It’s now night 3 of 6. Six straight days — er, nights — covering the ICU patients here at one of the local county hospitals. Night 1 was great. Occasional calls here and there from nurses for little things that did not require much brain power. I am also working with an intern. He is covering the non-ICU patients. Night 1 went well for him too. I think I saw him watching tv shows on his iPad during the down time.
Night 2 was definitely busier for the both of us. For me, there was one patient who pretty much required my attention the entire night. And when I finally failed at placing a functional arterial line, I had to go call Anesthesia to help me place it. And then while they were at bedside, I asked if they could also intubate my patient as well. Later, as the early morning hours rolled around, I was about to place a central line. I had collected the consent and all the necessary materials. I had the ultrasound machine ready. However, the patient was still moving around so I asked that the sedation be turned up and I would return shortly.
I never did return. Because while I was waiting for increased sedation, I got another call for a patient on the other side of the ICU. Apparently they were having non-convulsive seizures through much of the night and the EEG tech was notifying us. Six in the morning. The patient had already been well loaded with dilantin, a type of anti-seizure medication the night before. However, despite the dilantin, the seizures continued. I considered adding another medication at a constant infusion via IV. The caveat, though, is that a constant infusion of versed (the medication I was considering) requires a patient to be intubated because it can depress the respiratory function.
I did not want to make that decision alone, though. So I paged the on-call neurologist. Unable to get a response, I finally paged the neurologist who would come on call at 8 AM. She advised against the versed infusion and suggested a different regimen. By the time this was sorted out, the day teams had already began showing up and I signed out the events of the night to them.
Tonight I am writing this on night 3. The call team admitted at least one very sick, ICU patient. At this point we have come up with a plan and we will continue to see how the patient does over the course of the night.
While I generally dislike working nights, there are some things that are nice.
I just have to focus on those niceties for another 3 nights.
