Cardiology emergency - no students allowed!

Spent in the echocardiology lab. The teaching was good and we were learning quite a lot. Midway through examining a patient, however, the doctor was called urgently to the next room. A lady had become unresponsive following surgery to replace one of the valves in her heart, and it was looking likely that she may need be to resuscitated. "Run, please doctor!" the panicked secretary whispered after summoning him. My fellow med student and I followed in the hope that we could learn first-hand how such an emergency is managed by the healthcare team. Unfortunately, when we arrived the curtain surrounding the bed was shut it our faces. "We must respect the patient's dignity", one of the staff said.

I accept that she wanted to call the most experienced healthcare staff and that if we were inside we may have been getting in the way, but we are senior enough now to recognize this, which is why we wanted to observe from a distance. Besides, we also may have been able to predict and fetch any equipment that may be needed during treatment. Respecting the patient's privacy and dignity is of course essential, but I don't see how us watching would have been compromised this, or indeed the care delivered to them. And in my six years at medical school, aside from the more sensitive topic area of gynaecology, out of hundreds of patients I can count on one hand the number of patients that have refused my presence in the consultation or examination room.

In the hyper-aware state an emergency renders you, it would have been a tremendous learning opportunity for a situation we are bound to experience as junior doctors next year. What a pity we weren't allowed to be a small part of it this time around.