I haven’t had such a good control of my temper for ages… I have to admit, I really don’t have a great temper… It’s those flare up then fizzle out type… Perhaps ED is really the thing for me, since all that adrenaline rush burns off any desire to explode/implode. :D
But today, hmmm I guess I was already very pissed off with myself for not doing something I would have ordinarily done… I probably caused a senior to be horribly horrified and quite upset sigh… and probably that’s why I was so affected when we were about to send that patient up to the ward.
She required an earlier review and given that it was about 9am where ward rounds are in full swing, a call to the ward MO is definitely warranted or she might only get seen after those never-ending ward rounds came to a close. Anyway, that MO upstairs definitely wasn’t in a good mood, said she was busy with an impending XYZ (urgent condition but not those super urgent like yr MIs…) and was very unhappy that our resus patient was going to her ward and asked me to ask BMU (bed management unit) to change her to another ward.
Of course I tried to be very apologetic in saying I couldn’t change the bed… after all from past experience people who’ve never worked in ED before will never understand why we do certain stuff, or why we don’t do ABGs for some of our COPDs or gasp even better, why we did not arrange ERCP for someone who’s likely to have ascending cholangitis. (Hello, if I could do that why does yr department still exist…) But suffice to say, this MO was really a nasty piece… wooo… gave me a earful and ended up simply yelling at me. Anyway, I’m glad I held my temper (I think ED pple must try to remain calm no matter what) though I was just wooshing away after I put the phone down.
I think ED is a very mistaken profession. We do get ‘cursed’ or criticised a lot upstairs… I think we’re really quite a misunderstood bunch. But hey, I have the greatest respect for this bunch of people after working close to a half year here!
