Versed for laughs


I got to place an IV in a real live comic today - a comic who travels the country touring and putting on shows.

I had a lot of questions for him such as, "Can you tell me a funny joke?"

He told me he gets that question a lot and says it's hard to deliver on the spot. How bout that for a comic? Maybe it's similar to when you pimp a brilliant medical student, "How many chambers in the heart?" and you only get a blank stare...

He did say that because he was getting his toe amputated, he considered himself a "toe-away zone." Ba-doom ching!

I was putting an IV in him. He had this gorgeous vein popping out above his wrist that was the size of a tree trunk, and the resident said, "We're gonna put in a 16 gauge in this baby! I'll have my star medical student put in the IV." Now, this is one reason why I'm actually looking forward to intern year, so that patients won't actually fear getting treatment from you, and because residents don't have to treat you like a two year-old. I only worked with this particular resident one day... star med student? Gimme a break...

It's not like I wasn't capable of putting in the IV or something like that - by now I had gotten real comfortable with this minor procedure, having had two weeks of experience. Place the tourniquet, patient pumps their wrist, swab area with alcohol, then inject some lidocaine, swab area with more alcohol, then place the IV catheder, advance the catheder, connect to the tubing, let the IV run... But I think the combination of the patient'thick skin, and an annoying resident looking over my shoulder led to me blowing his vein. I had failed to put place an IV in a tree trunk.

I tried again... this time in his hand, and I got it very easily. I think maybe cuz the resident wasn't hovering over me as I did it. Then, I saw someone in scrubs pumping his fists in a very Home Alone sort-of-way out of the corner of my eye. It was the resident. It's almost like he wouldn't have been happier if the Astros made the World Series or something...

Anyhoo, it was at this point that I began to talk to the patient more, while I was securing the IV in place with tape.

"I want to look at my hand. Feels like a mummy down there." he said. I smiled.

"Just trying to tape it up real good," I said.

He held up his hand. "What's that?" he said, referring to a blood stain on his index finger.

"Ahhh... that's just... uhhh" I said, trying to think of something to make the comic laugh. Something witty, on the spot, something that would reveal that this medical student had hidden stand-up comedy talent. But all I could think of was the word "lipstick." Lipstick???!!!#@$

"You hesitated too long there," he said, interrupting my stuttering, "You're about to lie. I know... I play poker."

Of course he knows, he's a comic! "What would you have said?" I asked.

"Iodine," he replied, "It's just some iodine there..." He was trying to sound like a doctor.

"Iodine? ! But iodine doesn't even look like that!" I said, appealing to my logical medical knowledge, "It's more orange in color!"

"Most of us don't know that. We're stupid."

"I guess." He got me there.

We talked some more. He told me about various jobs he had and told me about some of the other comics that were his friends. He said he knew some Indian comics.

Then I noticed some blood trickling from his IV. Crap. It was leaking. I tightened the tubing on the IV a bit tighter and the leaking resolved, but there was another, much larger blood stain on his hand. He held up his hand to see how bad it looked.

"Nothing but some iodine there," I said, "The alcohol swab'll do that to ya too."

He laughed. "You learn fast."

I accepted the compliment.

And I decided not to tell him that I had what I considered to be a "stupid med student morning." I had to transfer some Vanc from a bottle to a bag of normal saline for a patient's IV using a 10 cc syringe, and while doing so, I punctured the bag of normal saline, leaking the liquid onto the floor of the OR. The resident (different from the one earlier in the story) looked at me like I was a moron. And I agreed with him. I thought about apologizing, but decided against it, based on principle. Why should I have to apologize for being a moron? I'm sure back in the day, that resident had many moronic moments. I hope...

The point is, that I had a great conversation with this particular patient. I didn't really have any life-altering epiphonies, or signficantly impact the rest of this patient's life, but I got to learn about a lifestyle I knew nothing about, and did counsel him a bit on how to take care of himself better. Despite my moronic moments, it was a morning that made me glad I was going into medicine, glad that I was going to be able to touch many lives in ways that are more meaningful than they may seem.

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Note: Versed, pronounced "Ver-SAID", is a drug (benzodiazapine) used for pre-operative sedation. Anesthesiologists refer to Versed as their margherita, their cocktail. When you give it to kids, it can make them pretty giggly.