Dynamic

Every day is different. It is one of the wonderful yet challenging things of residency. While we get some continuity - rotations on pediatrics, months in the ICU, an expectation of how the operating room should be prepared - we also work with different patients, surgeons, attendings, and cases every day. It keeps us on our toes. And it also explains why we always have something to talk about - a patient interaction, a crisis situation, a perplexing question.

Last weekend, because of hospital construction, the power source switched from our regular mains power to backup generators. While many machines including the anesthesia machine and ventilator worked, I had to review what to do in a complete power failure. How do you get vital signs? How do you maintain anesthesia? Does the oxygen supply fail? What alternate light sources are there? We had an ongoing case, and I prepared laryngoscope blades as extra flashlights, checked my batteries on intravenous anesthetic delivery pumps, pulled out the old-school auscultation-based blood pressure cuff, and readied the machine to go into a low-consumption mode if the alternate generators failed and we went on battery power. Luckily, everything went fine and eventually, the hospital returned to mains power, but preparation is paramount, especially with a patient undergoing surgery.