I told my emergency medicine team to ‘move on’ after a horrific patient death. That was a mistake
Emergency department physicians tend to "move on" after a death. That coping strategy isn't without its perils, and may contribute to burnout.
Kevin A., barely 20, lies bloody and broken on a gurney in my emergency department. He was ejected through the front windshield of his friend’s car as it rammed into a telephone pole. It’s hard to look at his ravaged face without feeling my own teeth breaking into pieces.
During the ambulance ride, his thready pulse vanished, if he ever had oneThe medics couldn’t distinguish what they felt from what they wished they felt. Regardless, Kevin’s heart isn’t beating now. The trauma team cracks open his rib cage and sternum in search of blood filling the sac around the heart,.
