I’ve been to cardiac arrests before. I’ve jumped on chests. I’ve uttered the words “charging to 200 joules….stand clear”.

In fact, it’s refreshing to go to a real MET (Medical Emergency Team) call instead of the usual “I can’t believe this is not a MET call!”.

I have to admit though, I’ve never RUN a cardiac arrest before, but given my chosen specialty it was bound to happen sooner or later.

I’ve given up RUNNING TO MET calls because 9/10 times times they’re not really MET calls and, let’s face it, if it’s a real one, an extra 30 seconds isn’t usually going to make a difference.

This evening, I was bemused when there was a MET call in the Crit. Care Unit today – only minutes after I’d left the unit in search of food.

I wandered back up (steak sandwich in hand) to see it was in fact a real “Bona Fide” heart-has-stopped arrest.

Well actually when I got there, the heart was still beating.

Not for long.

Looking briefly at irregular rhythm on the monitor and saggggggggggging S-T segments, it was pretty clear the heart was complaining bitterly about a lack of oxygen. (screw you guys, this piece of ischaemic myocardium ain’t gonna take no more of this “thrombosis stealin’ muh air shit”….this little ticker is bustin’ its troponin-leaking myofibrils outta here!)

Now, usually it is the job of the med-reg to run METs. I’m quite happy to do my job – that is to say, I’m the airway guy. You need an airway, I’m there. I’m quite happy doing my bagging and masking and occasional tubing.

Today however, airway management just wasn’t enough. There was a Med Reg and an ED Reg running around like blue-arsed flies effectively achieving nothing other than stirring up the chaos and making a difficult task appear impossible.

The patient in question had decided to enter a peri-arrest state whilst on the commode. He had since been relocated to the floor….with his head in the corner of the CCU.

Bagging and masking, let alone intubation is not an easy task on the floor. Trying to do it squished in a corner was even more challenging (not to mention the aspiration of the dinner consumed moments before).

So with chaos abounding, defib pads flying everywhere and an awful lot of nothing happening fast, I took the opportunity to run my first cardiac arrest.

I was amused how cliched it sounded barking orders for adrenaline and atropine STAT! and muttering things about not having shockable rhythms whilst asking a nurse to get me intubation equipment. Simultaneously another nurse is cracking ribs with a pretty good CPR pace and the two other regs try to get IV access (why does the cannula always tissue just before an arrest).

When sipping delicious caffeine in Melbourne yesterday, suctioning vomitus from a peri-terminal patient’s oropharynx was not something that crossed my mind, and yet, as my steak sandwich sat cooling it’s tasty heels on the nurses’-station bench, I was down on my hands and knees sucking out chunks of custard from this poor gentleman’s lungs.

It’s amazing how easy time can distort. In the frenetic pace of an arrest, time simultaneously stands still and passes instantly. The time it takes to get an IV in seems interminable. A few minijets of adrenaline & atropine later accompanied by a disappointing asystolic “flatline” with it’s accompanying blood-chilling asystole alarm signals 15 minutes of futile advanced life-support. It seems like milliseconds have passed.

It’s amazing how strange it is to be the one person to call the arrest….that is to say to everyone, this is a futile effort, and then, with that, the compressions stop, the flesh turns a greyer shade of blue, and the fixed and dilated pupils stare emptily up at you as you momentarily glance at the clock…..

…time of death 1817hrs.

Requiem aeternum Joe Bloggs.

The asystole alarm continues to announce to the world the terrible event that has occurred. The staff look around at each other in an exhausted manner – physically, mentally and emotionally exhausting.

I go back to my (now cold) steak sandwich.

An in-hospital cardiac arrest is not a dignified way to go. Statistically there is about a 1 in 20 chance of surviving an unwitnessed in hospital cardiac arrest. I think if patients and their families knew what actually goes on at an arrest – and the dismal outcomes that happen more often than not….they would be more willing to accept an NFR status – that is “Not For Resuscitation”.

An NFR is like a “get out of medical jail free” card. Free from the undignified futile last attempt at keeping a soul on earth for as long as we possibly can. When your number is called, if the cards are stacked against you in the age and medical morbidity stakes….take the easy option – leave with dignity and speed.

Passing the post office I absent-mindedly decided to check them mail as I had not gotten around to checking it the day previously.

The mail was to change my life. In the box was my offer letter for the Bachelor of Medicine course that today I finished.

Yep that’s right….four long years (interminable at times) have flown by and I have now completed all the course requirements. All that there is to do now is get dressed up in funny clothes to receive the piece of paper that means I can at an extra four letters and two commas to the end of my name and begin my name with a D and not a B.

Woohoo.

What a strange feeling it is to be finished.

...in other news... I leave Copenhagen today and I head to Berlin for two days before relaxing in coffee shops throughout Barcelona for 5 days.


Time between Wednesday morning and Saturday morning was interminably slow. As usual I did nothing pertaining to study.

Saturday was…stressful. I might, however scrape through. Maybe. I will find out in 25 days.

The point is…it’s over. The feeling is almost better than sex.

Assuming the Karma Gods have smiled on me, I should hopefully never have to deal with any more shite from the SOM.

Let’s not think about the shite that I will have to deal with from QH.

For now… it’s freedom for the next three months.

Round the World Sunday…..

Darwin for Christmas….(who’s stupid idea was it to pick a hot humid muggy place for Christmas???).

Flicking through the paperwork….my head started to spin. I love it how government departments have a form for just about everything (short of wiping your backside…and I am sure it won’t be long before that is required).

It’s all very well having forms. But …. they should be intuitive. Or if they are not intuitive…they should come with a dummies guide to completing them. They should also cater for atypical people who don’t fit the stereotype…..

The whole commencement pack doesn’t cater for people already working for QH…like me. I need to transfer all my details across departments… I don’t need everything recreated dammit. I bet I get my pay fucked up among other things.

The HIC/Medicare Provider Number/Prescriber Number application form asks questions about things I know nothing about….it also asks for proof of registration…great…how the fuck am I supposed to fill that form in when I don’t actually graduate or register until 16th December.

They want me to say before 30th September….when I want my 5 weeks holiday next year…. how am I supposed to know where I want to go for a holiday next year??? I don’t even know what I am doing in December let alone next year.

Grrr. Rant. Whinge.

Still… receiving official notification of a job is cool. Good motivation to pass.

Twenty-Six days and counting. Most definitely counting. Six-Hundred-And-Twenty hours until the first flame from hell arrives.

I feel like I am on the Titanic (no I’m not feeling like I’m king of the world) heading inexorably (and blissfully ignorantly) towards a big fat fuckoff iceberg that I’m due to slam into in the aforementioned 620 hours. Following that there will be a gradual sinking (of my hopes of passing) as with each day I sink further and further below the pass mark with each exam.

Alternatively… I feel like I’m on a rickety unkempt unmaintained rollercoaster (ha! that describes the med school curriculum to a T – rickety, haphazard, unkempt and unmaintained) that is about to come unstuck as it flys around a corner…there are no brakes and I can’t get off it. There’s nothing I can do but sit like a toad that allows itself to be gradually boiled to death because it can’t perceive that the water is getting hotter.

…so in terms of procrastinatory efforts (why bother studying when there’s procrastination to be done)… I went to the Law Revue last night. Biased as I might be, I still think the Med Revue was better. Having said that it was most definitely entertaining. It would have been a whole lot better if the lighting and sound hadn’t let the team down – it’s difficult to enjoy something when you can’t see or hear half of what is happening.

For some ridiculuous reason (to which however I have no desire to be disloyal)….okay enough with the G&S or B&S as the case may be….for some reason I let out a snort of laughter during one of the overtly long scene changes…just because I could. Not because anything was particularly funny…which one of my colleagues next to me found amusing…and started laughing….at which I started laughing uncontrollably at…and before long there were a large number of people in the audience laughing..uncontrollably..at nothing. The beer at interval might have had something to do with it.

A number of copy-cats tried to achieve the same in later scene change blackouts….but not nearly as successful as the result of my unplanned snort.

Maybe when my medical career comes to a crashing (temporary hopefully) halt after crashing and burning in late September, I could get a job as a professional rent-a-laugh for shows. People are always happier to laugh and react if other people are laughing and reacting. So there has to be someone who’s happy to start….I thinks it would be fun to be paid to do that….and there’s far less chance of being sued in that profession.

In other news…my Piano/Vocal score of Avenue Q arrived from amazon dot com this week…so I have procrastinatory material.

Spent time today looking at flights around Europe….easyjet is SOOOOO cheap. Have weekend trips to London planned as well as flights to Berlin and Barcelona. It’s all getting very exciting. Will have to start thinking about things I can do when in all these places. So much more funnerer than studying.

Only three more weekends of work. Yay.

My elective is…closer to being finalised. Apparently I am confirmed for Copenhagen with students from Quebec, Israel and Greece also being there at the same time.

A month today until exams. Egads. I thinks I should start styudying soonish.

It’s far more fun to surf wireless internet at bar Merlo or the Pizza Cafe at St Lucia and sip coffees with mates than it is to study.

I’m hoping I can pull something out of my arse one last time…but as I mentioned to someone the other day… I’ve been doing that now for nigh on four years…..so…it’s getting pretty empty up there.

Procrastination to the max…all my ironing is done!!! And the washing. And had I had flour I would have made some loaves of bread this morning before going to uni.

ANC (Ante Natal Clinic) this morning was not fun. IUFD (Intra Uterine Foetal Death) is not fun. Imagine walking into a clinich full of pregnant mums all rosey and happy only to be told the foetus that was growing inside you has died. We had that happen this morning. Even the midwives and some of the doctors were in tears. Luckily it doesn’t happen very often (maybe about 12 times a year…which, given that there are thousands of bubs born at the hospital it’s a pretty small percentage)…..still if it’s your child….

Assisted with a caesar at lunchtime. I can see why gumboots and scrubs are a good thing. I had blood all over my scrubs and spent a good while standing in a pool of congealed blood holding retractors. Retractors don’t do much when there is fat in abundance.

It never pays to have a surgeon in a bad mood. Guaranteed as soon as they are stroppy something will not run according to plan. In this case a number of vessels decided they were going to bleed everywhere. Hence the pool of blood I was standing in. It all came good in the end. If only I could get the smell of burning fat and congealed blood out of my nostrils.

The highlight of today was the fact that tuna was on special. I bought 20 cans. The people I am staying with thought I had gone crazy. Mmm tuna.

Med Revue: last night, tonight, tomorrow night. (See the photos here.)

Have never seen such an under-rehearsed over produced piece of performance manage to somehow pull itself together and go off on opening night without a hitch and without a proper full-run dress-rehearsal.

Would not rate as my favouritest of the four years I have been involved but amusing, entertaining and fun to be a part of nonetheless…even if my underwear is seen simultaneously by several hundred people….never thought that would happen…least of all when I am singing about getting syphillus from not wearing a condom then segueing into a song about herpes and a four part harmony about gonorrhoea. But the medley was a success and much applaudage happened.

Night two did not see me in the best of moods….several reasons…lack of foodage in the last 24 hours, people who ask me to do one thing and then complain when I do exactly what they asked me to do and…..

Videoed the show tonight…. had to go tearing accross the ceiling mid-show to change tapes and get back in time to be on stage …for some reason the camera didn’t manage to tape act two…lucky there’s one more show….

…managed to get tonguetied on one of my lines..quasi crucial to the punchline of the skit I was in which, whilst amusing in itself and managed to get a laugh…. annoyed me… I was feeling very space-cadetesque this evening.

On an amusing note….smoke machines set off the fire alarm during the show….which meant a theatre evacuation….ironically most of the audience didn’t seem to be fussed moving when asked to…too bad if the fucking place was on fire.

Roll on October 2nd.