hospitals

[jottoj]

i'm really enjoying the clinical based learning so far. i had my last shift (of 6) at the emergency department yesterday. the staff are all really nice and its a fun place. i've put in lures, taken blood, including an arterial blood gas, helped reduce fractures and dislocations, administered activated charcoal to one of the many overdose patients i

Comments

[luisaligan]

:O

What does "activated charcoal" do to people who've overdosed? What exactly is it, in the first place? *is curious*

The rest sounds all a bit too scary for me haha! The closest I get to a hospital is when I watch House on TV.

[jottoj]

activated charcoal is like tiny bits of ground up charcoal diluted in water, so its liquid. it looks really really black and is quite a thick substance. it works by binding the drug that the person has overdosed on partly because it has such a huge surface area. however, it doesn't bind to all drugs and isn't really used all that much these days. usually it has to be given pretty soon after the overdose was taken.

its pretty fun being in the hospital and not being a patient, or visiting one.