I Want to Be a Doctor

Dr. Robin: Welcome back to *I Want to Be a Doctor or Something*. I’m Dr. Robin, and I’m here with my friend Jill, a registered nurse.

Jill: Hi, friends. We’re two healthcare besties, sharing the real, wild, and funny side of medicine for anyone who’s thought about a healthcare career. Ready? Let’s go.

Jill: Robin, I was thinking that today we would do an “Is It Only Me?”

Dr. Robin: Yeah, okay.

Jill: Well, I’ve been thinking of one because, with you being a doctor especially, I’d love to know your opinion. When you were practicing, were you afraid of Code Blues?

Dr. Robin: So scared of them. I mean, who can enjoy them?

Jill: Oh my goodness, I know. Me too. I was terrified. I remember my very first one. I had just gotten out of nursing school and had gone to work at a long-term care facility, but it was a skilled-care facility. I was doing my med pass, going down the hallway and checking in with all my patients, even if they weren’t getting medications. Everybody looked fine.

When I came back up the hallway, I looked into their rooms again, and in a room to my right, a gentleman was blue. He had been fine just a few minutes before, but now he was blue. So I ran in, did all the assessments, and yelled, “Code Blue!” But I was freaking out because I thought, “What am I going to do?”

The cool thing is that all that training becomes almost automatic. The nurses who were there rushed in with the crash cart, and everybody started taking over their roles. We didn’t have a doctor in the facility at the time, but one came very soon after. The gentleman was sent out. The good thing is that his wife called the next day and thanked us for doing that. He had actually made it. He had a long recovery ahead, but it was really good to know that. It was very, very scary.

Dr. Robin: Well, and to be the person who finds him—that is so scary too, because then you’re thinking, “It’s on me. I have to do something right now. What do I do?”

Jill: Yeah. I had just seen him. He was talking, and his color looked fine. He had some health issues and things like that, but to see the change so quickly was frightening. I was really thankful for the training I had. That definitely helped.

Jill: What about you? Any stories?

Dr. Robin: Code Blues are just terrifying. As a doctor, you’re at the head of the bed, and you’re having to make decisions. Nowadays, it’s much easier because the AED is automatic, right? You stick it on, and it tells you whether to shock them or not. But back then, we had to look at the EKG and know what to do.

Of course, when you’re scared, your brain completely turns off. You’re looking at this EKG going, “I’ve never seen an EKG before in my life.” I mean, you have, but you’re just like, “I don’t know what to do right now.” Yeah, I hated being that person.

On my way to the first one—I don’t know how many I’ve been to—the thing they always tell medical students is, “There’s nothing you can do to make it worse. They’re dead already.” It’s such a dark, weird thing, but at the same time, you’re thinking about how often the picture on TV is that you always bring them back and make everything better. You’ve got to fix it. You’re the miracle worker. On TV, the doctor is the miracle worker.

That’s a lot of pressure to put on someone when they’re a human being. Once you’ve been in medicine long enough, you learn to balance those expectations. But as a brand-new medical student, you feel like you’re being handed this responsibility to be a miracle worker. Being told, “You can’t make it worse. They’re dead already”—that’s by definition what’s going on with a Code Blue—makes you think, “Oh, okay. I’m not God. I don’t have to fix this. This is the reality; I’ll do what I can.” It was helpful, but I still hated it.

Jill: Yeah, me too. I mean, it’s definitely an adrenaline rush, but afterward I was always like, “Whoa, that just happened.” So, yeah, it’s not something we enjoy, for sure. But when it has a happy ending, that’s always a very good bright side.

Dr. Robin: It sure is. Some people really like adrenaline rushes, and some people don’t. There are people who go into things with a lot of adrenaline, whether it’s emergency medicine, trauma, or things like that. Then there are people like anesthesiologists, who are so chill but are also so good at Code Blues because they can intubate literally anything. They can come in there. They can.

Having that level of skill helps, and they’re used to taking care of people who are nonresponsive, so I think it’s easier for them. There are different perspectives going into it.

But for me, in family medicine, my patients are generally sitting up in front of me, talking to me, and nothing super exciting is happening. We’re working on long-term plans. Whatever’s going on, it’s not going to kill them this week, this month, or this year. It’s going to be 10 or 20 years out. That’s my level of drama. It’s like, “Okay, let’s fix this over the next decade.”

Jill: That’s great. Well, we definitely need our good family physicians like you. But nursing is different because nursing is so immediate all the time. You’re always right there.

Dr. Robin: Yeah, yeah. You’re right there with the patient.

Jill: You do get to know the patient. Sometimes you really bond with them too, even though we have to keep that professional boundary. When you’re with them every day and get to know them on such a personal level—their needs and everything—it can be hard sometimes.

But I’m glad there are so many different areas of physician care and nursing. If somebody’s interested in adrenaline rushes, there are EMTs, paramedics, and so many different things you can do. It’s great how medicine has so many outlets.

Dr. Robin: Well, what I’ve noticed with nursing compared to being a doctor is that you’re the kind of doctor you are for the rest of your life. That’s it; you don’t get to change. I mean, you can, but you have to go into residency again. So you can do something different within your specialty, but that’s it, really.

With nursing, you can switch, which I think is really cool. I’ve had so many friends who, when they’re young, want to do something exciting. Then, as they get more mature, have kids, or take on other responsibilities or health issues, they want to change to something else. That seems really cool to me, actually.

Jill: Yeah, you know, I’ve never thought about that, but there is a big difference. Residency takes quite a while, so you really want to know what you want to do because that would be a lot of extra work.

But nursing is very broad. I think statistically—there’s a quote for it—but nurses change jobs up to, like, 20 times throughout their careers, just because, like you said, life changes. There are families, going back to school, or maybe just wanting to try a different career. So it is kind of limitless. For that, I’m thankful. But I’m super thankful for our doctors too, who have our backs, like you always did.

Dr. Robin: Well, you know, I think the thing with nursing is that you have the flexibility to work with your life. So I think it’s one reason we don’t lose nurses as much. At least, I don’t know any nurses who permanently retired until they were quite old. Maybe you know more than me, but there are so many options, right? If something isn’t working for you, just change.

Whereas I know so many more, especially female physicians, who end up retiring from medicine to do teaching, like I did, or something else. I know several who’ve become directors of facilities, done corporate review of things, or moved into something where they’re not having to do whatever they were doing before. With nursing, you can just say, “This isn’t working for me. I’ll do something else.”

Jill: That’s true. Yeah, you’re right. There aren’t a lot of nurses I’ve known who don’t wait until they’re very old to retire, pretty much. But, like you said, we can change avenues.

Sometimes, after you’ve stood for 12 to 16 hours, three to four days a week, for a long time, that gets a little tough. We have some health issues, as you know, that can come up. A lot of times, going into a teaching or tutoring role, or working for a doctor who’s creating a magnificent site for our kids, can be such a blessing.

Dr. Robin: Yeah. I had one patient who went from bedside nursing into Ask a Nurse, like phone nursing, and she said it was wonderful. She still had to go to the hospital, but she and the other nurse—there were just two of them—would sit there in their comfortable clothes and have hot chocolate. They’d put their feet up and have blankets in the winter. It sounded really relaxed, like two friends hanging out and answering the phones, you know?

Jill: Yeah, it is. That’s a really great feature that we have now, and I’m so thankful for those types of phone lines that we can call. They’ve saved a lot of people from having to go to the ER, or maybe they’ve inspired people to realize that they should probably go now.

Dr. Robin: Yeah. No, I called one time when Elion was really little. Even as a doctor, when it’s your own child, it’s different. I basically said, “I know it’s okay, but I’m freaking out. Can you talk me off the ledge?” And she was like, “It’s okay.”

It’s so hard when you know all the bad things that can happen. She was so nice and talked me off a cliff.

Jill: Yeah. When it’s our own kids, it’s a little bit different. It’s hard to keep your cool sometimes, for sure.

Dr. Robin: Oh, yeah. No, it’s so hard. Elion dislocated their elbow when they were a baby, and I couldn’t put it back. I know how to put it back, but I was so freaked out. We had to go into urgent care because I was too freaked out to do it myself.

After that, I was fine, and I did it myself after that, because of course, once it pops out once, it keeps popping out.

Jill: Well, I’m glad you got past the first time, and I’m glad Elion’s okay. I’m glad you had a good nurse to help. That’s great. That’s the beauty of working together in a medical field: you’ve got a whole team, so you support each other.

Dr. Robin: Yeah. And understanding that we’re all human—and that she didn’t make me feel bad that I was freaking out—was really nice. She was like, “Yeah, it’s hard.” That was really nice too.

Dr. Robin: So, well, I think we’re all out of time for this one. If you want to be a doctor or something else healthcare-related, head over to docrobinschool.com/podcast for your goodies. That’s docrobinschool.com—Robin, like the bird—school.com.

Jill: Yeah, and don’t forget to subscribe so that way you don’t miss the next episode. Thanks so much for watching, friends.

Dr. Robin: Bye.