You Rock

Besides the expected doctors, nurses, and techs, the ER needs/wants/demands/begs and pleads for the support of numerous other departments and services in the hospital, and mostly we get it.

Some of them are average, some are horrible (I promise, I'll get to you another time), and some absolutely shine.

In this last case, the bunch of folks I've almost always had the best experience with has been radiology. Every last blooming one of them, from x-ray, to CT, to ultrasound.

I haven't gone soft, and there's been an occasional stinker or two, but so seldom as to be noteworthy when it happens. And I wish a couple of them could remember that when they bring somebody back, they can plug in all the wires they disconnected to take them away. But that's small potatoes in the long run.

I've had x-ray techs wait patiently for me to finish a tough stick and lab draw without a peep, tell me about a patient who needed more attention, and save me/the docs/the unit secretaries from ordering or getting the wrong x-rays, on the wrong body part(s), on the wrong patient more times than I can remember.

I've had CT techs who should be wearing the ER equivalent of a chestful of attaboy medals for the most phenomenal service and support I've ever seen. And save a life or two, above and beyond the call of duty.

And ultrasound techs who were so good they whisked my patients away, brought them back, and had the results sitting on the doc's desk before I checked on when they were going to take my patient, and long before Doc Crabbypants started whining about it.

They've expedited care on children, and adults who act like children, gotten in the game without getting in the way, they've caught little old ladies before they fell, and helped dogpile the homicidal whackjobs who tried to attack us, gotten every picture and scan we needed, no matter how difficult, and did it all without pissing and moaning, mostly just a simple shrug, and usually a smile.

Take a bow, boys and girls, because you and what you bring to the party are the biggest difference between all medicine before Pierre and Marie Curie, and after.
And you really, really deserve a gold medal.