It was a reasonably calm day at the health center, and I wasn't actually going to put up a new post. I spent the morning checking out sore throats in urgent care, and I spent the afternoon doing sports physicals and follow-ups in the clinic. I was back home and in my basketball shorts by 5:00.
Around 5:15, the phone rang. It was my housemate, telling me that I should really see something at the hospital. I threw my clothes back on, and ran over.
The day prior, we had admitted a patient to our small (four bed) inpatient unit. For his privacy, I'll keep it vague, but he was relatively healthy, and the hospital stay was expected to be a routine affair. But the next day, he was having difficulty breathing, and his illness had taken a turn for the worse. By the time I made it back to the hospital, the amount of oxygen in his blood was dangerously low. We were going to have to intubate him and let a breathing machine take over.
As you might imagine, intubating someone is no trivial task. And to complicate things, these aren't emergency room doctors or surgeons who do this every day. These are your friendly neighborhood family physicians. But in an isolated environment, primary care takes on a whole new meaning. These doctors are, quite simply, why this person is still alive.
Since this isn't a university hospital, I wasn't looking over 35 shoulders to get a peek at what was going on. I was squeezing the ventilation bag, giving medications, and talking with his family. It was an incredible experience.
Once the patient stabilized, we needed to get him to a higher level of care. And out here, that means a helicopter ride to Flagstaff. So we called in a chopper, and gave a report to the flight paramedics. They transferred him over to their monitors, and fired up the bird.
Just another day at the office.
