Not Seen On TV.

I offer to cover an extra shift every once in a while at work. I'll have to keep that to a minimum from here on out. The night started off well. I did a surgery right off the bat and got the monthly checks off the board. Therefore, the busywork was done for my stretch of four shifts. The rest of the evening was thankfully dull. You see, unlike most drama television shows for the medical enthusiast, shows like ER, Grey's Anatomy, and even Scrubs,hospital care is both more exciting and far more tedious than those shows display.

First off, not every case is a train wreck, biological attack, social intervention, miracle cure/save, or tragic event. People generally come in to the E.D. (it's a department not one, big room!) beacuse they have no primary care physician (PCP) and have had a cough and green snot for several days, so they're looking for a prescription for antibiotics (which won't stop the infection) and a trip home. Real cases that come in to hospitals' E.D.s involve overdoses of over-the-counter (OTC) medications, alcohol or street drugs, fractures of bones by simple or quasi-humorous means (Fell while walking to car, stopped lamppost from hitting head, had a momentary lapse of reasoning while riding mechanical bull after eight shots of tequila, etc.) or your garden variety medication-seekers, attention-hounds, or unwashed transient needing a bath.

Fortunately, those days are behind me. I now work in surgery where the patients are truly in need of service or they wouldn't show up at all. Think that's more exciting than the "who's-sleeping-with-whom-this-week" episodic drivel on television? Not a chance. Ge