The children went trick-or-treat
While Anchorage was shut down with sleet
Thus diverting the flight
With the time growing tight
But the end was alright, it was sweet.
Synopsis: I’m a Family Practitioner from Sioux City, Iowa. In 2010 I danced back from the brink of burnout, and honoring a 1 year non-compete clause, traveled and worked in out-of-the-way places in Alaska, Nebraska, Iowa, and New Zealand. I followed 3 years Community Health Center work with a return to traveling and adventures in temporary positions in Alaska, rural Iowa, suburban Pennsylvania and western Nebraska. After 3 months in northern British Columbia, and a month of occasional shifts in northwest Iowa, I have returned to the Arctic. Any identifiable patient information has been included with permission.
I like to be flexible in my assignments. While I prefer to concentrate on outpatient work, I enjoy the intensity of inpatient. And I’ll cover ER to keep things running smoothly. So for the last two days I’ve worked the Emergency Room.
Of the three morning patients, one turned out a good deal sicker than anyone could have foreseen.
The nursing staff prepped for Halloween, scrounging odd props for impromptu costumes. We found a red rubber half ball manufactured with a valley down the flat side so that the proper pinch would keep it on the face as a clown nose; with the addition of a hood used for positive pressure in the event of severe respiratory contagion, it made for a really creepy visual.
The kids started showing up at 3:30PM in costume. The hospital distributed large sacks of candy to each department, and three distributors took their places at the end of a corridor, just outside the ER door, giving out miniature candy bars.
Inside the Emergency Room, while the costumed kids paraded past, severe illness worsened in front of our eyes and we dealt with the rippling waves of back stories of drama, irony, and dysfunction. I danced back and forth with increasing urgency as the notorious Alaska weather complicated the patient transfer, past distraction and into improvisation.
By 5:00 PM, when I went into the corridor to snag a bite of junk food, I found the nurse jauntily giving out the treats by the handful.
“I thought we were supposed to give out candy one at a time,” I said.
“I’m tired of this,” he said sotto voce, “I want to go back to work.” And he kept greeting the kids in costumes with laughter.
Just after 6:00 PM I hot-footed down to the cafeteria; the kids had finished trick-or-treating but the Halloween decorations remained on the doors and bits of black and orange crepe paper littered the floor. I got the last 4 pieces of fish and returned to the ER.
Missing food, sleep and human affection leads to burnout. Large paychecks cannot make up for the inability to eat a relaxed meal. Bolting bites of fried cod between talking to patients did not give me a break but it kept me from impatience.
During one of my status checks I found the patient double thumbing her phone’s keyboard. “Have you put everything up on Facebook yet?” I asked.
“Oh. Yeah,” came the off-handed reply.
I finished at 8:30 PM, full of adrenaline. When I got back to the apartment, Bethany told me that the three foxes which live beneath the school hadn’t been relocated yet, thus the children missed recess. “I know,” I told her. But I couldn’t tell her why.
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