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What to do when you're bleeped and don't know the answer
Every F1 has the same first month: the bleep goes, and the honest internal answer is "I don't know". The gap is rarely knowledge. It is structure.
Ask three things on the phone
- Observations. The full set, now. A number changes whether you walk or run.
- How long. New this hour is a different problem from ongoing since this morning.
- What has already been done. Saves you repeating it, and tells you what has failed.
Decide walk or run before you move
Almost everything is a walk. The ones that are not announce themselves in the observations: a systolic that starts with an 8, a respiratory rate over 25, new confusion, saturations falling on oxygen. If any of those are true, say out loud on the phone that you are coming now and ask for someone senior to be told.
Use A–E, even when it feels unnecessary
Its value is not that it finds things a good doctor would miss. It is that it works when you are frightened, and at 4am you will be. A structure you follow without thinking is worth more than one you would have to remember.
The sentence worth practising
"I'm not sure what's going on, the obs are X, and I'd like you to come and see them." Nobody senior has ever thought worse of that call. Plenty have thought worse of the one that came an hour later.