It could only happen to me.
And so I bade my goodbye. On the morning of the flight back to Manila, I wore this shirt that says “TRUST ME. I’M A DOCTOR”. This shirt was given to me by my aunt who originally bought it for her son, Kurt. Kurt originally wanted to be a doctor but then decided to pursue a career in filmmaking. Hence, the shirt goes to me by default. The shirt was cute and the meaning could be taken both ways. For me, it was like saying, I may not look like one, but trust me, I am a doctor (one American nurse told me, really? You look like a thirteen year old) or the cocky version which says, trust me because I am a doctor.
Either way, they kept laughing when I wore that shirt and told me “Just watch out that no emergency happens on the plane, or else you would have to attend to it.”
I have heard stories of doctors pretending not to be doctors when an emergency happens. Litigations make it hard for a doctor to heed the call I guess. I’ve often wondered, if whether beyond the confines of the hospital walls, I would respond to an emergency call. Except for the time when me, Pau and Jen went off to help this old man who fell on the street, I couldn’t recall any situation that would be as dramatic as having a room full of people shouting “Is there a doctor in the house” while someone dies slowly. It’s too movie-ish. Remember, I’m not the relative going into filmmaking.
As I was about to leave, for a second, I thought of leaving the shirt behind. But I laughed it off. Only a homeland security personnel asked me whether I was really a doctor. And then the plane flew off and twelve hours later, we were flying over what seemed to be Siberia. It was awesome. I stared out the window for about an hour. You think I would have enough of looking at the ice covered ocean after ten minutes. It just fascinated me. I only got to see those on discovery channel. I strained my eyes to see whether I could spot something moving down there. A polar bear perhaps? Then my thoughts drifted towards the future. I’ve been out of practice for a couple of months now. Do I still have what it takes to respond to an emergency? That thought was interrupted by a sudden commotion in the plane. Then the announcement “Is there a medical personnel on board?”. Please come forward and assist in a situation near the bathroom.
You must be kidding me.
I looked at my shirt. Well I guess I am a doctor, and proceeded to go and help the patient. It was a woman who passed out due to low blood pressure. I looked at the shirt and remembered how superman wore his “S” and I guess if you are wearing a label that says superman, you are obliged to fly or something. I don’t know. What do I know how superman thinks? I’m lois lane. Fortunately, there were two doctors there too (but they were wearing less auspicious shirts than me). The older doctor was donning a stethoscope and checking the woman’s blood pressure. After confirming her blood pressure, it was decided that a line was needed so we put up an IV. When older doctor removed his stethoscope from his ears, one of the earplugs for the stet was left inside his ear canal. “Uhmmm could someone help me please?”. I nearly died laughing.
A couple of nurses were there too, but they were there to contradict “I got something in my ears” doctor about his management. They kept talking about something which I thought, if I were clown doctor, I would have left the management up to them and walked back to my seat. They were quite obnoxious. I think that whenever there’s a situation, people should acknowledge who the captain is (in this case, it was doctor with the ear plugs stuck on his right ear) and proceed to obey instructions, unless of course he would suggest something outrageous like, uhmmm amputation. Anyways, I knew that since I got there after ear doctor,ultimately it was ear doctor who was the main physician and he should by all means, call the shots. I was there to assist him and not try to out perform him.
One of the nurses there kept rambling about the pathophysiology of hypotension. I get it. I know what hypotension is. I know what to do. (That’s what I thought). I wanted to say, wanna give a lecture to the crowd back there? They might applaud you for your good grasp of medical knowledge. Then she went on to describe her duties as a nurse for fourteen doctors. I love nurses but she was full of it. And that is gonna help this particular patient how? I let her be. Maybe the flight has some quiz bee later on and she needs to practice. I was tempted to answer back and tell her, yeah you know that hypotension and the sympathetic nervous system is quite something. Let me tell you about those natriuretic peptides and the hypothalamus and its entertaining interaction with the right atrium and the adrenal glands. Ready?
Fortunately, after the patient was stabilized, and the ear plug removed, all was quite well and nurse was very happy to have “lectured” us about hypotension. I went back to my seat.
People were reading my shirt.
And even though it was quite hot, I took out my sweater from the bag and wore it. I should go incognito and be clark kent.
This could only happen to me.
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