Emergency medicine, and the loophole of love!

the loophole of love

With love we rise above,
Like the angel to the dove,
That flies high in the sky,

Above the the question of “why?”,
This should happen, or that should happen,
Instead taking “acceptance” as the key,

For only then will we be free,
From the visitudes of life,
For these are the ones that give it the spice,

Like a curry to its rice,
Remembering that there is no price,
In dreaming away,

So forget what “they” might say,
Because inside we can continue to pray,
For the gift of smiling yet another day,

And loving the present moment,

For in the end,
It’s all we have.

9-5-15

I recently started a new rotation of Emergency Medicine training, and before long have found myself immersed in all it’s beauty and simultaneous horror. Our speciality is full of energy, love and frustration. There are good days and challenging days, magic moments and equally frustrating ones, often intertwined into the same 10 hour shift, if not the same hour.

Most days are heavily mixed with both energies which makes it hard to have a frame of reference for an answer when someone from outside this world asks, “so how was your shift?”. For me, it is perhaps most truthful to answer this question with a guitar in hand. An example of this is provided with the the song titled “in the night drift”, that I have included at the end of this post.

Often the pressures within a single shift are high, but when compounded within a persons training period, or across sections of their career span, it is understandable that a soul searching doubt can easily set in, to the point where the question of “why am I doing this again?” is asked.

I am sure that this question gets asked by many in the field, perhaps with haunting frequency, regardless of whether one is a nurse, doctor or any of the multitude of other health “carers”.

Doctors, nurses, and the many other important ones

Whilst most would argue that “doctors and nurses” are at the core of health care provision, there is an array of other people, who occupy either named professions or unnamed roles. These people often contribute under the radar of recognition, but are making a huge difference in the field of emergency medicine everyday.

The list, in no particular order, includes but is not limited to;- physiotherapists, radiographers, clerical staff, nurse aids, cleaners, porters, special care assistants, pharmacists, translators, administrators, radiographers, laboratory staff, parking attendants, building engineers, ambulance and police staff, public health workers, aged care workers, counsellors and social workers, and not least the patients themselves and their families. We are all one, interacting together, in the common milieu of a single shift on the emergency medicine shop floor (a term that is often used to encompass the Emergency Department by Emergency Physicians in Australasia).

Why we practice emergency medicine?

Regardless of whether one is a doctor or has one of the many other important roles in this arena, perhaps Mel Helbert puts forward one of the best expositions of why someone would consider undertaking a career in emergency medicine in his recent talk titled from the EM essentials conference titled “why we practice emergency medicine”.

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Mel, is the creator/founder of the EM Rap education channel, is a champion in emergency medicine education. When I use this term I mean it both literally, but I also mean to use it as a term from the field of “knowledge translation“, used to describe those who are proponents of change, in the evolving culture of crossing the “know-do” gap.

Whilst everyone’s story is interesting in their own unique way, Mel seems to have captured with his unashamedly honest exposition something that reaches out and inspires his audience, no matter if you love it or hate it, are within or outside the profession, or are simply curious about why anyone would want to do this job.

It was a really interesting 15 mins so I thought I’d share it here – thanks Mel!

The night shift

 
As promised, this is a song called “in the night drift” that I recorded directly after surviving busy nightshift, when I crawled back to my hospital accommodation and had a much needed sleep (albeit after a date with my guitar!). Enjoy 🙂