is no time to discuss the fact that this horrible, horrible system is not working, or to assert that we are neither criminals nor machines. There are only endless medication orders, given by other exhausted people with nobody better than us to depend upon.
Working in the hospital teaches you that there are only two kinds of people in the world: the sick and the not sick. If you are not sick, shut up and help. Twenty-five years later, I still cannot reject this as an inaccurate worldview.
***
Lydia was magnificent at her workstation, possibly because she’d been doing this sixty hours a week for almost twenty years. Watching her sort, clean, and inject was like watching a ballerina defy gravity. I watched her hands fly and thought
…in an easy amateur way, and without any book (he seemed to me to know everything by heart),
from chapter seven. On that first day I witnessed her shooting at least twenty bags, sometimes with her eyes closed. I never saw her make a mistake. I was certain that she worked while in some kind of trance, as there was no way that her brain could have been sufficiently oxygenated. One of the worst things one can do is sneeze or otherwise spray bodily fluids into a sterile space, and Lydia, for whom the very act of exhaling was basically a cough, exhibited breath control that was positively superhuman while mixing medications.
Within my first couple of hours at my workstation, I had successfully made a few bags of simple electrolytes, and the supervisor had started pressuring me to pick up and shoot some of the more difficult orders because the lab was running severely behind. I tried an order for a simple “benzo bag” but then panicked after I injected the sedative, knowing that if I had somehow injected more than I thought I did, I could be curing the patient’s anxiety with much more finality than anyone expected. Terrified as a trapped animal, I actually considered bluffing my way through it, putting the bag on the tray in the queue and then moving on with my life. But I came to and all at once realized just how crazy that instinct was. I took the bag over to the sink, sliced it with a scalpel, and dumped its contents down the drain while the Pharm.D. gave me the evil eye. I walked back to Lydia and suggested that we take a break.
“I don’t think I can do this,” I confessed when we got to the courtyard. “This is the most stressful thing I’ve ever done.”
Lydia chuckled. “You’re making way too much out of this. Remember, it ain’t brain surgery.”
“Yeah, brain surgery’s on the fifth floor.” I completed the joke that the runners told each other at least five times a day. “Still, what if I just can’t get it?” I groaned. “Half the time I don’t remember if I did something right or wrong.”
Lydia looked around and then leaned forward and spoke. “Listen, I’m gonna tell you something about sterile technique.” She leaned back and continued in a low voice. “Now, don’t go licking the needle or anything, but if you’ve got something on your hands that’s gonna kill them—they’re gonna die anyway.” I had no answer for that, and Lydia seemed to think that she’d explained what needed to be explained, and so we sat in silence while she smoked.
After a while I rubbed my temples and said, “Man, I’ve got a headache. Lydia, don’t you ever worry about what breathing all this alcohol is doing to our lungs?”
Lydia had a cigarette hanging out of her mouth at the time, and the look she gave me showed that she now had proof that I was terminally stupid. She took a long, long drag and then answered while exhaling. “What do you think?”
Right after we got back from break, I threw myself into the fray and drew out an order for a complicated chemotherapy bag, determined to make good on what was left of my first day in the laboratory. I made the bag accurately and was very proud of myself until an enraged Pharm.D. walked up to me and held a tiny bottle of
Working in the hospital teaches you that there are only two kinds of people in the world: the sick and the not sick. If you are not sick, shut up and help. Twenty-five years later, I still cannot reject this as an inaccurate worldview.
***
Lydia was magnificent at her workstation, possibly because she’d been doing this sixty hours a week for almost twenty years. Watching her sort, clean, and inject was like watching a ballerina defy gravity. I watched her hands fly and thought
…in an easy amateur way, and without any book (he seemed to me to know everything by heart),
from chapter seven. On that first day I witnessed her shooting at least twenty bags, sometimes with her eyes closed. I never saw her make a mistake. I was certain that she worked while in some kind of trance, as there was no way that her brain could have been sufficiently oxygenated. One of the worst things one can do is sneeze or otherwise spray bodily fluids into a sterile space, and Lydia, for whom the very act of exhaling was basically a cough, exhibited breath control that was positively superhuman while mixing medications.
Within my first couple of hours at my workstation, I had successfully made a few bags of simple electrolytes, and the supervisor had started pressuring me to pick up and shoot some of the more difficult orders because the lab was running severely behind. I tried an order for a simple “benzo bag” but then panicked after I injected the sedative, knowing that if I had somehow injected more than I thought I did, I could be curing the patient’s anxiety with much more finality than anyone expected. Terrified as a trapped animal, I actually considered bluffing my way through it, putting the bag on the tray in the queue and then moving on with my life. But I came to and all at once realized just how crazy that instinct was. I took the bag over to the sink, sliced it with a scalpel, and dumped its contents down the drain while the Pharm.D. gave me the evil eye. I walked back to Lydia and suggested that we take a break.
“I don’t think I can do this,” I confessed when we got to the courtyard. “This is the most stressful thing I’ve ever done.”
Lydia chuckled. “You’re making way too much out of this. Remember, it ain’t brain surgery.”
“Yeah, brain surgery’s on the fifth floor.” I completed the joke that the runners told each other at least five times a day. “Still, what if I just can’t get it?” I groaned. “Half the time I don’t remember if I did something right or wrong.”
Lydia looked around and then leaned forward and spoke. “Listen, I’m gonna tell you something about sterile technique.” She leaned back and continued in a low voice. “Now, don’t go licking the needle or anything, but if you’ve got something on your hands that’s gonna kill them—they’re gonna die anyway.” I had no answer for that, and Lydia seemed to think that she’d explained what needed to be explained, and so we sat in silence while she smoked.
After a while I rubbed my temples and said, “Man, I’ve got a headache. Lydia, don’t you ever worry about what breathing all this alcohol is doing to our lungs?”
Lydia had a cigarette hanging out of her mouth at the time, and the look she gave me showed that she now had proof that I was terminally stupid. She took a long, long drag and then answered while exhaling. “What do you think?”
Right after we got back from break, I threw myself into the fray and drew out an order for a complicated chemotherapy bag, determined to make good on what was left of my first day in the laboratory. I made the bag accurately and was very proud of myself until an enraged Pharm.D. walked up to me and held a tiny bottle of
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