Wednesday, February 12, 2014

Preventable Sepsis case (I TOLD YOU SO.)

This post conforms to the blog rules.If I become an intern and have to read med student's notes, I will read them.
If I become an intern and have to read med student's notes, I will read them.
If I become an intern and have to read med student's notes, I will read them.
If I become an intern and have to read med student's notes, I will read them.
If I become an intern and have to read med student's notes, I will read them.

"Because when I was a med student," I will tell my little protégés, "I had an intern that didn't read my note. I realized one of our patients was septic and I recommended fluid resuscitation in my note. And when he didn't do anything, I assumed it was because it wasn't correct and he was too busy to discuss it. And the next day, the patient was GCS 8 [suuuper unresponsive] and had to have not only fluid resuscitation but also pressors and a transfusion and an RRT [a step down from a code] in front of his daughter and had to go to ICU." The patient later died. Now, how much of that was preventable? I don't know. His death was certainly not due to the missed sepsis; he had widely metastatic disease and was frail. But did he have to die in ICU? Did he have to die unresponsive?

If I become an intern and have to read med student's notes, I will read them.