The Intern Blues(47)

I put the precious specimen in the proper tube, gave it to the medical student who had volunteered to carry it down to the lab, and went on with the rest of my work. About two hours later, a nurse happened to mention to me that the technician in the blood bank had called and said that because the tube and lab slip had been signed by a medical student instead of a doctor, it had not been acceptable. He had tossed the specimen in the trash and now was demanding a second sample.

Needless to say, I got angry. Trying to hold myself back, I ran down to the lab. I explained to the technician how difficult it had been to get that blood; I described in vivid detail how small and sick the baby was. He told me he was sorry, but rules were rules; unless a person with M.D. after his or her name has signed in exactly the right places, he had been instructed to dump the tube.

I got angrier. I started searching the trash cans in and around the blood bank. The guy caught me and said, “It won’t do you any good. I poured it down the sink.”

That’s when I really lost it. Three years’ worth of repressed anger at laboratory personnel was immediately released in a single, spectacular tirade. I cursed out this technician, I cursed out his mother, his father, the rest of his family and friends; I went on for at least ten minutes. He didn’t say a word, he just continued doing what he had been doing when I had first appeared. When I finally ran out of steam, I went back up to the ward and tried to get another sample of blood from the baby. It took only three attempts this time, but I got it, carefully signed the tube and lab slip, and dropped it off myself.

This kind of explosion is not uncommon. Lab technicians have a great deal of work to do and have a lot of people on their backs trying to get results. It’s impossible to make everyone happy, so frequently no one is made happy. Many house officers will tell you that dealing with lab technicians is the most aggravating of all their jobs.

Perhaps all of these little aggravations make working as an intern in the Bronx more difficult than working in some other area of the world. Battling the environment, the patients, and certain members of the hospital’s ancillary staff while chronically overtired is no mean feat. Year after year our house staff does it, and they learn to do it well. But the question still remains: Is it all worth it?





Andy


OCTOBER 1985

Monday, September 30, 1985

I guess I’m starting to get sick of talking about internship. I don’t talk about it to other people very much anymore; I used to think maybe I shouldn’t talk about it, maybe people wouldn’t be able to understand what I was saying, but now I just don’t want to anymore. Nobody fucking understands.

I’m over at University Hospital now, into my fourth month. I’m going to lose my mind before I make it to my first vacation. I have three more months to go, so I’m now only slightly more than halfway there. I’ve finished a quarter of my internship year. If you include vacations, I’ve finished a third of it. Yeah, only eighty more nights on call, right?

My apartment has become disgusting. I have so many roaches, they’re crawling all over the place. I turn on the faucet and the water goes in the sink and the roaches come cruising out. They all dive off the edge of the sink right onto you if you don’t move fast enough, because they’re trying to get away from the water. Too many roaches, no one to talk to about roaches; no one to talk to about roachy thoughts. I wish there were people on my team I felt buddy-buddy with, like last month. But there aren’t any.

Thursday, October 3, 1985

I’m really tired. I don’t have anything to say anymore. I’ve been feeling depressed and apathetic and ground down lately. Tomorrow I canceled plans to go out with a friend. You know what I want to do instead? I want to be by myself. Isn’t that weird? Tomorrow’s a precall night, the only time I ever feel even a little rested, my only chance to have a little fun. And all I want to do is be by myself.

There were a couple of times today when I thought I should never have become a doctor. I just don’t have what it takes. I don’t know, it must not be true, people say I’m really good sometimes. But that’s how I was feeling.

Putting in too many IVs . . . yeah . . . yeah.

Friday, October 4, 1985, 1:00 A.M.

Should I tell you about the baby who died the other night when I was on call? Should I tell you? Another one died, this one right in front of my eyes. A DNR baby [DNR: “do not resuscitate”: DNR orders are written only after careful consultation with all parties involved in the patient’s care, including the child’s parents], very sick. She was born with multiple congenital anomalies and they couldn’t figure out what caused them. She had terrible heart disease and it was only a matter of time.