I don’t like Outreach shifts much. On paper they seem great – just sit and wait for calls from ward doctors or the CCOT (Critical Care Outreach Team) nurses about…

A 47-year-old gentleman presents to the emergency department at some point in December 2019 complaining of sudden onset, intense abdominal pain. He’s worked up by the A&E doctors where an…

“I think, very important, the young people and people of good health, and groups of people, just are not strongly affected.” Donald J. Trump, March 2020 The line was delivered…

DO NOT CROSS RED LINE UNLESS IN FULL PPE (PERSONAL PROTECTIVE EQUIPMENT)
We’re out of tie-back surgical caps, so I’m wearing a hairnet that makes me look like…

Part. 1

“Hey is that the ICU outreach on-call? It’s Jenny, one of the respiratory ward doctors,” you begin.

“We need a bed.” Even Jonny can’t muster an upbeat tone eleven hours into a night shift. He’s the ICU doctor on outreach tonight, the link between the wards and our ivory tower.

“They all keep dying.”

I look up at Nico, surprised. The grizzled Bulgarian has been an ICU nurse for longer than i’ve been a doctor and I didn’t expect to hear the emotion in his voice.