Working in the ED has made me painfully aware of just how many people there are in the world. I mean, if this many people in a relatively small city are presenting to the ER with "emergencies," and that’s just a small percentage of the population, then, folks, the world is huge. And I say that with nothing but love, of course. I genuinely care about all my patients. But let me tell you, it’s usually the triage notes that give you a quick, if unintentionally humorous, eye-rollable snapshot of the situation's non-emergency. Big shoutout to the triage nurses who write those, because sometimes, you can’t help but chuckle. Like this one I saw not too long ago:

I’ll admit it: I often dread working in the acute side of the ED, as I mentioned in a previous post. Not because I’m scared of traumas or the high-stakes intensity; in fact, it's the exact opposite. I actually thrive in chaos. But I just really, really hate the dynamic of scribing over there. If you’re curious about that, see "Under an Hour." That’s why, when I swapped shifts with another scribe and found myself scheduled for an A-side shift, I was a little less than thrilled. But hey, I figured, "Let's get it over with." Little did I know, that shift would be the one that gave me something to really write about.

As I reflect on my first few weeks as a medical scribe, I’m reminded of the classic phrase most medical students use to describe their early training: “It’s like drinking from a fire hose.” Now, I’m not here to compare scribing to med school, as this life will probably seem like paradise to me in a few years, but I will say that those first few shifts felt like being body-slammed, albeit less by information and more by real-world experience.