CPR
Monday, October 18

my first chest compressions.

all the ACLS (advanced cardiac life support) practice, rendered meaningless in a few panicked seconds.

as i was pumping up and down, i remembered my training session in CPR. during the lecture, the instructor had said, "pump deep. it's ok to break ribs." sometime during that same lecture, he had said you should be going approx 2 in deep, but i had missed that portion of the lecture.

when it was my turn to practice on a dummy, i pretended it was a real situation, and pumped that chest on the dummy, thinking, "it's ok to break ribs."

"WHOA, WHOA, WHOA! Hercules!! Hercules!!!" my instructor yelled. "What are you doing? You're going to push his sternum (bone in middle of anterior chest) out his back! take it easy!"

remembering that line, an insane desire to laugh briefly crossed my mind.

the patient seemed to be already gone. i felt like i was doing chest compressions on an inanimate object. actually, after 15 minutes, that is exactly what it was. nothing more than an object.

we called it.

several mintutes later, family members came in. some of them started sobbing. i made myself "busy" and stared off into my work as my resident comforted them.

this job really sucks sometimes.




yakob at 1:28 AM

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