The Greeks

The other night after Rich got home from a long day of being on call, he sat down on the couch worn out and ready to rest from a long day of work. I asked him how his day went, knowing it was crazy since he got home three hours after he was supposed to be off. Exhausted he replied, "It was fine until the Greeks showed up." I was totally baffled by his comment. I asked him what he meant.

He explained that when a person is involved in an accident and is unconscious, intubated or their identity is not able to be confirmed that patient is temporarily assigned a name from the Greek alphabet such as Alpha, Beta, Chi, Delta, Epsilon, etc.. Therefore a patient with a "Greek"name is generally a patient in critical condition with multiple fractures and internal injuries requiring a "man scan" = up to 10 different CT scans (head, cervical, thoracic and lumbar spines, bony pelvis, cystogram, aorta, abdomen, pelvis, face) and multiple extremity radiographs. That equals a lot of work for the surgeons, ER doctors and radiologists.

The University of Kentucky Medical Center is a Level One trauma center. This means injured people are flown or driven in from across the eastern and southern part of the state and smaller outlining hospitals send critical patients in for treatments they are not equipped to handle. They are constantly admitting patients. Unlike larger metropolitan areas with multiple gun shot or knife wounds, much of the trauma seen at UK is related to car, agricultural or recreational accidents (especially ATVs).

One night while Rich was there they had seven traumas (about 70 CT scans) brought into the Emergency Room in two hours. Each day the first patient with an unconfirmed indentity is designated "Alpha male / female ", the second is "Beta male / female", the third is "Chi male / female", etc. Rich said on that night the last patient was named Tau male, so all of the preceding alphabetical names had been used in that 24 hour period. It was chaos. He also said last week there was an patient with an unconfirmed identity that kept his Greek name (Chi Male) from Friday night until Monday afternoon when a family member finally was located to identify him. The hospital had no idea who this person was for four full days.

So there you have it. Greeks are everywhere here in Lexington and not just the UK fraternity kind. Who knew? Just buckle up, drive safe, be careful and don't let yourself become one!!