[Sethomas]

Well, no, from what I understand, if "shock" were an issue from seeing the wound then it would have made itself known long before he'd arrived. Shock was probably more of a boon in that case because the pain wouldn't be nearly as bad as you would expect it to be.

Probably just the nurse had personal experience with people who would react to seeing the stitches as if they were feeling it, when in fact they couldn't. Such people might make her work harder by flinching even though the pain isn't more of an issue than if they couldn't see it, blah blah blah.

Anyways.

My sister wanted to be an ER doctor despite a huge number of people telling her how horrible it is, based on experience and the statistical facts that most ER doctors end up in private practice after a few years burns them out. She did do some sub-intern residency in the ER, but when she got her MD she ended up in IM because she didn't get the ER spot she wanted.

She'll mention random stories from it offhand, but one of her stories is so perfectly depressing that I find myself repeating it here on I-Mockery rather often.

Old lady walks in. Family members come in tow. Old lady complains of stomach ache. My sister feels her abdominal region. Family begins discussing if DNR (do not resuscitate) forms should be signed or not. My sister feels slight shift in lower chest region. Sister realizes very major circulatory pathway has ruptured (I forget which one, sorry!). Sister frantically calls for attending. Family picks up on the urgency of the situation. Old lady listens for a short while as her family members scream at each other over how much effort should be put into saving her life. Old lady dies, family doesn't notice.

My dad has a few good stories from working ER, but most of them are things I had to hear from other people who heard them from him because that's how my family is when it comes to x-ray images of things found in the colon that elude easy comprehension of how or why they were put there*. I remember one time I came home from a Saturday morning funeral my freshman year for a classmate, and my dad was in the kitchen in blood-spattered scrubs. He explained that it was from a gang member (yes, there are a few of those in Indianapolis) who got shot up, and once he was sewn back together he was told to leave within a few hours (!!!) but he didn't want to because the people who shot him were waiting in the parking lot. It turns out, this was actually true, and there was probably an issue when the hospital did in fact discharge a man who had very recently been shot because they ran out of beds. This is a pretty common thing in the summer from what I'm told as violent acts go up along with the thermometer, but the oddest part of the story was that it was about 10° F that night.

I did in fact hear this story from the person who was directly involved, but I managed to forget about it a long time and had to be reminded from a friend who also was there to hear the story. Thus, while I'm reasonably confident that this did happen, I can't give you any background as to how much humor was intentional versus how much of it reveals a side of humanity that we don't want to look at.

Man experiments with anal stimulation.
Man inserts vibrator into rectum.
Complications prevent man from removing vibrator from colon.
Man goes to emergency room.
Doctors roll eyes.
Doctors explain procedure by which they will remove the vibrator.
Man asks in response, "actually, could you just replace the battery?"
The mind boggles.


*He doesn't hesitate to allude to these stories with the phrase, told to others who know what he's talking about while he assumes that I do not, "I fell on it", that references an excuse that he had evidently heard a disturbing number of times.