I had my last call night (a Saturday, no less) on the LA County Trauma service, where I got to wheel a dying 16 year old gang member on a gurney past a gauntlet of 20 members of his family and friends as they let out a virtual wall of wails and cries. I also provided a hand to squeeze for a screaming 20 year old kid who got hit over the head with a beer bottle and was getting the footlong, 2-inch deep laceration painfully debrided while he told me we totally reminded him of some reality TV show, Code Blue, and that he loved us... probably because we had just given him a milligram of Ativan... all the while having the two kids who drove into a tree while high on mushrooms giggling uncontrollably at us from their respective beds across the room.

...and now I'm at an upscale community hospital in Pasadena, where each patient gets their own hotel suite-style room with a view, and the surgeons listen to internet radio playing "Summer of 69" while cranking through the gastric bypasses and hernia repairs of the rich. Not bad for a scene change. I'll try to keep updated about this new assignment, if there's anything worth updating.