Code Blues Read Online Free PDF

How recently? Did she wipe
from back to front or front to back?
    I had asked some of these questions, but not
others, so I felt stupid but also annoyed; I doubted he was this
thorough when he was the one on the line. If pressed, he'd probably
just say it was a UTI for reasons NYD, not yet diagnosed.
    At last he waved me away. "Go back and do it
right. You can follow up with Dr. Dupuis afterward. He's the one
coming on at eight."
    Good news: Dr. Hardass was leaving. Bad
news: maybe Dr. Dupuis was Dr. Hardass II.
    Granted, I was here to
learn as well as serve, but some doctors really like to put you in
your place at the beginning. I didn't look forward to
playing Who's the Boss for the next two years. Good doctors, secure doctors, don't
need to belittle you.
    Sometimes I feel sorry for the patients at a
tertiary teaching hospital. You may have to battle your way through
multiple layers: med student, junior resident, senior resident,
staff. But it's all learning, and as a community hospital, St.
Joe's had a thinner hierarchy than most. I headed back to the
twenty-year-old to play another twenty questions.
    When I came back, Dr. Callendar was doing
"sign out" with a thin, blond, stork-like man in glasses and
greens. They strode around the room, talking about patients'
results and what needed to be done.
    When I got within a five foot radius of
them, Dr. Callendar flicked his fingers at me like he had water on
them. "Go see more patients."
    The blond doctor laughed and shook his head.
"Wait a minute. You're a new resident?"
    I nodded and held out my hand. "Hope Sze.
R1."
    He shook it. "Dave Dupuis. Welcome
aboard."
    "Thanks." At Western, once you were a
resident, and therefore, a fellow M.D., a lot of the staff
physicians let you call them by their first names. It sounds like a
small thing, but after four years of undergrad and four years of
medical school, I was ready for a tap on the shoulder.
    Dr. Dupuis smiled down at me as if he were
reading my mind. "Are you interested in working the ambulatory side
or the acute side?"
    Runny noses vs. potential heart attacks. No
contest. "Acute."
    Of course, Dr. Evil had to step in. "Dave,
she's already started on the ambulatory side. She's ready to review
a UTI." Dr. Callendar gestured at the chart in my hand.
    I opened my mouth to object, but Dr. Dupuis
was already on it. "Good. If you know that case, you can review it.
But if a resident wants to work the acute side, she should." He
turned to me and added, "Are you interested in emerg?"
    "Yeah. I'm thinking of doing the third
year."
    "Good woman," he said.
    We grinned at each other. Dave Dupuis was on
my side. There was a hierarchy here, and Dupuis trumped Callendar.
Good to know.
    Some people, you just know you're on the
same page. Like me and—Alex, I remembered, and my smile dimmed. But
for only a second. If he didn't call back and beg my forgiveness,
it was his loss. I had a job to do.
    After sign-over, Dr. Callendar glared at me
like I needed deodorant and a brain transplant. "So what do you
think. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you want to give her? Okay." He
scribbled his signature after my note, tore out the green slip, and
stood up to go.
    A mere 45 minutes after I first saw her, I
handed my patient her prescription. It was the first time I'd
written a script without getting it co-signed, and it felt good for
about 60 seconds. Then Dr. Dupuis handed me a chart for a
seventy-five-year-old woman with abdominal pain. "Have fun."
    I drew the dirty pink curtain around bed
number 11 before I began the interview. The patient's son helped
swish it around his side of the stretcher. My patient turned out to
be a tiny, white-haired, half-deaf woman who only spoke Spanish.
Her family spoke a little French, but not much. I found myself
yelling and playacting a lot. "Do you feel nauseous? Are you
vomiting?" Grab stomach, pretend to retch. "Do you have pain in
your chest?" Hands to heart, with tormented eyes raised to the
acoustic tile ceiling, like