Superman wears red underwear on the outside of his blue tights. I suspect that this bold fashion statement is how he really gets his powers. In the hospital, I myself wear blue scrubs, and have lately been considering wearing a pair of bright red briefs on the outside of them to see if maybe it will garner me more respect, too. Just like Superman.
Prior to residency, I was required to obtain certification in ACLS – Advanced Cardiac Life Support. This is a 2-day class with a very exciting and official name. The class is nothing more than CPR – just like everyone sees on TV – but it’s the wide-screen plasma TV version of CPR. It’s CPR powered by jet-fuel. It makes you feel like you can raise people right out of the grave. That little trick Jesus Christ pulled with Lazarus? Yeah, I’ll bet I could do it. Probably just a little ACLS.
The truth is that ACLS isn’t very effective. It usually doesn’t work at all, and if it does, the patient usually has brain damage. Being a part of “codes” (as we call them) reminds me of when I was a kid watching my dog wander around the neighborhood urinating on everything he could to mark his territory. “This is pointless,” I always told him. “Some other dog is just gonna come along behind you and mark that same spot for his own.” But my dog would look at me obliviously and lift his leg at the very next tree. I think our flurrying around a dying patient may be just as dumb. Like my dog, we don’t get it. Once certified in ACLS, it’s hard to believe those new Jedi powers won’t work. ACLS really does seem like our best chance to pee on the fire hydrant of mortality.
And I’m no different. I’m constantly hoping for that moment when someone’s heart stops beating. I’ll admit that I am inadvertently hoping someone will die, but that macabre yearning is between me and Freud. And anyway, I’m really hoping to save someone who would die without me. My big dream is that some poor soul would die, and there would be weeping and gnashing of teeth while everyone wandered aimlessly around crying, “Oh, if only there was a ACLS CERTIFIED DOCTOR here to help us!”
And then I’d bust down the door, emerge from the dust, and breathe life into the room and everyone in it.
So far, it hasn’t worked out that way. Far from it. Which is why I’m considering the underwear.
A typical sequence – upon notification of a code – usually goes something like this:
Legs burning from lunging up stairs 2-at-a-time for 8 floors, out of breath and disheveled, I run to the patient’s room and ram into the back of a janitor on his tip-toes peering over a crowd from outside the door. “Excuse me,” I mutter, pushing past the janitor, and then various techs, nurses, orderlies, therapists, security people, secretaries…and occasionally weird types like window washers or guys with vacuums strapped to their backs. Often they’re holding stuff – anything from plastic tubing to pleather handbags. Everybody looks unquestionably important. When I make it to the bed, there’s some hapless soul lying there, essentially having already gone to meet their maker. Surrounding the bed are lots of other people – all barking ACLS orders importantly.
“I’m doctor Ankeney,” I always try to state with authority, as I was told to do whenever I enter a room where a code is occurring. “Can someone tell me what’s going on?”
“Hold this.” Someone crams a clipboard into my hands and then bustles away.
“I’ll be taking over this code…” I half-whimper, remembering that I’m supposed to bellow that line with volume and conviction when I enter the room.
“Hey, you in the white coat!”
“Um, yeah?”
“You’re not doing anything. Take this blood to the lab and bring the result back to me. Can you handle that?” Says some official nurse.
“Well, I’m actually not supposed to…”
“Nevermind. I’ll get a nurse to do it.”
“Good.” I proclaim to myself. “I’d rather stand here and hold this clipboard, anyway. I’ll just shuffle over here and man the corner of the room. Everything near the T.V. stand is under control, people.”
ACLS class is open and accessible to everyone; MANY people in the hospital are certified. Not just me. And we all want to use our training and save someone’s life. In our hospital, when someone’s heart stops, an attention-grabbing tone rings out over every loudspeaker in the hospital. A recorded woman’s voice, somehow both dramatic and monotone, proclaims “ATTENTION, BLUE TEAM, ROOM 1014.” She then repeats herself for good measure. Everyone in the hospital hears it. Seems like everyone in the CITY hears it. By the time I get there – even when I run – people from all over town seem to be converging on the room. It’s quite competitive, this miracle of life-saving I’m trying to accomplish.
This is why I’m seriously thinking about taking up the superman outfit. I might even fashion myself a matching red cape. “Dr.A” will be the emblem emblazoned across my chest. When I enter the room, people will scatter. “He’s here,” is all you’ll hear in whispers of awe. With a hawkish eye, I’ll command my ancillary staff into action.
“YOU – Chest compressions.”
“You – Start an IV.”
“You – Intubate.”
“Aaaand YOU, the lady who wanted me to run the blood to the lab…this guy’s gonna need mouth-to-mouth.”
