Hey guys, I'm Siobhan a first-year medical resident. Today, I'm gonna be sharing my scariest moment so far as a junior doctor
Just a warning that I will be describing some real scenarios and they may be a bit graphic
so let me know if it's a little bit too much for you
Give this video a thumbs up if you want to see more like it and then subscribe so you don't miss them
For those of you who watched my previous videos you know how passionate I am about medicine
and how exciting this new journey and residency has been so far, but for all these great experiences
there are some very real challenges as the expectations become higher and you gain more responsibility
The reality of being a junior doctor is not always glamorous. You're often plagued by self-doubt and although you want to be
efficient you often find yourself double or triple checking things, and you want to make decisions on your own and independent but
Then you're really scared that you're gonna make a mistake so you go and ask for help. Many doctors have told me that this is totally
normal that this- they felt the same way when they were going through it and
that maybe it's actually a good thing because you know your limits
and then you're gonna ask for help when you need it. You definitely go through those scary moments,
and those scary firsts so here a couple that I've been through all ready
So I was on call, carry my pager, it goes off and
when I answer and call the nurse, it turns out someone down the hall in a different ward
I just vomited up a big clot of blood
So you know head down quickly I get there and right as I'm walking in the room, I can see this patient
just vomiting up thick, dark blood and honestly, it looked like something out of a horror movie
And then of course one of the nurses turns around and says, 'Oh good. Okay the doctors here
What do you want to do?' and I think I had a fleeting moment where I was thinking, who walked into the room?
Oh right, that's me and
despite the feeling overwhelmed looking at the situation walking in on this
I was really relieved that my training actually kicked it
and I knew what the first steps would be, I knew the first things I needed to do to make sure this patient
would be safe. I'm really happy to tell you that that patient did well,
recovered thank goodness. So this time I'm in the emergency department,
I get called for a consult to see this man that the emergency physicians think needs to be admitted into hospital
So I get there, you know I'm chatting with him. I'm listening to his heart
I'm about to ask him to sit up so I can listen to his lungs on his back
when all of a sudden he starts to turn white and
he starts to have jerky movements of his arms and his eyes
just rolled back into his head, and it just happened so quickly
I've shown up when someone was already having a seizure
but to be there the only person and person having a seizure in front of me I
felt the adrenaline pumping. But again, I knew what to do, i was just scary to do it for the first time
I think in the moment I didn't even realize I was scared until I left the room and I could feel myself almost vibrating
So we had a patient on the team that needed to have a paracentesis done, so they had a lot of
fluid accumulating in their belly, and we need to drain it out
and I've talked about that in some other videos because I got a lot of experience doing them on the
gastroenterology service, my first month of being a resident
So it was later in the day, I got my ultrasound machine, I headed up to the room, I was really excited and
as I was actually setting up to do the procedure you know laying everything out cleaning everything
I started just running through each of the steps in my mind, and then you have that thought
What if something goes wrong? So I knew- I knew she needed this procedure. I went over the consent with her and the risks
and I'm doing everything right
put in the drain, and then what do I see come out? Blood, and just for a split second I
panic inside just half a second, and I think oh my gosh, did I hit an artery? What have I done? and
even though the logical side of my brain knows that I've seen this so many times
and it's so calming for a little bit of blood to come out, still I had this moment of sheer panic. But half a second later
fluid runs clear, everything is fine, everything is normal,
it drains out well. Needless to say after I'd finished it I felt super
accomplished and then when I left the room and I was washing my hands,
I looked in the mirror, and I was like flushed. I was almost red. I think I was just so nervous,
I was sweating. It felt like such a success
It was just so exciting to have done my first procedure, so it's a mix of fear adrenaline. It was just pumping inside of me
The reality is nothing beats experience
and as much as you read about things and memorize them, until you're actually in the situation when you've got to make decisions, it's just not the same.
The scary part is that we gain experience
and learn on real people, and so I just think it's so critical to know, where are your limits?
Where's the limit of your knowledge and you have to get help? It's incremental and you gain experience
and you get better and more confidence. The crazy thing is that in just one year, I'm gonna be the senior medical resident
It's really scary, actually
Just thinking about how much I need to know and
it's pretty daunting
So on that note, I'm actually on call tomorrow, so we'll see what new experiences are waiting for me, so wish me luck
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and I love hearing from you. Bye for now. I'll chat to you guys later