There's nothing like the beeping of a heart monitor and a patient groaning in pain to drive all thoughts of arrhythmias and medications from one's brain. Never mind trying to listen for heart sounds over the wheezing of fluid filled lungs, especially if one is listening for a very quiet murmur.
Add to that a rapidly degenerating heart rhythm, indecisiveness about the proper medication to use, atrial fibrillation - or for that matter ventricular fibrillation and flatlining...
"I'm clear, you're clear, clear the table..." (so we are supposed to say, not to mention administer painkillers before shocking a ptient) and my classmate pushes the red buttons on each panel to defibrillate. It feels an awful lot like being a medical drama, and fortunately, our patient isn't real anyway - it's a sim man, an elaborate robotic patient with real heart sounds, pulses, respiration, and even opening and closing eyes on which we were practicing clinical scenarios and decision-making.
End result: "patient" survives (barely), and I am going to study heart drugs a LOT more before this next test.
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