IS EVERYONE HERE WHO NEEDS TO BE HERE?

February 5, 2007

I wrote this one after a run that ended in one of those rooms—the trauma bays that swallow you whole the moment the doors swing open. If you’ve been in emergency medicine long enough, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Cold tile, blinding lights, too many voices, too many hands, and not nearly enough space between life and death. These rooms are where everything you’ve done in the field gets handed off in a blaze of movement and hope. I’ve walked into them with adrenaline pumping and walked out shaken to my core. Writing this post was my way of naming the quiet dread and awe that those rooms carry. Because no matter how many times I go in, I always ask myself the same question: Will they walk out… or won’t they?