Awful

I'm an awful person. I was bringing a patient the the intensive care unit and I was looking for the nurse practitioner or resident to take report so I could get out of there. anyway, popped my head into one of the beds and it was an ECMO patient (extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation). Basically ECMO is complete support for the heart and lungs when they are not working well (it can also be used for just lung support). It consists of a pump and an oxygenator to take over both functions. Anyway... the patient was going down later today for a procedure and the nurses were wondering if anesthesia presence was going to be required or not. Sometimes procedures are done without anesthesia personnel if the patient is doing well, so I said "I hope not, they're Stable on ECMO aren't they?" I then shook my head wondering what I had said. The phrase "Stable on ECMO" is almost an oxymoron given that they patient is NOT stable thus needs the almost complete support of ECMO. I've spent too much time in the hospital.

On another note, the cardiac case I'm supervising finished early today. Which is good, but it's bad because that means our room is open for add-on cases which are always always always a mess. But our OR bed is broken so I'm hoping nothing comes. I'm a bad man.