Morbid Statistics

Okay so I'm cleaning out my backpack, into which I typically stuff all my patient-related papers and organizational sheets before I go home each day. I have a month's worth of MICU-related crap to sift through. As part of my personal organizational tactic, for each patient I take a regular sheet of 8.5 x 11" paper and fold it in half. In going through these cards, I note that over the past four week period my service has admitted a total of 26 patients over 9 full calls--an average of nearly 3 per call (which is actually a little higher than the other services I'm pretty sure--we had the bad luck this month).

Of the 26 patients, 8 died in the MICU. There were still 5 left in the MICU when I went off-service, so this number may be higher. The breakdown of deaths is illuminating:

pancreatic cancer (3)
lymphoma/leukemia (2)
hemorrhagic stroke (1)
delerium tremens (severe alcohol withdrawal) with a stroke (1)
pulmonary embolism (blood clot in the lungs), I think with sepsis to boot (1)

The moral of the story is that cancer is bad. Of the 18 patients I admitted who are still alive, only two of them had a diagnosis of cancer.

Here's the breakdown of the (tenative) survivors:

cancer (2)
asthma (2)
diabetic ketoacidosis (2)
liver failure (2)
diaphragmatic paralysis (1)
paroxysmal nocturnal hemoglobinuria (1)
altered mental status (1)
status epilepticus (1)
congestive heart failure (1)
sepsis (1)
tracheobronchitis (1)
alcohol-related metabolic abnormalities (1)
cystic fibrosis (1)
obstructive sleep apnea (1)

In completely unrelated news, please tell me that this website is a joke...