A Week in the Doctor’s Shoes

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted about Isaac. He’s normally too tired when he gets home to share about his day. But you are in luck. Last night he shared with me about his week so far. Please enjoy, I tried to keep it less medical and not too gross, although living with a doctor I’m getting more used to the stories that come during dinner time conversation. ;)

For Isaac and I our least favorite part of the week would be when Isaac is scheduled to be “on call”. A typical “on call” means that from 8am one day to 8am the next he is the doctor who is in charge of his surgery department at the hospital. On a normal work day though the “working hours”, 8am-5pm Mon-Fri, the hospitals is full of staff to care for things as they arise. This is very different when the “on call” lands on a weekend.

This Sunday Isaac was “on call”. He got to work at 8am Sunday morning to start work. Traveling through the 72 bed ward Isaac checked on all the patients that were there, reading their charts, discussing with nurses and talking with the patients and caregivers about how things were going. As things came up with those in the beds he took care of this or that, ordered what was needed and so on.

Being a hospital known for good care and placed in the capital city many people come in with emergency cases. This Sunday was no different. Isaac was called away many times from the bedside of a patient to take care of emergency cases. Road traffic accidents are common and so patients came in with trauma, others with fractured limbs and all needed cuts stitching up and wounds cleaned. He had one patient who came in with a clot in the brain. Isaac worked together with the neuro surgeon to evacuate the clot, as he calls it.

Then in the night he is allowed to go to a room to sleep and they will call him when he is needed. Well Sunday night he didn’t get the privilege of getting to bed. At 10pm they called him to come and care for a 7 month old. This baby’s intestines were causing pain. Medically they call it a intestinal obstruction which specifically is called intussusception. Isaac explains most types of procedures with me and he explained that one part of the intestines went into another part. In the case of this baby one part of the intestine had gone gangrene and he had to cut that part out. Then he had to sew the two tubes of the intestine, now open, back together to allow for normal use of the intestine. I just think this is amazing!!! He finally finished with the baby at 1am! Can you imagine starting one task at work at 10pm and not finishing until 1am! I’m glad Isaac has that stamina and I’m sure the child’s parents do too.

Sometime Monday morning, before the day staff had arrived for their day’s work Isaac was called in for a road traffic accident. Part of this man’s chin bone was broken and there were lacerations that needed to be stitched up. Isaac stabilized the bone and did the sewing that was needed.

On the program for Monday was a goiter to be removed from a patient’s neck. While Isaac was finishing up with the chin accident and the patient scheduled for Monday was brought in. After that surgery Isaac was able to leave the Operating Room and went back through the hospital on “rounds” making sure that all his patients who were in the “in patient” ward beds were doing well. Now we know why Isaac comes home tired after his “on call”.

Tuesday started early with class. After he attended class he went to visit his patients in the ward. Then off to prepare his new patient for their scheduled surgery. This was a major surgery that needed to be done. The patient needed a hernia taken care of. The hernia was part of the stomach going into the chest. He got to work with the cardio thoracic surgeon to open the chest, find the bottom of the esophagus that meets the stomach and repair the hole. Oh and then put it all back again. This started at noon and didn’t finish until 2:30pm.

And this is only the first half of the week! Isaac is grateful that he is at a hospital where he gets to work on a variety of types of cases and that there are senior doctors to guide and instruct where needed. Living in the capital city is not our ideal but we are happy for all the things that are being accomplished during this season of our lives.