Daily Reflection Wednesday April 27th

Today was interesting to say the least. I woke up super early, earlier than I have this entire month and went to meet Claire. We then put on our scrubs and headed to Grady hospital with one of the head trauma surgeons. Once we arrived, there was a meeting for about an hour. The first twenty minutes was an overview for all of the staff of the different patients. Then a resident gave a presentation on something about the esophagus. She kind of lost me with all of the fancy medical terms but I still found it interesting. After that each field broke up into groups. For example, Dr. Morse, is in charge of surgery so we were with nurse practitioners who do surgery, as well as registered nurses, residences, and another physician.

Then an interesting call was paging the nurses that a gunshot victim was in an ambulance to the trauma center at Grady. Since I know Grady hospital has one of the best trauma centers in the entire country I knew that a once in a lifetime scene could be coming my way. But it doesn't actually hit you until you are living these scenes in real life. We were able to go to the trauma center and I watched all of the nurses get suited up. It was like a scene out of a movie. There were dozens of people in this room. Nurses put on protective gowns and a body bag was already covering the bed. I am usually pretty good with blood so I was not worried about my personal state. Then after about twenty minutes I hear "Okay, he is here." My stomach dropped as I saw the feet of a lifeless patient being wheeled into the hospital room. Then he was taken off of the ambulance bed (I don't know what it is called) and on to the hospital bed. There were several paramedics from the ambulance there as well. The patient was quickly assessed to make sure there was no pulse. Unfortunately he was not alive. After that they had to count all of the gunshot wounds. All of the nurses were encouraging us to get a closer look and really see a trauma victim up close and personal. The most important thing that I noticed with these nurses and doctors is that they try their best to have fun and be happy even in difficult situations like the death of this man. It was not too big of a surprise because he had no pulse even on the ambulance, but it is still sad knowing that someone has died.

Did I mention this has already been my morning and it was only 9:30 AM? What a fast pace and interesting experience. After the trauma center, we went up stairs to the surgery clinic for several hours and checked patients with Dr. Morse. This was not as fast pace as earlier this morning but I still thoroughly enjoyed everything. We saw several patients who were there for different reasons. Luckily, they were all in good states! Today was very interesting and informative and I really enjoyed this experience at Grady Hospital.