Gallows Humor in Medicine, on TV and in Real Life
Dr Monique Tello Blog
by drmoniquetello
1M ago
The surgeons are waiting in the ambulance bay. An ambulance screeches to a halt in front of them. A paramedic jumps out, and breathlessly gives report: “Speedboat accident! Nineteen year old female. Lost vitals twice but BP’s holding in the low 80’s. Both arms amputated at the scene and right leg is holding on by a thread.”  Owen Hunt, tall redhead trauma doctor, asks: “Did you recover either of the arms?” The paramedic shakes his head. “No, they’re probably at the bottom of Puget sound. She was thrown from the boat and got pulled into the propeller.”  Hunt grunts. “Okay, get a centr ..read more
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Tiny Vehicles, Big Risks: A Close Call Calls for Common Sense
Dr Monique Tello Blog
by drmoniquetello
2M ago
It happened so fast.   It was 5 pm and I was driving home from running errands. It’s January so it was already dark. I was stopped at a stoplight at a well-known 5-way intersection in my town. The walk signal was just ending and the light turned green.  Just then this kid on a motorized scooter came flying down the road and tried to cross the intersection diagonally. As in, not in the crosswalk, just right through the middle of the intersection.  He was of course wearing dark colors with nothing reflective. Meantime, the cars who had the green light had revved up and were accel ..read more
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You have to endure the rain to enjoy the rainbow
Dr Monique Tello Blog
by drmoniquetello
2M ago
“Mom, it looks like it’s going to rain, we should not be going for a walk right now,” warned my twelve-year-old daughter.  “It’s done raining,” I reassured. “Let’s just go. Get some fresh air.” Neither she nor our thirteen-year-old son were really happy about it, but off we went.  It was Saturday of the long weekend, the whole family was home, and no one wanted to leave the house. Almost everyone had been some kind of sick. Hubby had come down with COVID mid-week, just days after his team’s last football game. Weirdly, this is exactly what happened in 2021. Back then, COVID infection ..read more
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New Year, Update on the New Career
Dr Monique Tello Blog
by drmoniquetello
2M ago
Here it is, January 2024. It was a little over two years ago that I left clinical medicine for industry. It’s fair to do a little look-back and assess how it’s been: Just to recap, It was in April 2021 that I had an epiphany. Clinical medicine had become impossible. It was no longer feasible to practice primary care well or even safely, and trying was increasingly incompatible with family life. I’m far from the first physician to come to this conclusion, and as such my December 2021 posts about how I quit and found a nonclinical job at an area immuno-oncology biotechnology company resonated wi ..read more
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Skunk’d
Dr Monique Tello Blog
by drmoniquetello
3M ago
It happened after Christmas Eve dinner at my mom’s house. I went out back with the dog, and as per usual, he spied some movement in a distant corner of the yard and gave chase. It’s almost always a rabbit. Sometimes it’s an opossum. Once it was a raccoon. This time, it was a skunk.  There was a bit of a ruckus– a yelp, then loudly jingling dog tags, like maybe Obi had caught a small animal and was shaking the crap out of it. But I shone my phone flashlight and saw that he was actually doing the oddest thing: shoving and pushing his face into the grass and then sort of desperately rolling ..read more
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Porcelain Dolls
Dr Monique Tello Blog
by drmoniquetello
3M ago
It was me who brought the second twin to the mom, so that both were cradled warmly against her chest. Her husband joined her at the head of the bed, embracing her as they nuzzled and cooed and cried over their newborn son and daughter. With great tenderness, the experienced labor and delivery nurse placed little cotton beanies on each, then stepped back. Meantime the attending obstetrician and I huddled at the foot of the bed, whispering as we completed all the usual steps. We delivered the placenta and assessed the perineum; applied the thick pad and stretchy hospital undergarments; then mane ..read more
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My dog is an asshole
Dr Monique Tello Blog
by drmoniquetello
4M ago
…but we love him anyways.  Obi’s not always an asshole. Most of the time, the vast majority of the time, he really is THE BEST DOG. The issue is, he can very protective (which is a euphemism for aggressive, I suppose) about certain things. Those things are me, and food.  When I’m walking him, if certain dogs get near, he goes ballistic. Like, Kujo-level. I have to do regular strength training to be able to hold him back. We’re working on this, and he’s much better after training and the “Leave it” command, thankfully.  At bedtime, he’ll cuddle next to me and is so sweet and, wel ..read more
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It’s Not Easy Being Green*
Dr Monique Tello Blog
by drmoniquetello
5M ago
The city hospital emergency room on a slamming Friday morning, my intern year: I walked in with my coffee, and my “Good morning!” was immediately followed by “Good God!”  What with the light cold drizzle after days of subzero temps, people were slipping and falling all over the place, and there was a pileup on Route 95. The dry-erase patient assignment board was jammed with multiple cases of  “s/p MVC1” and “s/p fall”. The noise level was more Saturday night than weekday morning. The stretchers extended far back into the dark recesses of the hallways. I sighed, hid my breakfast in a ..read more
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Tales from the Shift
Dr Monique Tello Blog
by drmoniquetello
6M ago
Remember Tales from the Crypt, that cheesy HBO horror series based on the 1950’s E.C. comic books? Well, it’s the perfect title for this post. Here it is Halloween season, and I am right now transcribing the March 2002 journal entries from my intern year, which was a whole horrific month working 14-hour shifts in Yale/New Haven Hospital emergency room. Why 14 hours, when shifts are usually 12 hours, you ask? Because the work was never done in 12 hours, and by the Unwritten Code of Residency, you did not sign out and run out and leave significant patient care sh*t to the next person. Within rea ..read more
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Teddies and Elephants and Tears
Dr Monique Tello Blog
by drmoniquetello
7M ago
Today for some reason I went to check out the Mothers in Medicine group blog that I used to write for, and I was kind of shocked to discover that it doesn’t exist anymore. It had been a pretty unique creative space for doctor-moms to share their experiences. I was bummed. Luckily, I had saved my sixty-or-so posts in a separate file. Sooo, in honor of all those early years learning how to navigate a medical career and motherhood at the same time, I’m reviving one of my personal favorites. This simple little piece was originally posted on the Mothers in Medicine website on October 11, 2011. And ..read more
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