Kris Catrine - Brand New White Coat

 

 

I was so excited when I first started working at a children's hospital. It was my first day and I could not wait. I put on my brand-new white coat and it still had the creases in it from being in the package. I was headed to the children's hospital, and I was so excited to actually learn what I've been waiting and reading about the whole time. I had three whole years that I had to follow around these attending physicians. They are the gods of medicine. They know everything. They're calm. It doesn't matter what's happening. I have three years to suck everything out of their head and put it in my body, so that I can know how to take care of kids. And that's what I was going to do in three years. 

 

I was ready to get started. So, immediately, I walked behind this attending physician in oncology on the cancer ward in the children's hospital. I sit down and I listen to this wonderful physician compassionately tell these terrified parents that their teenage boy has leukemia, and that it's treatable and that the treatment's actually pretty scary, but he's going to help walk them through. 

 

Two nights later, I'm on call. And on call is different, because the gods leave and they go home and the hospital is run [chuckles] by the residents. So, here I am, crease is in my coat, ready to be on call. It becomes very clear to me, very quickly, that this child is getting very sick. All of the things that I heard this wonderful physician tell this family could possibly happen to their child were happening tonight when I was on. I order labs and I order meds and I push IV fluids like I've been trained to do. It's not working. And I try again and it's still not working. 

 

Now, what was really exciting is now really, really scary. I call the ICU and I say, “I think this child actually needs to be in your intensive care unit, because they're really sick.” And they said, “I agree, Kris. Boy, yeah, you've done a good job. That's great. We don't have a bed. We'll call you when we do.” And so, I call the oncology god of the night, and I wake him up at home and he says, “Good job, kid. See you tomorrow.” That's when I really start sweating. 

 

By the time we actually got this child into the elevator to go to the ICU, I am spent. Those elevator doors shut, and I slide down the wall and I'm shaking. I smell like armpits and feet. It's bad. And then, I realize it's 06:30 in the morning, it's time to check morning labs and go on with the rest of the day. I still have a whole day ahead of me. Right when I sit down to check labs, I get a call from one of my residents down in the ICU who tells me, “Kris, I just thought you wanted to know your patient just died.” I was devastated. I was just devastated. How could they die? I'm here to learn everything about how to save kids. Go to the children's hospital, get the miracle, that's the deal, right? 

 

So, I'm there and it's not happening. How could he be dead? I was talking to them yesterday, and we were joking about golf. This child was a left-handed golfer who was on a golf team in his high school. I was talking about how my two-year-old son had gotten a plastic set of golf clubs as a present and was so pissed off, because he couldn't hit the ball, because he's left-handed. They don't make left-handed golfer golf clubs for toddlers. We were joking about it, and now he's gone. Just the way the hospital works, it moves on, it keeps going. I had to keep going and not process any of this. And so, it moves on, I move on. 

 

I'm at the next call night, three nights later. I've been through a terrible night. I've been up 30 hours, 35 hours. I don't remember the last time I peed, or ate, or brushed my hair or teeth. As I'm that spent, I'm working on notes for the day and I hear, “Dr. Catrine?” I look up and I see this man. And here comes the dad of my patient. And he said, “I think your boy would really like golf a lot more if he could hit the ball.” 

 

He hands me this little golf club that was his son's that he cut down into a two-year-old size. I broke every little bit of eggshell that I had of facade around me that I had built, that I was in control broke and yolks leaking on the floor. I'm ugly crying, and we're hugging each other in the middle of the unit. It's just a disaster. And I'm really not okay for a long time. But the hospital moves on and I move on. 

 

I'm on my next rotation. And years later, this is still happening. I'm not really processing these things, like good doctors do. You just move on. But once a year, I would allow myself this little indulgence where I would drive out to where this boy was from. It was two hours away in the middle of nowhere. I would grab a card, and I would pull up into this church and I would write out like a diary every fear I had, and I would put it on his grave, and I would leave and just thought it would get wet in the rain or blow away or whatever. 

 

I did it for seven years until I was wearing a white coat that didn't have creases in it anymore. I had people walking around behind me asking me questions. And I got a page from the welcome desk at my hospital that I was working at in a different city, and they said, “There's a delivery for you. You need to come downstairs and get this right now.” I walked downstairs, and here is the father of my patient and he said, “You didn't come this year and we were worried about you.” He had all seven cards in his hand, and he said, “I really just wanted to make sure you're okay, doc.” [chuckles] Thanks.