For several years now I've been pursuing a career in the medical field. I've worked in several environments like in private practices, the Emergency Dept. (ED) of a hospital, and as an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) /paramedic. It is very hard to explain exactly why it is that I love being a part of a medical team. There's almost a surreal feeling when a stranger trusts you with their life because of your title. I cannot wait for the day that I get accepted into medical school because I will gain a greater responsibility and knowledge of the human body and medicine.
For many students, the idea of becoming a physician is almost like gaining sainthood. You are trained for years: information is thrown at you, your skills and beliefs are continuously challenged, you become sleep deprived, your time is no longer your own. At the end of all that training, you become a board certified physician and have the privilege to be in charge of another person's well-being. To some, being a doctor means having power; to others it means saving lives on a daily basis. But what if that's not always the case...
My job at the hospital involves starting IVs and collecting blood samples... some patients tend to call me a vampire. Nearing the end of my shift tonight, I begin the workup of a female patient, let's call her Tarah, who came into the ED complaining of stomach pain. Now, what usually happens with any female patients that are within the age range of bearing children is that we run a urine pregnancy test, especially if they complain of abdominal pain. As medical providers, we want to rule out the big dangers out first, and surprise pregnancies can create all sorts of complications for a provider. I think that in this case though, everyone thought that the patient was pregnant. She definitely LOOKED pregnant.
After the initial triage and some additional assessment, the nurse who is assigned to Tarah's care asks whether or not the patient is pregnant. Tarah says no in a very firm tone. When asked about her last menstrual cycle, Tarah says it ended last week. Okay, that would explain why she's so adamant about not being pregnant. But we run the tests, because we have to. The nurse and I ask for a sample of the patient's urine, and I run a pregnancy test. All of this is protocol, even if the patient swears she's not pregnant. While this is happening, the physician assigned to her care comes it and also evaluates her. Tarah and the ER doc talk about her symptoms, her medical history, etc. Once again, the question of a potential pregnancy comes up and Tarah is pretty sure she's not pregnant. The test takes 3 minutes to run...
And... it's positive.
In the ER, getting a positive pregnancy test is always a difficult result to inform the patient. What if they didn't want to be pregnant and you come in all smiles and laughs and yell out, "Congrats!!" Well, that patient is definitely going to start crying (mind you, that's the experience a fellow nurse coworker had when we were working together several months ago... ) Or, what if you say the opposite and the patient has been trying to have a child for 3 years. Yea, it's never an easy test result to discuss.
Now, it's not my job to relay test results to the patient, so the nurse does it. In a very calm manner, she walks over to Tarah's bed, and... without giving up any emotions on her face or in the tone of her voice, she says, "The pregnancy test we ran came up positive."
I'm pretty sure I held my breath for what seemed like an eternity. I'm watching Tarah's reaction, and I honestly can't tell what's going on in her mind. Did time stop? Did she hear what the nurse said? Everyone seems to have stopped dead in their track, just waiting for the reaction to come. And then...
There's the smile.
Oh god! I sigh in relief! She's really excited to be pregnant! Apparently she and her husband have been trying but she didn't think it was possible because of the bleeding that she had a week ago. She asks me to bring her husband into the room so that she can be the one to tell him the good news. As I step out of the room to find her husband, I can't help but feel extremely happy for my patient. Like I mentioned before, a surreal feeling comes over me.
I helped change this person's life, I made that happiness.
After bringing the husband back into the room and letting my patient have her moment of joy in privacy with her husband, I head towards the ER doctor in charge of her care and let him know of the news. He knew something was up because he had felt a mass in her abdomen during his examination. The next step is to determine how far along she is since she cannot confirm an accurate date of her last menstrual cycle. He orders a vaginal ultrasound and after an hour, one of my friend - we'll call him the Ultrasound Guy - wheels her off towards the imaging wing of the hospital and starts the test.
An hour or so passes by and I am making my round on the patients in the ED. As I finish up with one of them, I see my friend the Ultrasound Guy and we exchange a few words before I ask him what's the good news. "How was the US?" I ask. He shakes his head and says it's not good. My heart immediately drops to the bottom of my stomach.
Not good? What do you mean? What's up?
We walk over to the physician's desk, and he tells us the bad news. The reason for the patient's abdominal pain is most likely due to an ectopic pregnancy. (This means that the pregnancy is not in the uterus where it can grow and be in a safe and nurturing environment but has somehow moved to an area of the patient's body that is very dangerous to the patient.) The ultrasound shows a lot of excess fluid around the ovaries and an unremarkable uterus, meaning that it is absent of any viable embryo. At this point, Tarah is in danger of having some major complications if the ER doctors and the growing list of consulting physicians don't figure out what exactly is going on. And worse of all, we let her have one measly hour of happiness before it was so rudely taken away from her.
So there it is. I don't know if Tarah will remember me, or the nurse and the Ultrasound Guy that took care of her, or even the ER doctor. But I'll remember her. I'll remember that smile. The smile that meant "I'm going to be a mom!" ... And then it was taken away from her. How does a doctor muster up all his or her strength to walk into that room
and be the bearer of bad news? How am I expected to do the same thing?
All I want to do is help people. Save lives.
But is that the definition of being a doctor? Is it all about the glamor of having those two letters at the end of your name? Gaining the respect of your family, friends, and strangers just because you can be introduced as Dr. So and So?
Or is it about having respect for the human body. Learning its every curve and twist. Figuring out what's the norm; what's abnormal. What do you fix? How do you fix it? And then comes the part where you have to actually talk to people! First you have to gain their respect, AND THEN you gain their trust. It is only after that step that you can start figuring out the medical part. At any second you can lose that respect! One wrong move and you can lose the trust you worked so hard to get! And then there are the times like today, when you are saving a life but crushing a dream.
Doctors aren't superhumans, they're humans doing their job and loving every minute of it: the good, the bad, the ugly. It all comes with the territory. And to be honest, I cannot wait to begin this amazing adventure.
