Medical stories. Real funny stories in medicine. United Medical history of resuscitator

I once got into a serious accident and received very serious injuries. Thank God for medicine, the doctors I came across were experienced and performed all the necessary operations quickly and efficiently. And here I am lying after operations, I'm recovering little by little, but then I couldn’t walk, and in general, in principle, I couldn’t move. Against the background of a long immobility I got an unpleasant illness called double pneumonia and it got to the point where I had to be treated in intensive care. This is what we will talk about.
Unlike most local patients, I was conscious and clear-headed and, of course, immediately became acquainted with the nurses. The latter was a joy, because the shifts in the intensive care unit are long, and sometimes you really want to talk. Yes, and I was glad about this, because lying silently all day and most of the night simply examining the situation turned out to be a very boring task.
It always seemed to me that the intensive care unit was staffed by these men in skirts, who couldn’t stop a galloping horse or tie a violent patient to a bed. But no, all the nurses turned out to be absolutely simple girls, very sweet and feminine. By the way, there was one violent person in our ward, but they dealt with him very quickly. He was a colorful character. Covered in tattoos (as far as I could see), a loud-mouthed rural shepherd communicates exclusively with choice swearing. They are in intensive care due to excessive alcoholic libations.
My favorite time was night. At night, people tend to have more frank conversations, which I took advantage of, having long conversations with my guardians. One day, in the midst of such a conversation, a new patient was brought into the ward. The big guy, a Tatar, was moaning loudly and, as it seemed to me, was choking. That night I saw a precordial blow being delivered for the only time in my life. But this didn’t help the guy either; about ten minutes after he was admitted he was already taken out. Feet forward. As it turned out, he suffered a massive myocardial infarction. At 24 years old.
There was another death in our ward. An obese woman, lying peacefully near the window, suddenly stopped breathing. She, too, could not be saved, despite adrenaline, defibrillators and the whole range of other resuscitation measures. Two deaths per ward in ten days. The nurses said that this was not the worst statistic at all.
However, my time of treatment has come to an end. I can’t say that I didn’t want to leave, but I said goodbye to the nurse on duty very warmly. I was lucky with them. There was still a whole series of rehabilitations ahead, but that’s a completely different story...

This confession material of mine was published on June 15, 2000 and was dedicated to the Day medical worker. In those years, we wrote a lot about the unique family of Zheleznogorsk doctors - Asya and Vladimir Laishevtsev. She is a SES doctor, he is a resuscitator-anesthesiologist. Vladimir Alexandrovich passed away seven years ago - in April 2009, he was 61 years old. Asya Khadyevna - a year and a half ago. Recently, the Laishevtsevs’ youngest daughter, Yulia, called and said that while sorting out her parents’ papers, she found this publication. She asked to print it again in memory of her father. Because the confession was written (now why hide it) from the words of Vladimir Alexandrovich. And Yulia called, without knowing it, exactly on International Anesthesiologist Day - October 16. We decided to fulfill the request. Moreover, in the 16 years that have passed since the article was published, nothing in this world has changed.

Iresuscitator. And to be more precise, a resuscitator-anesthesiologist. You ask, which is preferable? I will answer you: horseradish is not sweeter than radish. One duty is as a resuscitator, another as an anesthesiologist, but the essence is the same - the fight against death. We have learned to feel it, damned, with all our guts. And if we speak scientific language, then a biofield. Don't believe that she is gray-haired and holding a scythe. She can be young and beautiful: cunning, flattering and mean. It will relax, reassure and deceive. I spent two decades in intensive care, and I’m tired...

I am tired of the constant tension, of this borderline state between life and death, of the groans of the sick and the crying of their relatives. I was finally tired of myself. From my own conscience, which poisons my existence and does not allow me to live in peace after each death. Every death stamps a question in the brain: have you done everything? You were at that moment when the soul was rushing between heaven and earth, and you did not detain it among the living. You're wrong, doctor.

I hate you, damn inner voice. It’s you who doesn’t let you relax, day or night. It's you that keeps me in constant voltage and tormented by constant doubts. It’s you who makes me, after a 24-hour shift, scoop everything out of the house onto the floor medical textbooks and look, look, look... for that saving thread that weak hope will grab onto. I found that you can try this method. I called the department - how is the patient?

How optimistic do you have to be not to go crazy from all this? Optimism in intensive care - do you like it? Two completely incompatible concepts. Anyone can escape from stress as best they can; everyone has their own “shift.” Any option is accepted: running into the taiga alone, metal minting, oil painting, skiing, fishing, hunting, tourism... We save people, and our hobbies save us.

Save... We have worn out this word almost to an empty sound. But every time there is someone’s tragedy, someone’s fate behind it. Ask any resuscitator - how many people has he saved? He won't answer for anything. It is impossible to count everyone you helped at a critical moment. You gave him anesthesia - and the person owes you his life.

For some reason, patients do not consider an anesthesiologist a doctor at all. It's a shame, by God. They call and ask: who did the surgery? And they will never ask who gave the anesthesia, who was responsible for the patient’s life during the operation? We calculated: an anesthesiologist gives five thousand anesthesia a year. Five thousand stresses - only from anesthesia! After all, every time you take responsibility for someone else’s life: you, an anesthesiologist, turn off the patient’s consciousness, and thereby deprive him of the opportunity to breathe on his own, and therefore to live.

What we fear most is complications. We say this: there are no small anesthesia, there are major complications after them. Sometimes the risk of anesthesia exceeds the risk of the surgery itself. Anything can happen - vomiting, allergic shock, respiratory arrest. How many cases have there been when patients died under anesthesia right on the operating table? Before every operation you go and pray to God that there are no surprises.

We are especially afraid of surprises. Everyone became superstitious... about the sick. You go and lament: just not a health worker, not a redhead, not a criminal, not a relative or an employee of the NPO PM. For some reason these people always cause trouble. As soon as we suspect a “surprise,” we spit three times and knock on wood.

There are 11 doctors in our department, and we all have the same problems: ischemic disease heart disorder heart rate and... sciatica. Yes Yes, occupational disease- radiculitis. A thousand seriously ill patients pass through our department every year, and each one must be lifted, shifted, transported... Every second of us has a heart failure - as soon as emotional stress, you feel it turning over in your chest.

They say the Americans calculated that average duration The life of a resuscitator is 46 years. And in America, too, doctors devote no more than 10 years to this specialty, considering it the most harmful industry. Too many stress factors. We have already lost two from our squad. They were 46 and 48. Healthy men, they say about such people “you can’t kill them with a butt,” but their hearts couldn’t stand it...

How can you stand it when death takes someone’s life before your eyes? For six months, a bleeding young guy stood before my eyes, wounded by a kebab skewer in subclavian artery. He kept repeating: “save me, save me.” He was conscious and “left” right before our eyes.

I will never forget another incident. The man with a heart attack was recovering and was already being prepared for transfer to a specialized department. He lies there, talks to me, and suddenly his pupils become clouded, there are convulsions and instant death. Right before our eyes. Anyone who has experienced this at least once will understand me. This feeling is difficult to convey: pity, despair, resentment and anger. Resentment towards him for letting the doctor down, for deceiving his hopes. I just want to scream: ungrateful! And anger at myself. For your powerlessness before death, for the fact that she managed to deceive you. Then I remember crying. I spent the entire evening at home trying to drown out this unbearable emotional groan with vodka. Did not help. I understand that we are not Gods, we are just doctors.

How many times have we, resuscitators, had to observe clinical death and bring people back to life? Already from the other world. Do you think we believe in Parallel Worlds and the other world? Nothing like this. We are practitioners and we were taught atheism. For us there is no hell or heaven. We ask everyone who experienced clinical death about their feelings: no one THERE saw anything. They say my eyes darkened, my ears began to ring, and I don’t remember what happened next.

But we believe in fate. How else can we explain that someone survives who, according to all the canons, should not have made it out, and someone else dies, for whom medicine predicted life? The head of one guy from Dodonovo was cut off with an ax, just below the eyes they were sewn up - and nothing happened. A woman was brought in with a road injury - a bus overturned, everything possible was broken, she had a severe head injury, there was a feeling that one half of her face was separated from the other. Everyone was sure that she would not survive. And she took it and cheated death. I meet her in the city, I recognize her: foundation the scar on the face is retouched, barely noticeable - beautiful, healthy woman. There was a case where a horse hit a child with its hoof and pierced his skull right through. By all accounts, he should not have lived. Survived. One young man three times (!) he was brought in with a wound to the heart, and three times he pulled out. So don't believe in fate. Another squeezed out a pimple on his face (this happened too!) - sepsis and death. Such an absurd death - a woman injured her leg, it was in the garden, it was either simply rubbed or scratched - blood poisoning, and they were not saved.

Although, somewhere deep down, we believe in God. And if hell and heaven still exist, we honestly admit: we will burn. For our mistakes and for human deaths. There is a black joke among doctors: the more experienced the doctor, the larger the cemetery behind him. But for one death that could not be prevented, we are rehabilitated before our own conscience and before God by dozens of saved lives. We fight for everyone to the last. I will never forget how they saved a young woman with bleeding after a caesarean section from death. She was transfused with 25 liters of blood and three buckets of plasma!

We have stopped being afraid of death; we stand next to it too often: every tenth person dies in intensive care. The only fear is a long, painful illness. God forbid it should be a burden to someone. We have seen hundreds of such patients. I know what it’s like to break your spine when only your brain works and everything else is motionless. Such patients only live for a month or two. There was a guy who unsuccessfully dived into the pool, another who jumped into the river, a third one drank in the bathhouse and decided to cool off... They fall from cedar trees and break their necks. A broken spine is generally a seasonal tragedy - summer and autumn are the best times.

I saw how two hard workers died - they drank vinegar (they got drunk from the wrong bottle), and I would not wish such a painful death on my enemy.

About 50 people a year are admitted to our department with poisoning, and 8-10 of them do not survive. Either this year or last year there was a 24-year-old guy who drank sulfuric acid with the intention of committing suicide. They brought him in - he was conscious. How he regretted that he had done this! 10 hours later he was gone. And a 47-year-old woman who decided to commit suicide and drank chlorophos. The smell stayed in the department for two weeks! For me now he is always associated with death. "

Someone correctly identified resuscitation as the most aggressive specialty: such manipulations. But you can’t do them badly. There is a struggle for life: from indirect massage hearts break ribs, insertion of a catheter into main vessel is fraught with damage to the lung or trachea, complicated intubation during anesthesia - and you can lose several teeth. We are afraid to allow the slightest inaccuracy in our actions, we are afraid of everything...

We are afraid when they bring children. Burns, injuries, poisoning... The child was two years old. Grandma's bottle of clonidine was not saved. Another child took a sip of vinegar. The mother is hysterical - she says she could barely open the bottle, but the four-year-old child managed to open it... The worst thing is the muffled maternal howl at the bedside of a sick child. And eyes full of hope and despair: help! For each such scene we get another scar on the heart.

We, resuscitators, belong to the group increased risk for good health. You ask, what are we not afraid of? We are no longer afraid of syphilis - we have been treated for it several times. I will never forget how they brought a bloody young woman after car accident. About 15 people were busy around her - everyone was covered in blood from head to toe. Some people put on gloves, some didn’t, some were torn, some were injured, no one thought about precautionary measures - no matter what, human life is at stake. The test results the next day showed four crosses for syphilis. All staff were treated.

We are no longer afraid of tuberculosis, scabies, lice, hepatitis. Once they brought an elderly man from Balchug - with alcohol intoxication and in unconscious. They called an ENT doctor, and before our eyes he pulled out a dozen maggots from the patient’s ear. To have worms living in your ears - I’ve never seen anything like this!

IN last years More and more patients are being admitted with psychosis. From life, or something like that. Elementary pneumonia occurs with severe mental disorders. Patients jump off, the system, catheters are pulled out, they try to jump out of the window... One of them, drunk, kicked a pregnant nurse in the stomach - tell me that our work does not involve a risk to life.

They say about us - therapy on the run. We always rush to help those who desperately need it. It’s hard to imagine us sitting quietly. People don't let us relax at all. Young people fall from heights - have fun on the balcony, open the window in the entrance and sit on the windowsill - jokingly push... Over the past three months, several people like this have visited our department. A seventeen-year-old girl fell from the eighth floor, landing on the entrance canopy. She remained alive.

How much do we seize? foreign bodies- you can open a museum from them. What they don’t swallow: there was a woman who swallowed, along with a piece of cake, a plastic candlestick from a small holiday candle. It is sharp as a needle - it drilled into the stomach. There were so many complications! They fought for her life for a very long time and saved her. From respiratory tract We take out bones, nuts, pine nuts, among others. Once they brought a woman straight from the canteen - a piece of unchewed meat was stuck in her throat. By that time it had already arrived clinical death, respiratory arrest. The heart was started and transferred to a machine artificial respiration, but... they couldn’t save him - too much time had passed. And such patients - one after another. Peace comes only after duty, and then for the body, not for the head. I go home and look at the neck of everyone I meet. And I find myself wondering: will intubation be easy or with complications? You come home, sit down in your favorite chair and stare blankly at the TV. In the grip of chronic tension, you can’t relax or fall asleep. There is a roar in my ears from artificial respiration devices, now all five are working - when did this happen? When you come to work, it’s like going to a workshop, there’s no one to talk to: all day long there’s only mechanical inhalation and exhalation.

Even after a shift, the events of the past day are constantly replaying in my head: did I do everything right? No, you can't sleep without a bottle. And there is a catastrophic lack of money. Sometimes you get these “tears” (2700 for two bets) and you think: why do I need all this? I would live in peace. In some Czechoslovakia, a resuscitator receives up to 45 thousand dollars a month! In our country, everything is done through... a catheter. Doctors, as well as the entire intelligentsia, are in the pen. There is only one consolation - that someone needs you. You saved a man from death and were reborn with him.

They say that this month, June, is dangerous for heart patients: that means there will be more work for us too. By the way, I need to buy nitroglycerin and put it in my chest pocket, I seem to have run out...

I continue to add new things in real funny stories of medical workers.

From a dialogue between a patient’s relative and the medical director:
- Of course, your neck will hurt, since your pillows are so bad!
- Ours and the bad ones?! Yes, if you knew how many patients died from them!

From the medical history, appointment:
T. Omeprazoli - 20 mg
s/c 2 times a day (it is difficult to administer the tablet subcutaneously)

From the dialogue of patients:
- You know, I completely disdain bananas. Firstly, they are terribly harmful, and secondly, they are collected from blacks, and they are all genetically sick with gonorrhea from birth.
- No, that's not true. Not all, most.

From a dialogue between a cardiac surgeon and an intensive care unit doctor:
- The patient's hemoglobin is 52 g/l. Why didn’t you conduct a cancer search (FGDS, bronchoscopy, etc.)???
- At the time the patient was admitted to the intensive care unit, it was assumed that the oncological search would be carried out in the conditions of the pathology department...

“You can’t rush past the intensive care unit. Unless straight to the cemetery.”

Head department:
- I'm covered in blood, like Pinocchio...

It’s strange, they administered a sedative to one patient, but the other was sleeping...

“When you fall asleep in bed with a cigarette, remember that the ashes on the floor could be yours.”

Regulated entry into the I/B during resuscitation:
"... the patient is indicated for the administration of poisonous medicinal substances"(about atropine)

Conversation with an antisocial patient with tuberculosis, before pleural puncture:
- Can you tolerate Novocaine?
- Don't know.
- Have you been to the dentist?
- No.
-Where are all the teeth?
- I deleted it myself.
- How are you?
- Pliers.
- Maybe you can puncture yourself?
- So I can’t see from behind.
- I'll put a mirror for you...

Conversation in the nurse's room:
- Pregnant women need to eat vegetables, as many vegetables as possible...
- If you eat only vegetables, you can give birth to Cippolino!

Chief's secretary:
- Hello! Reanimation? Could you please revive Nokia, otherwise she’s completely dying.

Patient with extensive heart attack myocardium:
- I took captopril, and then, apparently, I bought a fake one. Well, he faked me... And he did it!

Registration in the i/b (bypass of the associate professor and head of the department):
"... taking into account the dynamics of the ECG and the absence of an increase in the level of markers of myocardial damage in the blood, an idea emerges of an episode of acute coronary insufficiency non-coronarogenic genesis."

The patient's blood pressure is low. More precisely, we can say that it does not exist at all.

A surgeon examining a patient with peritonitis:
- Or maybe she has a central genesis?

I had a patient - several walkers, covered in tattoos, three heart attacks...
- How do they designate heart attacks?

Radiologist N.A. discusses with manager In the department at the post there are pictures of the patient who is currently being resuscitated:
- According to the pictures, there’s nothing special, even positive dynamics, but (looking at the patient), in my opinion, she doesn’t feel well...

Sick right hand makes constant small movements and has already removed the urinary catheter.
- Yes, this is known. The scrotum is scratched before death.

Conversation with the surgeon 2 x.o.:
- We have a sick person - either a professor or an academician...
- Why do you have it? There is a special hospital for them - the Academy of Sciences Hospital!

X-ray technician, breathing heavily to the side:
- What photo do you need?
- Observational.
- An overview of the heart or an overview of the lungs?

Hello, this is O.V. You have a sick M., this is the mother of my very close friend. How is her condition? I'm so worried about her!
- The condition is extremely serious...
- OK then. I'm flying to Egypt today. Could you text me if she dies?

What will you think about if a young girl comes to an appointment and says that she always lacks air and wants to do deep breath to push air into the lungs?
Nurse's answer (5th year student): About the fact that her bra is tight

Well, the woman tells me: “Come in tomorrow - tomorrow they will be there.” Yesterday I came tomorrow, and there was a man. I say: “Man, there was a woman here yesterday, and she promised me!”

Elder sister:
- I’ll ask the sisters to go on maternity leave strictly according to schedule. And make a schedule in advance...

From the medical history: “Examination in the emergency department. The patient lies on the couch and moans rhythmically.”

Diagnosis upon admission to the ENT department: “Fly in the ear”
Diagnosis at discharge: “there is no fly in the ear.”

The wife put a saucepan on her husband's head. He was admitted with a diagnosis: “Head in a foreign body.”

The ambulance once wrote “a bruise to the whole grandmother...”

Entry in the resuscitation card: “Despite the therapy, the patient developed cadaveric spots.”

Diagnosis: “General debility of the body.”
From the diary in the medical history: “The patient is in a coma. He slept peacefully that night.”

"The patient's condition is serious. A resuscitator has been called. There is a smell of alcohol on his breath. He does not deny drinking alcohol."

In one hospital, the title pages of medical records were filled out by a semi-literate granny. In one of these stories, the attending physician discovered the entry “Profession: dog-cooker.” They began to find out what kind of profession this was. It turned out to be a sandblaster.

“Despite the treatment, there was no deterioration.”

Surgeon in outpatient card: "...Diagnosis: malignant tumor - cancer..."
He is in the objective status: “PIS is normal.” They couldn’t decipher it for a long time... it turned out that the liver and spleen were normal

The anesthesiologist-resuscitator's note in the inpatient's chart reads: " resuscitation measures no effect - I woke up on my own."

“... On the chest and back there is a large torn jacket...”

“The patient has been diagnosed with potato indigestion.”

“The temperature was brought down by shaking the thermometer.”

"Diagnosis: laceration graze and puncture wound blinked."

“... The patient was taken to the emergency room with numerous relatives...”

“The patient considers himself Kutuzov based on what is written in his passport.”

“...I refused to close one eye under the pretext that I didn’t want to sleep...”

“Wasserman’s reaction is positive, the patient’s reaction is not.”

“... The patient feels well, she has never felt this way with anyone before.”

“The patient’s heart and he himself beat rhythmically...”

“Fluorography of the patient revealed a malfunction of the induction coil of the X-ray machine.”

“The patient stated that he urinated in Lately accompanied by unbearable pleasure..."

“I stopped walking under myself. Beats around the bush."

“Tolerates the enema well, swears in a whisper...”

“The patient thinks that he is very smart, but we hired him here to treat him for a pittance.”

“In the area of ​​the coccyx, a passage leading into the depths of the patient is clearly palpable. The passage is clearly visible, without deviations, straight, well developed. To the touch, the length of the patient’s intestines is 10-14 meters. This is fine".

“Before admission to our clinic, the patient was examined by aliens. The certificate they issued says: “Bus ticket, one way travel”…”

“According to the patient, hawthorn tincture helps him a lot...”

“After removing the bucket of stolen bleach from under the patient’s bed, his cough and discharge from his mouth and nose disappeared.”

“He complained of an acute, cutting hangover, fever from the pipes.”

“The patient refused treatment, citing poor health, and also the fact that she was not a patient, but a painter...”

“To the touch the patient turned out to be 150 cm tall, a girl...”

“Over the past two weeks, the patient’s bowel movements have normalized to a frequency of zero times a day.”

“Before his death, the patient looked fine and did not complain about anything. This condition continued after the patient’s death.”

“After the treatment, mental functions were completely restored, normal wrinkles appeared on the forehead, convolutions appeared...”

“...I refused the therapeutic daily viewing of the table for an eye test...”

The girl is developing normally, the testicles are in the scrotum. (in the medical card)

“The patient has been given a prescription, which we ask you to eat.”

“Also, the left eye said that it does not see normally.”

"The color of the stool smells really bad."

“In 1987, ovarian carcinoma was removed, which felt good.”

“We’ll make a photocopy of the patient and give it to him with us.”

"Fell while walking my bike"

“We’ll treat the patient with several doses of prednisolone over a couple of days.”

“He says that his ears are quite painful in the morning, especially when he lifts them from the pillow.”

"Using the right ear on the left side is not recommended"

"There's inflammation on my toe. Let's remove all five toes."

"The patient was able to speak normally with his right ear"

"I got diabetes. I'm still sick"

"The patient received symptomatic treatment, the benefit of which was temporary"

"Testicle and penis"

"The patient came to show his middle finger"

“When peeling potatoes, my right ankle hurt.”

"I fell off the toilet on Independence Day"

"In the morning my lips started to droop"

"The patient is the driver. Otherwise he is healthy."

"Drinks 20 bottles of beer a day. Claims that beer is the only one suitable for him
food. Denies alcohol consumption"

"The condition is satisfactory. Currently dead."

The patient was not sexually active before the ambulance arrived. (From the medical history)

The patient claims that aliens live in her home under the guise of cockroaches. (From the medical history)

There is no patient in the ward, which means the condition is satisfactory. (From the medical history)

The patient is active in bed and often changes positions. (From the medical history)

The patient urinated in a thin, gentle stream. (Entry in the ambulance call card)

The patient associates the disease with food intake - yesterday he drank and ate sausage that was lying at work. (From the entry on the sick leave)

In the lower third right shin puncture wound (rooster pecked). (From the diagnosis)

As a result of unrealized aggression, the dog expresses its protest towards the owner through frequent urination. (From the veterinarian's diagnosis)

The dishes in the girl’s hands cracked and shattered into glass pieces, partially piercing her body to injure her. (From the medical history)

Preliminary diagnosis: abrasion of the left heel. Final diagnosis: fracture right leg. (Entry on the certificate of incapacity for work)

Diagnosis: acute respiratory infection. Final diagnosis: burn of the left shoulder blade. (From the medical history)

Patient complaints: urination plus high pressure. (From the hospital record)

Complains about his eyesight: he can no longer distinguish a girl from a woman. (From the medical history)

And they did the enema, but he is still silent. (From the medical history)

He treated himself with home remedies: he drank vodka in the morning and wine in the afternoon. (From the medical history)

Violating the regimen prescribed to him, the patient introduced piglet with horseradish into his body. (From the medical history)

The patient's condition is noted to be improved - he stretches his legs independently. (From the medical history)

An examination of the external genitalia revealed no abnormalities - eggs in the scrotum. (From the medical history)

The patient's condition is satisfactory, the temperature is normal, there was no stool, the professor was examined. (From the medical history)

Thanks again for the responses!!!)))

Death in the intensive care unit is a frequent visitor. Rarely does anyone see her, but some hear her, and many feel her closeness. According to doctors and nurses who have been working with extremely seriously ill patients for years, she comes quietly, almost inaudibly...

“I was on duty in the intensive care unit,” said a nurse at one of the hospitals, “when the lights suddenly went out due to an accident. I immediately grabbed a breathing bag and began to ventilate the lungs of a young man who had not yet woken up from anesthesia. Suddenly I heard quiet steps behind me. It seemed as if someone was walking nearby in soft felt slippers. When the light was turned on, the patient was dead."

Here is a story from a nurse from another hospital:
“In the ward for extremely critically ill patients, a young man was dying of liver cancer. Such patients are not resuscitated, but are given a drip with painkillers and sleeping pills. The patient sleeps without pain and suffering until death, but none of the doctors and nurses brings it closer. Euthanasia (the right to die) is prohibited by law and, most importantly, by modern medical morality. I came to replace the IV and heard quiet steps behind me. She turned around and saw the sheet above the patient rise slightly and then fall back into place. He shuddered, took a shallow breath and did not exhale again. I closed his eyes, tied his hands with a towel, and at that moment I heard footsteps moving away."

A 16-year-old girl was raped by a gang of scum. And to cover her tracks, she threw her from the fourth floor onto the asphalt. She was brought to the operating room critical condition. Arterial pressure was no longer determined. Resuscitation efforts began immediately. This time, quiet steps were heard by several people from the resuscitation team. "Get the strangers out of the operating room!" - said the surgeon on duty, and the steps moved away. The girl was saved. Later, when her life was out of danger, doctors and nurses remembered: who could come into their operating room? It turned out that no one saw the strangers, but almost everyone heard the steps.

In the intensive care unit of one of the hospitals in St. Petersburg, ward N5 is empty. There is equipment there ready for decommissioning, and department employees try not to enter there unless absolutely necessary. The fact is that many years ago the head of this department died in the ward. He died of lung cancer long and painfully. Since then, the ghost of the professor has lived in this room. I must admit, I managed to take a course on scientific atheism at the institute and did not believe in such stories.
In 1992, a young nurse came to work with us, right after college. The duty was calm, and she was allowed to sleep for a few hours. Just for fun, we sent her to sleep in that same room. Of course, for the purity of the experiment, they didn’t talk about the ghost. About an hour later a wild scream was heard. I've never heard a woman scream like that. We ran into the room and began to calm the nurse down. Half an hour later she came to her senses and said that a one-eyed man approached her, touched her face and said: “This is my bed!”
Even if her sister had heard rumors about a ghost, she could not know that the late manager had lost an eye in the war. Since then, we have not repeated such experiments, and the ward continues to be empty.

In intensive care, simply put, in reviving a suddenly deceased patient, the main thing is time. A few seconds in one direction or another can determine success or failure. Of course, the first successful resuscitation for every cardiologist is a memorable, unforgettable event.

I also remember my first successful resuscitation, which at first I was immensely proud of. But then my memories of this event were colored by more complex, less clear-cut feelings.

His last name was Rakov. Moreover, he was born on the first of July, that is, according to his horoscope he was a Cancer. At that time I made a small discovery for myself, noticing that many of the patients acute heart attack myocardial patients celebrate their birthday in the hospital, that is, their heart attacks (and for some, death) occurred in the month preceding their birthday. So, I carefully tracked the patients' birth dates on the title pages of the case reports. And Rakov, by the way, did not fall outside of this rule. Of course, I noticed all this later. And my first meeting with him, then a patient still unknown to me, occurred thanks to his death and the need for resuscitation.
To be completely precise, I had seen him before, when I entered the ward during the evening rounds of the department.

Good evening. How are you feeling? No complaints?

None of the patients in the four-bed ward, lying and sitting on their beds, complained about anything, and I, wishing them Good night, went further without paying attention special attention not one of them, including Viktor Rakov. No one from this ward was transferred on duty, so I had no reason to deal with them in more detail.

Soon after I finished my rounds and settled down in the resident’s room with a stack of stories, the alarm rang - I was called to intensive care. I rushed into the room intensive care, in which the most seriously ill patients lay, but resuscitation was not required there. Before I even reached this room, I saw nurse Galya taking a defibrillator out of it on a special gurney - an angular metal box with a voltmeter scale and three crude plastic buttons.

“To the twentieth,” she shouted to me as we walked.

In the twentieth ward, a bald man of forty or fifty years old was lying on the floor. It turned out that he suddenly lost consciousness - right during the conversation.

“Come out, everyone,” I ordered the two patients, frozen in their beds.

One of them turned to the side and did not look at the lying body. The other, on the contrary, stared at him and at us. The third patient, apparently the one who called the sister from the block, was looking in from the corridor through the open door.

The doctor forbade me to walk,” said the curious patient.
- Then turn to the wall.

There was no pulse in the neck. Opening the striped hospital pajamas on the patient’s chest, I placed the receiver and made sure that no heartbeats could be heard. There was no time to take an electrocardiogram. The algorithm of actions in the department was as follows: carry out defibrillation immediately, without wasting time on taking an ECG. Because if the patient has fibrillation, then an electric discharge can help him, but if there is asystole, the defibrillator discharge will not make him worse.

An experienced nurse had already turned on the defibrillator and stood ready with two electrodes covered with multilayers of gauze, already doused with water. Together, we slipped a flat, wide round piece under the back of the unconscious man. I placed the second electrode, of a smaller diameter, on a long insulated handle to his chest above the heart area and commanded my sister and myself:

Everyone left! Charge... - and making sure that the needle on the defibrillator scale moved to the red zone, he continued: - Discharge!

The patient's body twitched from the electric shock.

And almost immediately he began to feel palpitations. He came to his senses. The electrocardiogram showed no negative dynamics; signs of large-focal myocardial infarction, which developed a week ago, remained.

I was then proud of my success - after several resuscitations, which ended with a meeting with pathologists, I was able to revive a deceased person.
Before this, unsuccessful resuscitations followed one after another. From time to time I even began to have a seditious thought - is it even possible to revive someone by defibrillation? Or am I just that inept?

And finally, I succeeded. I felt special feelings for this patient: either maternal or master's. They were probably akin to the feelings of an obstetrician who for the first time took a new life into his hands.

The patient is a simple person working profession, it seems, did not understand what happened to him, did not realize that he had returned from the other world. And that he could now have another zodiac sign - according to the date of resuscitation, if these signs did not coincide.

As expected, after resuscitation the patient was transferred to the intensive observation ward, where he spent several days, and then returned to his bed in ward 220.
A few days later, this ward and a couple of other wards were handed over to me. I don't remember why anymore. The doctor who was treating them either fell ill or went on vacation, and her rooms had to be divided between the remaining doctors.

I began to understand the stories of the patients I received and get to know them themselves. Along with other patients, I received Rakov. That's how I became his attending physician.
The course of Rakov’s heart attack was normal, except for fibrillation, the cause of which remained unclear.

But something else was wrong. Some unnatural complexion. Blood tests show slight anemia. Complaints of shortness of breath and, at times, cough. Some pain in the chest, not very similar to heart pain.

I started digging. I repeated all the blood tests. Ordered a repeat x-ray chest- not only in direct, but also in lateral projections.

The X-ray revealed a tumor in the patient’s left lung, which was hidden in the first image behind the shadow of the heart. The oncologist called for a consultation diagnosed inoperable cancer of the last – fourth – stage.

They did not say anything to the patient. They informed his wife about the unexpected find, and after a while he was discharged home.

How much longer he lived, I don’t know. I don’t know which of his illnesses brought him to his grave.

But I no longer felt joy about his successful resuscitation.

Was it necessary to save a person from easy death to condemn him to a slow and painful death? I still don’t know the answer.

General medical rule states that it is necessary to try to save any human life. Although there is an exception to this rule - terminal cancer patients are not subject to resuscitation (according to at least, in domestic practice). But how could I know in advance that I was resuscitating advanced cancer?

Memories of the first successful resuscitation are mixed in my memory with the offensive feeling that someone or something above us (the stars, for example) cruelly laughed at me, and with a bitter feeling of the futility and temporary nature of any human success.
20.02.2004

Reviews

Hello. I also noticed a “thinning of karma” around my birthday. You definitely start to get sick or be especially vulnerable. Of course, it was necessary to save Viktor Rakov, because you acted without knowing about the disease. Even if you knew about cancer, I think you would save it. Thanks for the story.