Connect
MJA
MJA

Crossing over to the other side

Michael J Mackay
Med J Aust 2010; 193 (11): . || doi: 10.5694/j.1326-5377.2010.tb04115.x
Published online: 6 December 2010

What happened when a doctor on duty in the emergency department suddenly made the transition to “patient in Resus 2”?

“I am not sure exactly why you would want to put your coronary arteries through a full day of paediatric anaesthetics ...” a colleague had written in an email I was perusing in the emergency department on the morning of New Years Day. Suddenly, and unrelated to the contents of the email, I developed extreme anxiety. Recalling that, years ago, frequent irregular ectopic heartbeats had created similar, less severe anxiety, I felt my pulse, expecting to find it irregular. My pulse was regular, but the rate was 120 beats/min. I walked to the tearoom, hoping that whatever it was would go away. Although I had no chest pain, the short walk convinced me I could not ignore the symptoms. I told a colleague I thought I had SVT. In seconds, I made the transition from “doctor on duty in the emergency department” to “patient in Resus 2”.


  • Emergency Department and Department of of Anaesthetics, Gympie Hospital, Gympie, QLD.


Correspondence: mmackay@matilda.net.au

  • 1. Mackay MJ. A time to die. Med J Aust 2004; 181: 667-668. <MJA full text>
  • 2. Mackay M. Chocolate biscuits are poisonous and should be banned by the year 2000. N Z Med J 1988; 101: 804.

Author

remove_circle_outline Delete Author
add_circle_outline Add Author

Comment
Do you have any competing interests to declare? *

I/we agree to assign copyright to the Medical Journal of Australia and agree to the Conditions of publication *
I/we agree to the Terms of use of the Medical Journal of Australia *
Email me when people comment on this article

Online responses are no longer available. Please refer to our instructions for authors page for more information.