Keeping Cool under Pressure

By Anson Nebeker

Before the sun is up, I muster all the strength I have to walk into the room, which is full of confusion, people going in every direction. What am I doing, again? I ask myself. The doctor wants to know where the patient’s family is, a nurse yells for me to hold an airway, another yells at me that someone is ready to be checked in.

Now I’m speaking Spanish, trying to get the next dental patient checked in. Then I’m in a room arm-wrestling a three-year-old as we try to take his blood pressure. He seems to be the son of Hulk. In the CreekSide Surgical Center in Idaho Falls, where I’ve worked for more than two years, a lot can happen in the blink of an eye.