Oxygen

The end of my internship year in San Diego at UCSD approached! When it started in June of 1973, I felt certain I would never finish the stressful gauntlet of critically-ill medical patients. But as the year was coming to a close, the Stygian tunnel of internship showed signs of ending and ahead… yes!—was light, peace, and bird song! Where I had trembled with fear as emergency patients arrived when internship began, now I was confident. Did my new-found confidence result from my methodical and rational approach to sick patients? Yes, I concluded, careful attention to my patients’ pathologic physiology must have done the trick! EKG’s, blood gases, lab tests, X-rays—all the necessary clinical data—were the keys to my success!