Last shift in the ER

As you can guess by the title, today was my last shift in the ER. The theme for the day seemed to be "patients I have seen before". A headache patient from last week came in after passing out today. An abdominal pain patient came in with chest pain. A 15-month-old with a broken elbow came in with burns on his hands. It was like the series finale of Seinfeld, bringing back everyone who had come before.

The most interesting patient was not a repeater, however, but someone with a nail gun (I'm sure you can see where this is going...) He was working on some overhead beams while building a new house, and here is the result:

When we wiggled on it, it was stuck pretty good, so we had to do some more x-rays to prove that it wasn't going through the bone (it wasn't). If it was, we would have to ship him down to OSU for emergent hand surgery with a board-certified hand surgeon. Fortunately, since it didn't go through the bone, we just numbed up his thumb and pulled. Post-nailectomy (I made that up) x-rays proved that everything was okay. He also got a tetanus shot and some antibiotics.

So, that is the end of my ER rotation in a nutshell. Tomorrow is a fun day of studying, and then the exam is Friday at 9. Fun times.