I did intend to report another shift to you - believe it was Saturday's night shift, but I misplaced my sheet with all the patients on it and by now it's all just a big blur. I've been sleepwalking a lot these past days.

But let me mention a few memorable situations. All of them revolve around psych cases. There were a lot these past days. For example, let me tell you about the attending on my side Saturday night: Dr. P., a mediterranean-looking guy that I would guess is in his early fifties. He has short hair and wears reading glasses that frequently end up on the tip of his nose, which is why a strap around his head keeps them from falling off. Let me also tell you about the layout of ED1, I don't think we ever described it. ED1 is basically a concentrically-arranged rectangle, about 30-50 beds (depending on the onslaught of patients) in the outermost layer surround four L-shaped desks that form another smaller rectangle in the middle. The desks are shielded from the patients with second, higher tables that still allow you to peek over them and look at the patients though if you're sitting on a chair. So, basically, there's the central rectangle of desks that clerks, nurses and docs use to hide behind, about 1.5 meters of space around that, followed by the foot end of the beds all around us. So I was leaning on the high table across from Dr. P. labeling and packing blood from a patient, while he was apparently busy writing up the discharge forms for another patient. At one point, he paused, realizing he needed something to complete the form. Lowering his reading glasses to the tip of his nose, he turned in the chair, with the pen still in the right hand, arm stretched out in a big inviting gesture, looking back over the desk behind him all the way to the far side of the ED, he yelled: "do you want to kill yourself?" Needless to say, several sets of eyes converged on the attending, including the ones of the patient in area 17 that he was gesturing to and looking at. The patient replied with a "no" that sounded like he himself was checking off a box. Without pause, the attending continued "do you want to kill anyone else?" - "no." - "allright." and Dr. P. went on completing the discharge papers while I asked him from across the counter whether that was his psych eval. He replied "this is my mini mental state".

On Monday morning, when the assistant chief Dr. B. was attending on my side, a mere nine patients were signed out to us from the night shift, they had apparently managed to discharge a lot during the final hour from 6-7a. Bed #4b had a cc (chief complaint) of wanting to kill himself and others. #5a's cc was that her husband was shot by her neighbor, which she apparently always claimed when she forgot to take one of her 12 (sic!) psych meds in the morning. #5b was a seizure, tbs (to be seen, meaning she just came in). #6a had gastritis, #6b was feeling depressed with a PMH of schizophrenia. #7b, a 14-year-old F, tried to hurt herself by ingesting 6x600mg of ibuprofen. #8b was there because he was .. well, guess. Agitated, depressed and suicidal. Bed #9 had presented with a cc of "feeling troubled", PMH of schizophrenia and a flight of ideas on physical exam. Bed #10a had "only" epileptic seizures. So that was 6 nutcases out of 9 patients right there. I was later told we had another 9 looneys in ED2. It must have been a full moon or something. At least people kept their humor. The attending Dr. B., is usually a very down-to-business type of guy and not someone who would randomly joke around, but when a nurse tried to talk to him from the right while I was presenting a case to him on the left he said to me "wait a second, I am hearing voices in my third ear".

Later on that shift we had one very disturbed but very sympathetic African-American nutcase who spoke very calmly but relentlessly and very peacefully informed anyone who would listen that he was the platoon leader of "this unit" (gesturing to the patients left and right of him) and inquiring why we didn't seem to remember how he picked us up with his helicopter near Hiroshima. Oh yes, this tall and slim black man was indeed a Japanese platoon leader. He did go on to talk about black and white people - I think - throwing a small piece of cardboard around, which apparently was very meaningful, because whenever it'd land on the floor, he would declare something obviously very important like "yellow". And he never stopped talking while we were doing rounds, which coincided with his arrival, around his bed. His voice remained very sympathetic and calm until we converged on him accompanied by a big, big security guard. The platoon leader's voice got a bit worried when he first declared "this man is going to hit me, isn't he" then confirmed twice that he is going to comply and curteously allowed us to send him to dreamland.

In other news, Trillian (formerly known as vertigo girl), skriehma and I agreed that we need to print shirts to wear in the Bronx that would say
Please don't kill me
because I'm white.
Find a better reason.

The plan with the cute resident taking us out on Sunday failed apparently due to the fact/excuse that her computer died. Hopefully we can reschedule. Yet this weekend we're going to Vegas, baby!

Today's Wednesday already. Trillian accompanied us to conference where after relieving a few more piano cravings the quiz with the usual teamwork ensued, followed by rather lengthy lectures, drug lunch and some more football throwing in Central Park I am now home and very hungry.