Five days into my emergency medicine clerkship, I had experienced a lot of firsts: My first participation in a code, my first CPR compressions, and my first patient death. This was specifically a code blue for a patient with pulseless cardiac arrest.
An elderly woman was brought in by her family after not feeling well for several days and quickly became unresponsive. As the room flooded with staff, my upper-level resident …
I’m sorry that we couldn’t save you
After my surgery rotation, I was in a very bad place. I felt like two months of grueling work hours and relentless studying were wiped away in an instant by a bad test score. That single number somehow mattered more to me than every positive comment I had received from my patients, colleagues, residents, and attendings. I felt like I had put my heart and soul into that rotation, constantly …
A medical student takes a look into the abyss. Here’s what he learned.
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