Emergency medicine: killin' it without killin' anybody by first year blogger Jessie Seiler

Many of the members of the class of 2019 seem to have arrived in Beer Sheva with a wide range of skills to recommend them as friends, classmates, and future doctors. A few of us speak a bazillion languages each; pretty much everybody has traveled widely; we are all pretty great at getting out of our comfort zones. While my own total lack of Hebrew coming into this experience made me a little nervous at first, my envy really focused itself on the students who came in as EMTs or with other first-responder training. Without so much as a summer lifeguarding under my belt, I was concerned to see that we were scheduled to start emergency medicine courses immediately upon arrival in Beer Sheva. Most alarmingly, we’d be sticking our new classmates with peripheral IV catheters by the end of our third week in country. You’re going to want to poke around on the Internet for a second to see what one of these looks like. And now my alarm makes sense, right?

Anyway, orientation passed and Real Day 1 rolled around, with intensive Hebrew for several hours in the morning and emergency medicine right after lunch. After a lecture on the basics of CPR with our whole class, we broke off into four groups, each under the guidance of an advanced Israeli medical student.

“My job is to make you legit,” our TA announced. After reviewing the lecture with us, he moved on to demonstrating the basics of CPR on a mannequin, explaining each move and stopping to answer what I’m sure were hilariously inept questions, at least at first. With an hour to go in the class, he let us break into groups and begin practicing ourselves. It was pretty fun!

The drills became increasingly complex as the days passed. Some choice moments:

“I brought a friend with me. I don't want him to feel left out. So I invite him to perform CPR with me!" (Get ready to make your friend do all the chest compressions for you, because it gets pretty tiring after a while.)

“CLEAR!” (Just as exciting as in the movies!)

“Hnnnnnnrrrrrgggghhhhhh.” (This is the sound you make as a fake trauma victim to demonstrate how very much you’ve just been hit by a car.)

And then, one fateful day, just when we were allowing a little swagger to enter our step: “You are all going to place IV catheters today, and it will be fine.”

 After watching some recommended videos on the procedure the night before our big day, I experienced some quiet and thoughtful moments in which I listed all the possible ways I could potentially end my classmate’s life the following afternoon. As far as I could tell, they really all seemed like one-in-a-million chances. Some were elaborate, and even a little ridiculous, but I couldn’t stop them from swirling up: what if there’s an earthquake the second I’m getting in there and her arm gets really bloody and infected? What if I puncture and then sever the vein entirely? What if I’m concentrating so hard on not messing up (and she’s got her head turned away to avoid looking at the bloody mess I’m making) that I don’t notice the approaching tiger? I calmed myself with the thought that there aren’t tigers in medical schools pretty much ever, and that our TA (whom we had all come to trust entirely) would be hovering mere inches away.

And you know what? It went really well, for pretty much all of us. No deaths, no total failures, no tigers. I got the catheter into my classmate’s vein, she was able to successfully stick our TA (who generously offered his own veins in place of mine, which are slippery and lack team spirit), and then we all went out for a celebratory beer.

Being at MSIH means working through stuff together, and it’s not just biochem problem sets, the maze of hospital and university buildings, or the serious issue of buying sour cream when you wanted yogurt because your Hebrew is pretty bad just now. It’s also the feelings of trepidation and uncertainty that come with starting a new thing in a new place. There are obstacles, and they require a willingness to step outside of your comfort zone, a clear sense of purpose, and the right people by your side.   

And I have to say it: so far, so good. I chose MSIH because I wanted the experience of going to medical school with the type of people who would choose MSIH. And now that we’ve passed through the experience of placing IV catheters into each other, I think that was the right way to go.