 So my patient almost died and just with a push of just one button, they came back to life. Here's how it happened. Hey friends, welcome back to channel today's video. I want to share with you both the unique as well as a pretty common occurrence for me as an internal medicine doctor. And it actually starts with this EKG. Let's see. There we go. Let's get into it. Hey friends, welcome to the MD journey channel, completely dedicated to helping you succeed on your journey with less stress. My name is Laksh today's video. I really want to give you a cool backstory of a memory that I'm going to definitely have as a doctor. And I think a lot of you guys will enjoy, especially if you're early on the process. You're like, what is it like on a day to day in the hospital? Especially when things go absolutely crazy. So here is the backstory to this EKG and this crazy night. So occasionally on some of my rotations, I have to do a week of nights. And sure enough, I was on a week of my nights on the heart failure and heart transplant service. And it was a really quiet night considering going to sleep and then suddenly. Pager goes off. And for a doctor, it's the worst page you can see here. It says code blue, 12th floor. Now, as I get this page, I'm on the ninth floor, three floors away. And I know if I run up the stairs, I'm likely going to be the very first person that is going to be at this code. And so sure enough, myself and my colleague run up the stairs. And as we get into a room, there's already a group of nurses around this patient who is just not responsive. And since both of us were the first physicians in the room, everybody is looking at us for further directions. So my co-resident and I quickly look at each other and decide that she's going to run the code. And I'm going to try to help facilitate things to figure out why this code blue is called and why this patient ultimately lost its pulse. And it did not take long because I saw this on the monitor. This, my friends, is ventricular tachycardia. Here's how it works. All of our hearts have four chambers or rooms, two atrium from the top, two ventricles on the bottom. Now, normally our heart sends signals from the atrium to the bottom of the heart or the ventricle, and that signal is going to help propel blood into the rest of the body. And this process is very regulated. The bottom typically doesn't squeeze until the top or the atrium sends a signal to tell it to do so. But ever so often, the ventricle to decide, I'm going to be the new maestro. And so they take over control of the entire rhythm. And that's when trouble rise ventricular tachycardia. It means that your ventricles or your bottom of your heart is controlling the rhythm. And this is not sustainable for the body for many reasons. And if not addressed quick enough, things can get bad really quickly. And that's what happened in this patient. And so going back to our scenario, this is exactly what I see on the monitor as the patient has having chest compressions on them, as they're pushing multiple medications. And I realized that we really need to fix this immediately. And the way you fix ventricular tachycardia is you shock the patient. And so as soon as I saw the rhythm on the monitor, the first thing you have to do is you have to grab the defibrillator and just crank it up to the max that it goes. And most machines, it goes up to three hundred and sixty joules and you have to hit charge. It takes about 10 seconds. And immediately as you're ready, you just tell everyone clear. And for the first time in my life, I was able to actually be the person pressing the button and probably won't ever forget it if you ever get the chance to because the body literally jumps off the bed. And then what happens afterwards is really interesting because if you're successful, you can go from a rhythm like this one to over here and eventually he gains his rhythm kind of off of the strip. But to be able to see the moment where you shock somebody and then go into a different rhythm in this setting, this patient actually didn't have a pulse for a brief amount of time. And then it came back into what we call sinus rhythm or normal rhythm. But to be able to see that on the actual EKG, as soon as you press the shock button, that's just this is so cool. And so sure enough, we get him out of this crazy rhythm and we're still doing chest compressions. Keep in mind, we're still giving him medications. But the next time it's time for us to check a pulse, he actually has one. And whenever somebody goes into a rhythm like the attack, that means that they're very sick. And so while we had a pulse, it was a very thready one. So within minutes, we're going for medications that could save this life to medications that can maintain his small blood pressure, keep his heart rate up and most importantly, keep him out of the dangerous rhythm. And so we get to this patient immediately to ice you on a lot of different medications, putting different types of IVs and lines and make sure we can monitor his blood pressure, talking to other specialties and keep in mind, this is like two to three a.m. So a lot happens. The beauty of this the next morning before I was leaving for my night shift, I was able to walk by this room and realized his blood pressure was normal, the medications that are really needed to help sustain his life are now kind of coming off. And within two to three days after I looked at his chart, patient was discharged from ICU. And when you take a step back, you realize all of that was from a shock. And so I share stories like this because some people find them interesting, hopefully you did too, but also because as advanced as we are in medicine, sometimes it's the most simplistic things like an electrical shock that can bring the most dangerous parts of our bodies back to a sense of normalcy. And for me personally, it's a very unique moment and something I'm definitely going to remember because while I've asked other people to press the shock button for me when I'm running a code, it's actually the first time that I've actually pressed it myself. And most importantly, it gives me as well as other health care workers a sense of this humility to realize how much power we have even by using very simplistic measures. And so with that being said, guys, hopefully you guys enjoyed the story time, this background of the life of physician, but if you did and you're interested in more of behind the scenes of a life of an internal medicine doctor or a doctor in general, comment down below what kind of things you want me to answer future videos. Happy to be sharing you those answers and the form stories like this one. And if you made it to the end of the video and hopefully you enjoyed it, then hit that like button really helps support the YouTube channel and this video in general, get in front of more people who may also like it. And if you're new to the empty journey or if you're lurking and haven't hit that subscribe button, consider doing so. I know there's a lot of you that have been joining the channel and subscribing in the recent past. Thank you so much for doing so. If you haven't go and hit that subscribe button, getting multiple videos like this to help you on your medical journey, but doing the best for us. But with that being said, friends, if you guys did enjoy this video, check out this video and how you can use on feel like a pro, check out this video and how you can study for classes like anatomy, like a pro. And thank you so much for always being a part of my journey. Hopefully it was a little help to you guys and yours. I'll see you guys in the next one. Peace, my friends.