Last Tuesday morning, I was sitting at PDX when an announcement across the hall caught my attention:
"Is anybody in this area a doctor? We have someone in need of assistance."
Since I wasn't actually in that gate area, I thought I'd give any other MD around a chance to respond first. No luck. About a minute later the same announcement could be heard in our gate area. After a few seconds of hesitation, I presented myself to the gate attendant as "Pam, a doctor," careful not to mention that most of my patients are already dead.
They directed me across the way where a passenger had had a siezure while loading onto the plane and had fallen backward causing a bloody gash in her scalp. A nurse, medical assistant and gate attendant were already in attendance and were applying pressure to the wound.
The nurse filled me in. "She's had a siezure, but I already cleaned out her mouth and scanned her with the her vagal nerve stimulator." I had heard of these, but didn't know they were routine. Had I been the first to see the scanner on her bag I would have thought it was a magnetic security card.
"Is she continuing to sieze and do we have anything to put in her mouth if she siezes again?," I asked thinking I could contribute.
"Do you mean a bite stick? Nobody uses those anymore!"
"Yeah," the medical assistant chimed in, "they don't help and people end up with chipped teeth." He then handed me a pair of gloves, "here you go, doctor." Though this action was meant to be helpful, it made me feel about two inches tall as the gate attendant needed no help applying pressure so I just held the gloves impotently.
When the paramedics arrived they had many questions for "the doctor."
"How long was the seizure?," "Was it tonic-clonic?," "How did she hit her head?." After each question they looked at me expectantly, but since I hadn't witnessed the event I had to keep directing them to the nurse, who saw the whole thing.
The paramedics then took over putting all their equipment to use, taking her blood pressure, pulse, and applying bandages. I just stood there, lamely holding my gloves. After about 5 minutes more of this complete ineptitude, I slunk off to the bathroom and back to my seat across the hall, feeling like a complete waste of human space.
A decade of medical training and I was as useful as a pumpkin! Perhaps next time the passenger will need an emergency bone marrow biopsy!
Poor Pam.
ReplyDeleteWhile I don't have ten years training at anything (other than loafing), and don't have a similar level of expertise at anythng (other than loafing), I can sort of relate.
It's awful to be summoned to rescue somebody from a computer catastrophe only to be unable to help. There might be any number of reasons for my ineffectiveness: "That's Windows 98. Windows 98 just doesn't work sometimes. There's no way to fix it."; "The problem is with the printer. A printer is not a computer. I cannot fix a printer."; "The problem's with your highly specialized accounting/legal/medical application. I don't know anything about that application. There's nothing I can do to help."
Then, of course, the person I'm trying to help simply stares at me as if to say, "What are you? An idiot? It's a computer problem!"
If only they needed help loafing. I could show them any number of ways...