Trauma surgery week 2.5

Memorable moments of trauma surgery:

Odd:
- Hearing and using the phrase "ok, let's eviscerate the patient".
- Talking to classmates and congratulating each other when we have an easy day and "only have to work 10 hours" or "get to sleep in until 6".
- Doing the 2 minute daily check-in with my patients, usually long before sunrise, and spending 1.5 minutes asking them about their bowel movements and gas.
- Getting excited about finally having a bowel movement myself.

Bizarre:

- In the ICU: standing at the edge of a circle made by our team (attending, residents, interns, med students, nurse practitioners) discussing the patient's care, and hearing James Blunt's song "You're So Beautiful" echoing eerily out of a patient's room. Peeking in to see him lying there, alone and comatose, blanketed by tubes and wires, surrounded by beeping monitors, with the early rays of the morning sun cutting through the window shades into his darkened room.

- Working with the trauma team to assess and stabilize a patient who had bled nearly a liter onto the floor. He lay unconscious and naked on the gurney, a team of 15 people rushing to save his life, while trying not to be distracted/biased by the 5 inch tall tatoo below his bellybutton that simply read "Suck It".

Awesome:

- Chatting away with a demeted elderly man who had fallen on his head, trying to suture his face laceration (my first), as he kept repeating 'Now, what is it that you are doing?!' and 'Aren't you done yet?!' so frequently (about 1-2/min), that I relaxed and stopped being self-conscious and impatient with myself.

- Watching our 7 year old ICU patient attempt to make a thumbs up after being completely unresponsive for weeks.

- Telling one of my patients, who had been with us for almost 3 weeks without improvement and who barely opened his eyes when I did my daily exam, that it looked like things had started to turn around and he was getting better, and watching him brighten up suddenly, and sit up in bed and start pounding me with excited questions.