I should not expect that when I am the loved one of a patient, I can demand any of the indulgences that families can demand of me--not kindness, not time for my own grief and anger, not a sensation of loss of control.
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Posted on August 13, 2008 8:22 AM • 13 Comments •
Humor in the ICU is notoriously dark and free-flowing, and that's part of its appeal.
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Posted on February 7, 2007 9:31 PM • 0 Comments •
I overheard the attending doctor in the patient's room. "This man needs fluids. Bolus two liters of normal saline. Why isn't he getting more fluids?" I have been asking myself the same thing for the last four hours.
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Posted on February 2, 2007 9:34 PM • 7 Comments •
That she was breathing independently was surprising enough, but that she was completely lucid just seemed improbable.
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Posted on January 31, 2007 10:17 PM • 3 Comments •
Back in October, I admitted a patient to the general medicine service with a three-week history of abdominal pain and progressively yellowing eyes. She was a large, pleasant, quiet black woman who was almost always accompanied by her husband, a...
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Posted on January 28, 2007 5:39 PM • 9 Comments •
I hereby pretend to subscribe to whatever logic has made it possible for this man's existence to get to this point, and tomorrow morning, you should, too.
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Posted on July 1, 2006 10:25 PM • 0 Comments •