Andre Creese, MD Part 2 of 3

Andre Creese, MD is the CEO of OPYS Physician Services (OPYS –Our Physicians Your Success) which provides Medical Leadership Consulting, Medical Consulting, and Physician Staffing.  Dr. Creese is Board Certified in Emergency Medicine by the American Board of Emergency Medicine and a Fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians.

From Part 1: In the process of figuring out how to go to college, he had a brief, life altering conversation with a friend.  After the conversation, he became an ambulance driver through a two day a week, six month course. He also became EMT certified. The environment fit him well. A desire for a more extensive role grew.  He spent a total of 7 years responding to 911 calls.  One of his “most moving cases” centered on a stabbing victim.  This case focused his vision on becoming an MD in Emergency Medicine.  

Part 2 [The links lead to Google Maps or Street View Scenes]

Andre’ and a co-worker respond to a call in Barona, outside of San Diego, California, USA.   Someone has been stabbed in the chest.  People giving first aid on the scene cannot stop the bleeding.  The location is isolated. The lights strobe and the siren blares as Andre and his partner navigate around traffic and over the narrow, winding road.   

“We see (the helicopter) fly overhead, racing to get to the scene.  It has a doctor and nurse on board.  We still need to keep our pace until we get the official word.  Eventually, the call comes over the radio to reduce our code.  We turn the lights off.”   Getting there in a hurry is still required.

 “When we arrive, they tell us, ‘You have to respond.’  The helicopter can’t make the return flight.  Policy requires the doctor and nurse to remain with it.   We are amped again.  It’s dark now.   There’s police.  There’s commotion and there’s a guy lying in a pool of blood. 

“The drive to the scene was bad enough in the fading daylight, now it’s dark and the driver will not have the assistance of another person watching the road on the drive to the hospital.  Blood loss, darkness, and the winding road, our team energy is pegged.”

Andre takes charge of the patient’s care. “The feeling is surreal – when I am one-on-one with a patient in the back of our ambulance, tossing back and forth.  And someone is dying in front of me.   The person is talking but fading slowly.  You’re trying to keep him or her awake...  I couldn’t get to the hospital fast enough.  My partner couldn’t drive any faster and I am trying to do everything I can to keep this guy alive. 

“I get on the radio with a small community hospital.  The guy is still moaning.  His radial pulse goes.  There is blood everywhere.   I am at the end of my training.

“The doc comes over the radio.   This guy is crashing again.  The doc walks me well past the end of my training.    I, finally, find a pulse in the groin area and the doctor walks me through every necessary step to keep this guy alive.   When we get to the community hospital, the patient is alive.   We roll him into the ER.  The staff is prepared and he’s immediately taken to surgery.”

Andre and his partner are left with their normal after call duties:  clean the ambulance floor and walls, restock, get their uniforms together and prepare to take the next call.  “Slowly, everything is going back to what we call normal.” 

A few days later, Andre is with another partner.  They bring a patient to the same hospital.  Andre talks to his partner about the stabbing victim.  His partner and a nurse encourage him to go see the patient.    The nurse really pushes him to go to the surgical intensive care unit.  Andre gives in.   When he gets to the intensive care unit, the environment is so different than that of the pre-hospital.

“This is a place where ambulance driver don’t go.  We just take the patient to the ER and that’s it.   The ICU is brightly lit with fluorescent lights.  The background noise with all the monitors and beeps--everything looks sterile. “

The staff directs Andre to the patient.  

“I get to the bedside and I don’t recognize the patient.  He is clean and shaven not dirty and matted with blood.  He is about the same age as me.   He has all this equipment attached and dressed in a clean white gown… nothing like I remember from that night.   

“His eyes fixate on me as I tell him the story of the ambulance.  It’s really the only thing I could think to talk about.  He really couldn’t respond verbally.  When I finish… he has a different look on his face.  He gave me a nod.  He lifted his arm a little.  He couldn’t lift it very much.  I looked down at his hand.  I took it.

“Al, the toughest part of all this for me was when he grabbed my hand… so firmly and he wouldn’t loosen his grip.  I am getting uncomfortable, trying to let go… to let him know that I was just doing what was expected of me.   His eyes, they just fixed on me.  I couldn’t look away.  The raw appreciation in his grip and watery eyes, they just wouldn’t let me go.”