The registrar with a young medical student in tow wore an undecipherable expression on his face.  “Are you looking after the patient in cubicle two,” he enquired.  I acknowledged that I was.  “Well I think you might have closed the curtain,” he snapped.  I evidently looked confused.  “Well she is dead,” he said bluntly.  A rock landed in my stomach.  My patient was dead and I hadn’t noticed.  Worse still her daughter was sitting at the foot of the bed oblivious to the unexpected demise of her parent.  I raced into the cubicle, my worst fears realised as I gazed at the half open, lifeless eyes, the ashen skin, the head tipped slightly back in an attitude of everlasting peace.  I touched her hand wondering if the body had gone cold.  As I did so she opened her eyes fully.  “Could I have another blanket dear,” she said.

My eagerly anticipated placement in the Emergency Department is about to begin.  It is 7 o’clock in the morning, I am a bleary eyed and apprehensive as I make my entrance into the department for the first time.  A central nurse/doctor station is surrounded by rows of curtained cubicles through which I can discern the recumbent forms of patients with conditions unknown.  I feel like an impostor masquerading in my freshly ironed student uniform.  I look around me hoping to catch the eye of a passing nurse to whom I might introduce myself, and instead find myself beckoned into a cubicle by an elderly gentleman who needs the commode.  A moment of panic sweeps over me.  I do not know what is wrong with him – should I get help?  Will this be seen as a lack of confidence?  I decide that I am not happy with the situation, and help arrives.  As the man sits on the side of the trolley, his eyes roll up in the sockets and he collapses, shaking.  We manage to get him back onto the trolley, and rush him to the ‘resus’ room where he recovers and I reflect on what might have happened if I had ‘gone it alone’.