but we had only 3). perhaps fate has it arranged this way - less MO, less work and vice versa.
3) our consultants and reg are ok people, so that makes life easier. And most importantly, they don't come to work very early, so MOs dun have to come too early too heh!

People around me were rather helpful too, be it fellow colleagues, RT, nurses etc. And i like it being so well-controlled such that things get done efficiently.

so overall, i actually enjoy working in ICU, despite that i have to come for all my weekends and PH in dec for the ward rounds. And i learn quite a lot too, both procedural and non-procedural. I am surprised that i can actually orchestrate a full resus all by myself! It is indeed heartwarming when patients are discharged from ICU feeling better; and at the same time depressing when patients collapsed, especially the unexpected ones. One case that still moved me was this patient who collapsed b4 admission to ICU and had hypoxic encephalopathy; and he was married with one son who just graduated from polytechnic and pursuing some post-diploma degree. we had to discuss about withdrawal of therapy and somehow i find it very hard to convey the message.. everytime when i looked into the eyes of the wife, it is always a mixture of sorrow and hope. and the son, i admire his courage to take it all. i remembered that they finally agreed to withdraw therapy on one night, and patient eventually passed away that very night..

well that's not all to my ICU experience, cos i will still be doing ICU calls at least once a month; and this month i have 2.