The following manuscript was submitted to the April 2017 Arts in Medicine Themed Writing Contest.
Easter Sunday, intern year
MICU long-call consult resident
41-year-old female
recent diagnosis: invasive bladder cancer
life expectancy: 10 to 15 years, per oncology notes
neutropenic fever, pancytopenia
mucositis, oropharyngeal bleeding
consult, transferred to MICU
four hours later: “HELP!”
CODE BLUE
difficult airway, needle cricothyrotomy
ROSC?
time of death: 6:35 p.m.
husband, three young daughters
tears
guilt
regret
Resident Physician Contributing Writer
The Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University
Cameron Gettel is a PGY-2 in the Emergency Medicine Residency Program at Brown University in Providence, RI.