Crash Team

For a slow morning, it was a pretty action-packed afternoon. Shortly after 1pm or so, one of our consultants rushed into the day hospital, followed closely by 5 or 6 other out-of-breath people who turned out to be members of the crash team. Apparently they had been called to the Day Hospital for someone who was in cardiac arrest. We looked around at our 4 patients, who were all enjoying their lunch, and said, well, we certainly didn't call in a cardiac arrest. So they all filtered out, only to come rushing back in a minute or so later, and this time there must have been at least 15 of them. They went tearing toward the back where the consultants' offices are, and we were told they weren't after a patient, it was Dr. K--- (one of our consultants) who had apparently collapsed. We did a thorough search of the building, sent one of the secretaries to walk around the outside of the building, called over to his acute ward...no one had any idea where he was. We all sort of stood around in shock, knowing there was nothing we could do, and I finally left at 2pm to go up to the acute wards. As it turned out, one of the other OTs had more need of me today than Jodie, so I was sent to Chestnut ward. I hadn't been there 10 minutes when I heard some of their staff talking about it-- apparently he had collapsed downstairs from Chestnut ward, and one of the crash team found him there. I called over to the Day Hospital to let them all know and carried on. I returned to the Day Hospital around 4pm, and as I walked over to the desk, the head nurse thanked me for my information, and pointed over to the main secretary's desk...there was Dr. K---, practically shouting down the phone at some poor soul. I've no idea what happened in those couple of hours, or how he got out of being at least kept under observation for a while, but all in all, it was a very wierd, stressful set of events, for apparently everyone but Dr. K---.

On Chestnut ward, I tried to see a patient who had come to us with radiation burns...he was at St. Barts Hospital only about a week ago for radiation treatment for epiglottal cancer. He now has burns on his neck and can't really speak. But that didn't stop him from shouting in a whisper in my face (he stepped closer every time I took a step back, nothing wrong with his balance or walking abilities), with the accompanying spittle naturally, about how he's tired of everyone asking him things and not telling him anything, and all he wants to know is when he'll get his voice back. I didn't get anything accomplished with him, almost needless to say, but I did go wash my face when I was finally able to make my retreat. After that I inserted myself into a family grouping surrounding another man, and had a very pleasant conversation with the poor chap, who had a stroke, and is currently without the use of his right arm. Ah, if only I were rehab! He is someone who has apparently always had a good sense of humor, and is coping very well, although I'm sure the fact that he doesn't really have any other major deficits (besides the arm) from the stroke helps quite a bit. I'll do the whole functional assessment with him tomorrow, but he appears to be very functional indeed.

No word from Bristol yet...