Doctor who?

"ER doctor please call ICU. ER doctor. ICU"
I grudgingly answer the page.
"Uh, hi. This is, um, an ER doctor."
"Which one?"
"It's Vivian, um, Lau?" I say sheepishly.
"Which one?" she demands again patiently.
"Oh fine. It's DOCTOR Lau," I grumble out.
"Well Dr. Lau. That's wasn't so bad right? We have a patient for you."

"Damn."

It's week 3 and I'm still having problems referring to myself as as a doctor. Fortunately, the nice technicians in the ICU are slowly training me to accept my fate. They make me call myself Dr. Lau or they won't let me off the phone.

Thank goodness for technicians. Can't live with them. Can't live without them.

More often than not, it's the latter.

Animal health technicians (ATHs, vet nurses or, as I like to call them 'techs') are the magical support staff that make or break a clinic. They are like nurses, only they risk life and limb for the vets and do things like restrain a crazy cat so I can medicate it when I'd rather just tuck my tail between my legs and run.

They also do things like pretend I'm a real doctor even when we both know I'm not.

Yesterday was the first day that the new interns were left by themselves for their shift. Just as I was dreading the moment when I would finally have to take responsibility for my own patient with no old intern there to hold my hand, I heard a, "Dr. Lau? Can you take a look at this ECG?"
Panic struck my heart. ECGs! My Achille's heel! They've found it.

"Uh, sure thing," I responded nonchalantly.

I looked at the little wavy line on the screen and tried to make heads or tails of it. There was a blippy thing where there should be a flat line somewhere. Surely that was bad.

"There's possibly a VPC on there," said the technician. I assumed she meant the blippy thing.
We watched the screen for another few minutes. Nothing unusual showed up.

Meanwhile, internally I screamed at myself, "VPCs! I think that stands for Ventricular premature contractions. WTF does that mean?! Is that a bad thing? It could be benign. Damn it I should have paid more attention in cardiology!"

"Um, how is the dog doing clinically?" I asked out loud.
"He's doing fine Dr. Lau."
She must have noticed the look of utmost terror on my face.
"I think that blip might have been from him moving in his cage," she added reassuringly.
"Right. Uh, that could totally be it. Monitor him closely for the next while. If those things show up two more times in the next while, page me."

I ran back to the intern office and frantically looked around for the ECG book I knew was on the shelf and looked up VPCs.

Fortunately, what we had seen was likely not a VPC and even if it was, the odd freakish one here and there probably isn't too bad of a thing. I casually walked back into the ICU.
"Dr. Lau?"
"Um yes?"
"The dog's doing fine now."
"Oh good. Uh, thanks."

I smiled sheepishly and fled back to the safe haven of the intern office.

Surely the techs are onto me!
Fortunately, most of my internmates are in the same boat and all of our hearts stop beating simultaneously whenever the overhead page goes, "ER doctor to the ICU stat!"

Tomorrow is our first official day on our rotations meaning we will be by ourselves without the old interns AND without our fellow internmates to comfort us. Each of us is assigned to one of 9 rotations and we are officially on our own.

I'm not going to lie to you.
I'm scared.