The University of Arizona’s College of Medicine brought an emergency medicine physician to campus on Wednesday night for the presentation “Life and Death: Lessons from Inside the ER.”
Dr. Casey Solem visited the Mini-Medical School 3.0 to talk about his experiences and lessons learned from working in the emergency medical field.
“Death is something that society tends not to focus on as much,” he said. “We try not to think about it, we try to pretend it’s not there. But it is. Many of you don’t see it in your daily life, but for better or worse, I do.”
Solem works at the Banner University Medical Center Phoenix. He graduated from the first class of the University of Arizona’s College of Medicine, Phoenix in 2011, said Allison Otu, University of Arizona director of outreach and communications.
“He’s an active participant at the school,” said Katie Galvin, a second-year medical student and student liaison. “He comes back here and he teaches doctoring to all of the med students.”
Solem highlighted the pros of working in emergency medicine: defined hours, shift work, excitement and energy. He also highlighted the cons: stress, feeling overwhelmed, lack of control and emotional taxation.
Solem was first exposed to the emergency room as a young boy, as his father was also an emergency physician. In his senior year at Chaparral High School, he broke his leg and was sent to the ER. It was this experience, watching the doctors plan how to go about the surgery and ultimately fix his injury, that helped him decide on his career path.
Solem told the stories of some of his experiences from working in the ER.
When he was 17, he shadowed his father to ensure he was making the right choice for his career path. Two girls, 6 and 4 years old, came into the ER one night after their family had been in a car crash. Their mother hadn’t made it.
In that moment, Solem said he thought to himself, “They are going to remember this day for the rest of their lives.”
But for Solem’s father and the other nurses, this was just another day at work, he said.
“So why pick emergency medicine?” he said. “Because you want to be there for people on the worst day of their life.”
Solem reflected on another event, which happened during his second-year residency at the University Medical Center in Tucson.
A 6-year-old boy had been hit by a car while crossing the street. Solem said that the boy had been dragged under the car when it ran a red light.
“He came in talking, which is really hard for me, because I can still hear his voice now,” Solem said.
Solem found that the boy had a collapsed lung and spent two hours in the trauma room trying to get him breathing again. The team was able to stabilize the boy enough to take him to the ICU, but Solem said he felt that his job wasn’t finished.
He decided to visit the boy. After seeing the boy for five days in the ICU, Solem said he received news that the boy had died.
“I envy my friends who are accountants and businessmen, because when they come home, they’re okay,” he said. “They can sleep. They don’t cry.”
Sherri Carpenter, a junior at Chandler-Gilbert Community College who attended the event, said she wanted to do something in the medical field but wasn’t sure what. She thought Solem’s speech could help her narrow it down.
“It ruled out what I don’t want to do, which is emergency medicine,” Carpenter said after the speech.
Though the many of the stories Solem told were tragic, he said his career had taught him incredible lessons.
“Hug the people you love” was the first major lesson he took from his career.
“Life isn’t fair, and you never know what is going to happen tomorrow,” he said.
Contact the reporter at melissa.szenda@asu.edu.
