Empty Pockets

Many of the experiences in our work we smooth and shape in the retelling like pebbles being polished by the tides. Some are more valuable for their sharp edges and the pain and lesson they bring by holding them tight.

I spent part of my residency training at a city Veterans Hospital. Overnight call meant perpetual motion punctuated by frantic episodes of critical care. On this night we had done well, and by the time the first “code arrest” sounded overhead we all had managed to keep our heads above the tide. We arrived to the medical intensive care unit, wearing the authority our white coats gave us, to a bedside now ringed by staff. A trach collar had come loose and the trach itself unseated, but all had been corrected. Sorry about the run.

A curtain separated beds in this area of the intensive care unit, and each curtain had been pulled when the code was called. I lingered to one side, planning to stay …