Code Blue!

As part of our clinical education here in med school, we get several opportunities to work in the Patient Simulation Lab. It is set up with a very high-tech dummy and all the monitors and meds and lines, etc. that you'd find in an OR or ICU. We work in groups to run fake codes (patient having a heart attack, or not breathing, or otherwise crashing), or to practice putting a patient under for anesthesia. It's actually really, really cool. The dummy has eyes that open and shut - and the pupils even dilate. A man in another room runs the controls that move the dummy's chest up and down to simulate breathing, pumps that simulate carotid, femoral and radial pulses, and even talks for the patient - "Doc, I'm not doing so well!"

Did I mention that we do this in groups? It makes everything seem much more manageable when you have four colleagues fumbling around with you. You always hope that your group has the one Take-Charge person who is up-to-date on all of their Advanced Cardiac Life Support stuff. Otherwise, the group often lets the patient totally and completely deteriorate and die. Which is why it is nice to practice on a dummy, not someone's dear old granny.

As part of our "Phase V," we have two patient sim lab sessions. Except that you can miss one.

Which seven people decided to do today.

Leaving three of us to save the dummy's life. Repeatedly.

They made us go alone.

I had to save a 75 year-old Alzheimer's patient with a small bowel obstruction.

Alone.

AHHHH! Man, that was pretty stressful. We all did admirably, though. I think. At least I didn't kill the guy. But I had a lot of assistance from the man in the back -

Me: "uh, now I want to give a... paralytic...so I can intubate"
Man: "Okay, what would you like to give?"
Me: [shoot, I can't remember any... think, think, think] "Ummm. Rocuronium?"
Man: "Are you sure about that?"
Me: "Umm, no, but it is the only one I can remember."
Man: "How about something shorter acting?"
Me: "Um. Vancuronium?" [shoot, that's kind of the same thing]
Man: "How about Succ.."
Me: "...inylcholine! Yes, give Succinylcholine!"
Man: "Okay. How much?"
Me: "Um. I don't know. Enough so that he won't move."
Man: "Alrighty."

So, yeah, the patient didn't die, but it took a long time to get there.