Lovingly Yours

Night shift

Asmara siddique

Call it a cruel twist of fate or just my luck (lack thereof) but I somehow ended up having the first night shift in the department of Pulmonology.

My bad luck started in the game of chance (rock, paper, scissors) I played with my friends to pick who among us would do the weekend night shift, which I obviously lost explaining my presence in the ICU on a Sunday morning, which should have been spent with me in bed, but life always doesn't give you what you want.

Poor me.

I woke up too early, packed my things, lunch box and other essentials,woke up my sleepy parents to kiss and hug them both goodbye, and rode the scarcely populated metro to the hospital.

I knew all my duties for today as I had met Dr. Asfa, a senior resident beforehand and she had explained in great details all that had to be done by me.

On my way to the ICU, I saw a few other classmates of mine, working on a holiday shift just like me. #torturebuddies

Properly masked and draped in PPE, I entered the ICU and immediately got assaulted by the constant beeps and whoosh sounds in the surroundings, the board at the entrance showed 16 patients in the ICU, 4 of them on artificial ventilation, those are the risky ones, needed to be watched out for.

Three nurses were seated at the nurse's station, and all of them looked up when I approached the station.

"Assalamualikum, I am Dr. Asmara siddique, intern on duty today."

"Walikumassalam. Oh we were actually waiting for the intern on duty today. Dr. Omar called and asked us to inform you to call him back." One of them named 'Nurse Ruksana' according to her batch said.

"Sure I'll call him thanks, let me know if anything happens alright? I'll round up on the patients after I call Omar sir. Just call me if there are any new admissions ok?"

"Yes doctor, the patient in bed no. 5 had a few questions, they want to speak to a doctor." Another nurse informs me.

"Yeah, I'll be right back and talk to the patients."

The next few hours fly by between calls, admissions, patients and their families asking questions.

I try to make time for meals and prayers In between the rounds and admissions and constantly updating the status of patients on the whatsapp group.

Asmara: Pt Afreen discharged. Discharge summary done and sent to admin.
5:09pm

Dr.Omar: why was she discharged?
5:20pm

Asmara: They wanted to leave because the patient was feeling fine, and also had financial constraints. They signed a LAMA form, checked and cleared to leave by General medicine resident Dr. Asif.
6:00pm

After rounding on the patients, writing notes, updating them on the computer, updating Dr. Afsa on the current status of patients, I walked back to the interns room to rest for a bit.

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Somehow 32 hours of the shift were over before I knew it and I was almost done with my breakfast.

There was one more thing left to do before I could sign off, go home and collapse.
The tiredness weighed heavy on me but I had to keep going, before handing over the patients to the next intern or resident, whoever came first.

The anesthesia residents had been great help, rushing over to help me when I needed them. Otherwise I had learned a lot while working alone, read about the conditions a bit to answer in the morning rounds, prayed, talked to my family before sleeping and woke up like a zombie on the uncomfortable beds in the intern's room.