{"id":6335,"date":"2019-06-03T08:00:58","date_gmt":"2019-06-03T13:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.osfhealthcare.org\/blog\/?p=6335"},"modified":"2020-11-27T15:40:20","modified_gmt":"2020-11-27T21:40:20","slug":"pins-to-needles-one-womans-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/osf-blog.live.imagescape.com\/blog\/pins-to-needles-one-womans-journey\/","title":{"rendered":"Pins to needles: One woman\u2019s journey from dolls to emergency medicine"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sara Krzyzaniak\u2019s first forays into health care were make-believe.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy younger sister and I would play with dolls,\u201d Sara said. \u201cShe would nurture them, and I would stick pins in them to give them shots.\u201d<\/p>\n

A career in health care was rarely if ever in doubt. Sara\u2019s mother was an ultrasound<\/a> technologist, her father a non-physician administrator in radiology<\/a>. Sara, her brother and sister, Andrew and Kathryn Medendorp, would hang around the hospital. She remembers marveling at the medical equipment and playing hide-and-seek in the file room.<\/p>\n

So it\u2019s really no surprise that today she is Sara Krzyzaniak, MD, a physician at OSF HealthCare Saint Francis Medical Center<\/a> in Peoria. But of all the specialties available to physicians, how did she wind up in the Emergency Department<\/a> \u2013 and loving it?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Emergency medicine is a puzzle<\/h2>\n

\"physicianAs a youngster, Dr. Krzyzaniak religiously watched the television program \u201cRescue 911,\u201d hosted by William Shatner.<\/p>\n

\u201cI loved that show,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She also played emergency-room computer games on her desktop at home. She enjoyed doing puzzles, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmergency medicine is a constant puzzle,\u201d Dr.Krzyzaniak said. \u201cI like to take a patient\u2019s symptoms and figure out what\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0Variety is the spice of the ED<\/h2>\n
\"Dr.

Dr. Sara Krzyzaniak at the annual George Washington Day Banquet in Peoria.<\/p><\/div>\n

Life as an ED physician is anything but routine<\/a>. Dr. Krzyzaniak works day shifts, overnight shifts, weekend shifts. No two days are ever alike. Some days might be free of TV-style drama, but that can change in a blink. One minute, she might be trying to diagnose the source of a child\u2019s abdominal pain. The next minute might bring a family involved in a multi-vehicle accident.<\/p>\n

Dr. Krzyzaniak\u2019s older brother is a urologist, and he enjoys good-naturedly picking on her about not having a more traditional, clinical specialty.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people say that in emergency medicine, you\u2019re a jack of all trades, master of none,\u201d Dr. Krzyzaniak said. \u201cBut I really think we are the masters of a lot of things. We\u2019re masters of resuscitation, masters of diagnosis and masters of acute care, among other clinical skills.<\/p>\n

\u201cI like that variety. I like that I might be managing nine different patients at one time, constantly running this list through my head about what each patient needs and what we need to do for each of them. I like that I could deliver a baby and then take care of a kid with a fever and then have someone with appendicitis<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

One thing emergency physicians miss out on is the patient\u2019s journey. They do their work, the patient moves on to other doctors, and the ED is forgotten.<\/p>\n

But not always.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The quintessential emergency<\/h2>\n

\"EmergencyA few years ago, Dr. Krzyzaniak resuscitated a woman who arrived in the ED experiencing cardiac arrest<\/a>. Several months later, Dr. Krzyzaniak was working out at the gym when a young man approached her.<\/p>\n

\u201cAren\u2019t you a doctor?\u201d he asked.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d she replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou saved my mom\u2019s life,\u201d the man told her. \u201cShe\u2019s her old self now, and we\u2019re so happy to have her around.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Krzyzaniak shook her head at the memory.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat still gives me goosebumps,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Learn about opportunities in the Emergency Department at osfcareers.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Sara Krzyzaniak\u2019s first forays into health care were make-believe. \u201cMy younger sister and I would play with dolls,\u201d Sara said. \u201cShe would nurture them, and I would stick pins in them to give them shots.\u201d A career in health care was rarely if ever in doubt. Sara\u2019s mother was an ultrasound technologist, her father a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":85,"featured_media":6373,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[176],"tags":[429,372],"coauthors":[912],"class_list":["post-6335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-careers","tag-emergency","tag-osf-saint-francis"],"yoast_head":"\nOne woman\u2019s journey from dolls to emergency medicine | OSF HealthCare<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Learn how a young doctor\u2019s curiosity and puzzle-solving skills help provide acute care and save lives in the hospital emergency department.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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