Throughout the month of November I continued to volunteer in the Emergency Department (ED) at Touro Infirmary. Last week I had the opportunity to see my first code. I was working in one of the back rooms of the ED when the code began, but I quickly finished what I was doing and hurried to the code room to observe. Through the duration of the code I was struck by the precision and the relaxed nature of all the nurses and doctor. There were 4 nurses working in concert on the patient, while another was recording the events and times and another was gathering equipment and bringing it to the room. First, the team gave chest compressions while using a BVM to push air into the patient's lungs. Finally, the patient began breathing again and a heartbeat was observed. Unfortunately, the patient slipped into ventricular tachycardia and I saw the characteristic sawtooth EKG pattern. Watching from just outside the code room I was nervous when the first attempts at cardioversion were unsuccessful. However, the doctor calmly ordered additional shocks at higher power and asked the nurses to prepare an injection of amiodarone. After 4 shocks and what seemed like an eternity the patient was breathing and had a pulse, even though the EKG still indicated irregular electrical activity. I continued to watch as the code room was quickly converted into a makeshift operating room and a central line was introduced. Finally, 3 hours later the patient seemed to be stabilizing somewhat and doing much better. This was by far the most intense and interesting experience I have had in the Touro ED thus far and I plan on continuing to volunteer and observe in the final weeks of the semester.
November hours: 10.5 (Touro ED)
Total hours: 43 hours
