The End of an Era

The last episode of ER aired this week, and is has left me feeling a bit out of sorts. I haven't watched the show in years and don't even know the characters now. But realizing that ER had a lifespan greater than that of my own emergency medicine career hit me quite hard, and since lately I have been reminiscing for some reason, this felt particularly poignant.

ER began when I was in college, and I would watch it with my roommates, sometimes while working on my medical school applications. I also remember watching a couple of episodes in cheap, nasty motel rooms when I was traveling for medical school interviews.

In medical school, the show was an institution, we all watched it. I remember reading an article in the newspaper about how applications to emergency medicine residencies increased by over 40% in the years following its debut. Was that a factor in my choice of residency? I like to think not, but maybe it made me more aware of the specialty. And I was definitely greatful for that awareness of the general public--I think in the past most people viewed the ER as staffed by second or third-rate docs with questionable licensing who weren't able to get other jobs.

In residency, if I watched it, it was definitely not as often. For a couple of reasons-- one, if I adctually was able to catch the show, I would never admit to it. That would be lame. We were real ER docs-- we had no need to watch them on TV. Two, with such an erratic schedule (and this was in my pre-DVR days)- I was working or sleeping through most episodes. But mostly, I found that I was working so much as a resident, that when I was watching TV, it was not relaxing at all to see anything that remotely resembled my workplace. I just felt like I was at work.

The medicine on ER was great though. They had wonderful writers and consultants. True, the ER was a lot more exciting all at one time than any I ever worked in (except for one crazy day I will never forget-- super busy, maybe 30+ just in the waiting room, I don't know how many I saw during my shift, and in a 60 minute span did CPR and pronounced a man dead, a pericardiocentesis-- sticking a needle into the sac around the heart to withdraw fluid--delivered a surprise baby, treated a man with a heart attack, and had one of the waiting room paitients get really tired of waiting and attempt to swallow his whole bottle of Benadryl. It's not usually like that). But I digress. But ER got it right; the medicine was perfect, and once I even learned a couple of esoteric items-- like Jamaican vomiting sickness from eating unripened Acai fruit, really seen only in the tropics.

I just never really got back into ER-- until I had a baby. When my little one was born, and I was pretty much useless, I would spend much of the morning in bed trying to nurse and watch tv. My morning consisted of a 4 am wake up-- breast feed, back to sleep usually by 5, then up again maybe at 7:30 or 8. I was just so fatigued, I couldn't even drag my sad self out of bed, so we'd lay there, I would feed the baby, and watch ER on TNT. With the drapes drawn it still looked like night. I was very inefficient at breastfeeding, and really freaked out at how much my life had changed so quickly. Between the exhaustion, and the hormones and being overwhelmed-- I was a mess. ER was a bright spot at that time.

And now it's gone. Yes, I am sure the TNT reruns will still be there, but as an institution, it is over. Why this makes me sad, I am not sure, because I wouldn't be watching anyhow. I have long since moved to Grey's Anatomy, where the medicine is awful but the plot fun. And kind of reminds me of internship, but slightly more dysfunctional. But this last Thursday, I had my own little funeral for ER, because in a way, it was like saying goodbye to my own ER career.