Typical Day
Cam Ranside Yu's shift ends at 5:00PM today, and as she clocks in at 5:00AM she's already dreaming of clocking out. It'll be so nice to eat dinner like a regular person tonight—at a restaurant with her friend, at a reasonable hour. For the past three days, she's had so little time to eat that she's just sort of crammed her dinner into her mouth and chewed while rushing to her next appointment.
Once she's clocked in, she stocks supplies and equipment in four procedure rooms, the ultrasound room, and the operating room. By 6:00AM, the hospital is bustling. Cam has a bit of time before her first appointment, so she ducks into the break room and gets herself some coffee. Her best work-friend, Jackie, is already there.
"Jackie! Good morning, girl!" Cam hollers.
Jackie shoots her a death glare over the rim of her coffee mug. "Shh, no yelling. I don't care how long I've been waking up at this hour, it's still too early for me."
"Sorry," Cam whispers as she gets herself some coffee. Cam and Jackie chat for a few minutes, finish off their drinks, and then launch into action. It's time to start some procedures.
Cam can work about five procedures a day, and today's bunch is going to be pretty wild. She has two colonoscopies on the schedule, one esophagogastroduodenoscopy (EGD), one endoscopic ultrasound (EUD), and one endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography (ERCP). It's a mouthful. Cam can barely pronounce half of the procedures she's about to assist.
First stop is Christopher Gorman with his routine colonoscopy at 6:30AM. He came in two days ago to start prepping for this and has only had liquids since, so he's very hungry...and grumpy.
"Alright, let's get this over with," Christopher mumbles.
Cam assists the doctor in preparing and inserting a small scope into Christopher's colon. They look around and see a small abnormal growth. It's probably nothing, but they might as well take a tissue sample and check it out. Christopher's worried, but the doctor is an expert at putting people at ease. Cam's glad to have such a professional by her side.
When the procedure is done, Cam cleans the scopes, removes the dirty linens, and prepares the room for the next patient. Her next procedure is the ERCP. This puppy is a doozy, as it combines an endoscopy and X-rays to see what's going on with your pancreatic and bile ducts. The endoscope goes through your mouth and into your stomach and small intestine. Sounds like a great way to spend a morning, right?
Cam does not envy Willis Von Fleuvenheimer, the patient receiving the ERCP. The doc suspects that Willis has a pancreatic disease, but they need to take a closer look. Cam performs a basic physical under the supervision of the doctor before they take Willis into the operating room. He'll be out like a light for this procedure.
After another scope cleaning and more room prep, Cam is on to her next appointment: a 1:30PM EGD for Harry Reiner, who's been having horrible heartburn lately. Nothing he's done has helped, not even medication, so they're going to stick a camera down his throat to check the lining of the esophagus and stomach.
It sounds miserable, but Cam and the doctor are able to calm Harry down before putting him under for the scoping. Unfortunately, when he regains consciousness, he'll find out he actually has a stomach ulcer. That's what the camera says, and these cameras don't lie. Poor Harry. But at least they can start deciding how to solve the problem now that they've figured out what it is.
Cam writes up a report, does another quick, no-abnormal-results colonoscopy and moves on to her final procedure of the day: the EUD, or endoscopic ultrasound. Marie Tucker's digestive tract is going to be visited by a tube that's equal parts camera and ultrasound in order to find out what's causing her fecal incontinence. With some evaluation, Cam finds that Marie's muscles have been damaged; she'll need to have surgery to tighten them back up again.
The doctor gives Marie the news and Cam schedules her appointment for surgery. Cam cleans a couple more scopes for the last time today, washes her hands extremely thoroughly, and races home to get changed. She has a 6:30PM dinner reservation that she refuses to miss. She's looking forward to putting her camera skills to use in another field: Instagramming her dinner.