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A typical shift

Twelve hours, often overnight. You start with a list of patients across several floors: breathing treatments, checking oxygen, drawing arterial blood and reading the gases. In the intensive care unit you manage ventilators, adjusting settings when a patient's lungs change. Then the alarm goes: a cardiac arrest, a trauma, a baby in trouble. You run, and you are the one who manages the airway. Between all that, charting, equipment checks and teaching a patient with asthma how to use an inhaler.