Transplant: Week One

The Liver/Kidney transplant service is a different breed of medicine. The conventional care of a sick patient goes out the window because of the immunosuppressor factor. The immunosuppression medications, although approved by the FDA, still appear to have multiple side-effects that we discover daily on rounds, and sometimes I feel as if we're just experimenting on these poor souls.

Currently, I have 5 patients in the ICU, each a varying shade of jaundice, ranging from golden yellow to a mocha brown/gray depending on their bilirubin levels. The yellow ones are the most healthy (relatively) and have some mental function. The dark colored patients look like mummies. Their lack of neural function doesn't help distract them from the mummy factor either.