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 "What's the I-time setting on that guy in ICU?" Scott called out across the break room. It took me a long moment to realize that the nightshift supervisor had directed his question at me. I frantically began pawing through my notes.
It was only my second week on the job, and I had been paired with Carl to "learn the ropes." I had been through NICU, the ER, floor therapy, and now the ICU. I could tell everyone was pleased with my progress, and soon I'd be on my own - a real nightshift RT. But there were a few important details left to focus on.
Being the seasoned therapist he was, Carl was casually perusing a 10-year-old celebrity gossip magazine and answered Scott's question without looking up.
I had made several vent changes during the night, and I was surprised Carl knew the correct settings after merely observing my work from across the room.
"Sorry," I said, once Scott had turned to go. "I didn't realize he was asking us... uh, me."
"Don't worry," Carl advised me, as he frowned over the breakup of some Hollywood couple who had since gotten back together, had their own reality show for a few years, then broken up yet again. "It's all part of becoming a respiratory therapist. I call it Directional Hearing."
He laughed, but I knew exactly what he meant. Just last week, in the chaos of the ER, doctors called out orders, nurses chattered about titrations and blood volumes, while Carl and I tried to skinny our way into the room. I felt Carl nudge me and say over the dozen voices, "That's you."
"What's me?" I said with alarm.
Carl leaned in, spoke into my ear, and at the same time caught the patient's flailing arm, smoothing up his sleeve all in a single motion. "He wants a blood gas," Carl said, raising his eyebrows toward the busy ER doc who was giving directions to everyone at once.
"He does?" I asked, fumbling around in my lab coat pocket, excited to be drawing my first ER blood gas.
"He does," Carl confirmed and nodded to the doctor as I swabbed the patient's arm and tried to keep my nerves in check.
"It's hard to hear in all this," Carl continued, "but you've got to tune your ears to pick it up. There," he said, deciphering the din. "Hear that?"
"Uh, no," I had to admit. I felt my face blush. I had been concentrating so hard on feeling for the "throb-throb" that I had barely heard anything.
"Hey, Respiratory," the ER doc barked down the bed at me. "Can you draw that gas with a butterfly and leave it in for us?"
"Yes!" I said, wondering what a butterfly was.
"Very good," Carl said, producing a small package from his pocket. "You're getting the hang of it."
"Watch it guys," I heard from over my shoulder and ducked as the heavy arm of a portable X-ray machine swung past, barely missing my noggin. Carl's smile was my reward.
Over the next few weeks, months, and finally years, I did grow my "respiratory ears." I could distinguish just who the cardiac floor nurse was talking to when she said, "Wake that guy in 402 up again, and you're dead meat."
"She means you," I informed the speechless visitor before tiptoeing into the room to deliver some respiratory therapy.
Brent Swager, RRT, is a caregiver in Florida.
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