Got paged last night to a delivery because the infant's heart rate was dropping. Got into the room all bleary-eyed and out of breath, only to stand there and wait for an hour. The patient, a 21 year old with bipolar disorder who had also recently gotten a steroid burst for asthma (NOT helping her mood stability), was having a little bit of trouble figuring out the difference between "push" and "scream and writhe all over the bed and kick the nurse". The poor nurses and OB residents were being so patient (yet firm) with her, but our peds nurse almost went over and said, "We're about to intubate your baby right now if you don't push him out." At one point, she got tired of pushing and said, "I'm ready for the vacuum cleaner." (I think she misunderstood...haha). The attending, who was called in as a last resort to make sure this baby came out, was very patient as well. As they were whispering about the baby's position and failure to descend (and despite all that effective pushing no less!), the patient goes, "What's going on?" His reply: "You're having a baby." Everything is funnier at 4 in the morning.
I'm now about a third of the way through the NICU rotation over at Truman, and despite a rough start wherein we had no computer or badge access (kinda hard to get work done), we are trudging along. Still don't know much about taking care of tiny babies, but I'm getting really good at calculating how much they're eating. One of my fellow interns says that the OB refresher is really coming in handy as he studies for Step 3. "I suddenly remember what they're talking about. PROM is not a dance you go to and drink fruit punch. Premature rupture of membranes. Boom."
Still have 5 calls left, including 3, count 'em THREE, Saturday calls--yuck! But someone's gotta do 'em. And turns out I don't have a single call by myself (how did that happen?). Someone's watching out for me. And now, if you'll excuse me, gotta enjoy this post-call sunshine while it lasts.
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