Being elated that the baby survived the night, I started working on my obligatory post-call scutwork. The little girl continued to do well for most of that morning until right about lunchtime, when the respiratory therapist suddenly came out of her sweaty room and made eye contact with me.

She's brady'ing, doc.

I walked as calmly as I could into the room and looked directly at the monitor. She was trying to die. And for the first time, I was the only doctor around to stop her.

Fortunately, I had seen the patient code enough times that I felt like I knew what to do. Raising my voice ever-so-slightly, I called out to the desk clerk and the rest of the nurses.

Call the code and page the attending. Mark time, code started at 10:55. Do we have a scribe? Thank you. Chest compressions and bag her, and one dose of atropine now.

Within sixty seconds the room was flooded with staff from all over the hospital; within two minutes my senior resident and attendings were by my side. After five minutes the patient's heart rate and blood pressure was back up.

I sighed in relief and said to my attending:

We got her back.

He smiled tiredly.

Ah, she heard you were post-call and thought you needed a wake-up.