What People Look Like When They’re Dying
My first time seeing a dying patient felt surreal
One of the things all the newbie doctors were dreading was being put on a weekend shift or night shift so close to starting because that’s when things became very, very real.
And that’s what happened to me. So soon after qualifying, I was set to have a weekend 3-night stint which meant all the medical wards that were covered by several teams of medical staff during the day, I was now covering on my own. I was removed from the safe capsule of my day team and my ward and was part of a smaller mismatch of other doctors also scheduled to be on nights.
There was the medical registrar who was the captain, then two other junior doctors, who covered the three acute units and clerked patients coming in from the Accident and Emergency department, and then there was me, foundation trainee, the bottom of the totem pole, looking after all the other medical patients.
Yes, I was scared but after we said goodbye to the day on-call team, my night team spent some time reassuring me that they were just a call away and that took away some of my fears.
During those shifts, I couldn’t help but notice how different the hospital was at night. It was creepy, haunting even. Walking through long empty corridors under…
