mixture of roller-coaster-ride anxiety and inquisitiveness over what I
might find at Colorado’s “Knife and Gun Club.”
I accompany my supervising chief resident Joe down to the Emergency
Room, where an elderly female has just been admitted with an injured hip.
When we go to Bay 13, Joe, a sturdily built Chinese American, pulls back
the dingy, beige curtain whose hooks screech along an overhead rail.
Lying on the gurney is an emaciated woman who is in her late eighties,
toothless and clueless about where she is. Her left leg is grotesquely askew
and twisted, and Joe looks at me, asking, “What is your diagnosis?”
“Is her leg dislocated?”
“Are you asking me or telling me?” Joe queries.
“Her hip is dislocated,” I conclude.
“Wrong!” Joe scolds.
Dang it. “Is her hip broken? I mean—her hip is broken.”
“You’re right,” my boss affirms. “Let’s get an X-ray to see how bad it
is.”
As we are awaiting the X-ray tech, the ER physician briskly walks down
the cramped hallway, announcing to everyone in earshot that a gunshot
victim will be arriving via ambulance in a few minutes. THIS is what I was
hoping for, even though I am ashamed to admit it. I justify my morbid
curiosity with the supposition that I don’t want anyone to ever get hurt, but
if they are going to get shot or stabbed, I hope that it happens on a night
when I am on call.
Joe and I walk over to the trauma bay, a large room with supply shelves
along one wall, and a row of sinks and cluttered countertops along
another. Everything is messy, and the trash bins are already full from an
earlier trauma. The cleaning crew is hurriedly trying to prepare the bay
for the incoming patient, and with medical students and residents hovering
in anticipation, this little space is jam-packed.
I walk out to the ambulance entrance with Joe, awaiting our GSW—
gunshot wound—while trying not to look nervous. Facing Bannock Street
on this warm October evening, I glance at the ER nurses and techs in light
blue plastic aprons, and notice that everyone is lighthearted, even jocular.
I think I’m the only one who is anxious. I’ve never seen a shooting victim,
and although I am quite sure I will play no part in the resuscitation, my
complete lack of expertise reinforces my apprehension. Behind me, the ER
charge nurse approaches our crew of general surgery and orthopedic
marcin
(Marcin)
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