Q4 - JOURNAL ENTRIES

Journal entries from the fourth quarter of my first year in basic specialist emergency training:

• MVP of the year:

  • • Me: Did you have a fever

    • Patient: Yes.

    • Me: How high was your temperature?

    • Patient: High.

    • Me: I want a number.

    • Patient: From 1 to 10? I guess a 4.

    • Me: …

• Patients who were meant to be accompanied by a carer at all times:

  • • A patient in acute psychosis who somehow managed to climb all the way up to the ceiling and hide in it.

    • A patient with schizophrenia who was found at university having coffee.

    • An intoxicated patient who was eventually found on the opposite side of the island after an incident involving his girlfriend and a chainsaw.

    • Another intoxicated patient who went out for a smoke and came back higher than a kite. We reprimanded the carer. I went to check on the patient, only to find him smoking yet another joint, right in front of the carer. “Sorry, I was on the phone with my brother,” said the carer.

• It’s a busy Sunday shift in Gozo. I saw seven patients who all presented with the same thing: losing consciousness during mass. Either the holy wafers had expired, or God was really pulling a number on me that day.

• A patient said he had taken “two Panadols.” His wife corrected him: “Two packets.” I looked at him. He looked at her. The paracetamol levels confirmed the wife’s story. The psychiatrist reconfirmed it. 

• A guy who was brought in view of excessively high blood sugar demanded I replace the “sour pie” he took out of his coat pocket with a fresh one.

• A patient came to the ED cause he got bit by his chihuahua. That’s it. A chihuahua.

• My patient had to be admitted to the psychiatric hospital because she found her mom in bed with her boyfriend – the very same one she disapproved of.