My phone rings.

"Hello, this is Kat," I say.

"This is ward 3C," came the urgent but calm voice of a nurse. "We have a cardiac arrest!"

Another typical day in internal medicine. I drop everything on hand and dash to the relevant ward. Two nurses are taking turns doing chest compressions already. A third attaches a bag-valve-mask to the wall's oxygen outlet before sticking it on the patient's face.

"Witnessed VF arrest," says the charge nurse, popping up behind me. She's heavily pregnant. "New admission from A+E. Chest pain, presumed heart attack, not yet admitted by the resident. We saw him go into VF on the cardiac monitor just now."

(VF is ventricular fibrillation, a cardiac arrest heart rhythm that can be effectively treated by shocking.)

The patient has no venous access (drip sites), no blood tests, no heart trace. Thanks, A+E. I slam in a cannula and draw some blood. Meanwhile, the arrest trolley is ready -- meaning the defibrillation machine can be used. The resident, Ethan, a first-year internal physician trainee, pops up.

"Paddles are ready," says the charge nurse.

"Let Kat finish taking the blood first," says Ethan.

There was a brief silence.

"This patient is in VF arrest," the charge nurse's voice rose by an octave, "and you want her to finish taking blood? Are you saving the patient or not?!"

(Advanced Life Support algorithm, which we use to run cardiac arrest resuscitations, state we should deliver shocks at the first available opportunity to shockable rhythms. VF is one of them. No delays.)

"Oh, er..." Ethan says, looking panicked. I plug the cannula and a nurse sends my blood to the labs. The charge nurse thrusts the chest paddles at me, her face black as thunder.

"How much [energy]?" she barks at Ethan. Ethan is furiously scrolling notes on his phone.

"Um, um," he stammers. "200J?"

The charge nurse stares. I swear she wants to rip his head off. She slams it to maximum energy (it was 200J, yes). I charge it up, clears the bed, and shocks the patient. The cycle continues. At some point, Ethan disappears (I assume to talk to senior colleagues about this patient who we presume has had a bad heart attack). My colleague Amie shows up. The anaesthetist shows up and intubates the patient.

"Right," says the anaesthetist. She looks at Amie. "Are you the resident in charge?"

"Just the intern," says Amie sheepishly.

"Oh," says the anaesthetist. She then snaps her head at me. "You?"

"Same," I say. I think I heard a distant crack of thunder.

"Where. Is. The. Resident????"

Amie and I just glance at each other and continue our compressions. Ethan was nowhere to be seen. Later it transpires he was outside the cubicle on his phone, first talking to the cardiology specialist on call for urgent intervention for this guy's heart attack and arrest and later to the family about what's going on. The issue was he was the most senior person (lol) on the team and he should be running the cardiac arrest, not leaving two interns to go at it themselves, even though we are in theory also trained. And if he were going to be on the phone, he should at least also be present in the cubicle watching this.

That day was the first of the many Ethan episodes.