Attention all residents and practicing docs who like to tell stories from your days in residency: At TEXAS FAMILY PHYSICIAN, we want to try something new. In this issue, we’re introducing the Post Midnight column, giving you an opportunity to tell your stories about training to be a family physician. These stories can range from the grizzly to the hilarious. They can be inspiring or serious, but most importantly, they’re real.

If you’re interested—and we hope you are—keep it short and load it up with details. Send submissions or questions about Post Midnight to TFP Managing Editor Jonathan Nelson at jnelson@tafp.org.

Here’s submission No. 1, from John Redman, M.D., a second-year resident at the McLennan County Family Practice Residency Program in Waco.

Post Midnight: Code in Room 1

By John Redman, M.D.
McLennan County Family Practice Residency Program, PGY 1

Early one morning I was in the ICU when I heard one of the experienced nurses saying “Room One is about to code.” (As a resident you know when the experienced nurse says there is about to be a code—it is only a matter of time.) I looked around and saw that I was the only doctor in the unit as usual for early in the morning.

His heart rate was 190 and then it dropped to 30—then pulse less. We called the code. We gave him epinephrine, started chest compressions and bag masking. Then my attending and the pulmonologist came. The patient was intubated and his heart returned to sinus rhythm.

At the end of the code I looked over and saw a picture of him with his grandchildren. In about one week I saw him in a regular room surrounded by his grandchildren. One week later he went home with them. It reminded me of why we do what we do.