Nathaniel Merriam Saturday, May 15 Everest Base Camp, Nepal

I had an entire journal written out that was rip-roaring hilarious and guaranteed to split your shorts. I revealed the secret nicknames of everyone on the trip, as well as their most embarrassing moments. But I deleted the whole thing.

Last night I saw something amazing -- we were all on the daily videoconference with Yale while the doctors were visiting a sick climber in another camp. A few minutes into the conference, the radio crackled and the docs said they were bringing the guy over to our medical tent because he was in bad shape.

Then everything exploded.

In the practiced chaos that must be commonplace for the doctors, everyone stood up and started working. Chris, the only doc who had stayed behind to talk to Yale about the cases of the day, started calling out directions, and everyone followed them without hesitation.

I immediately went to the cook's tent to get hot water bottles for the patient who was on his way. The sherpas were preparing dinner, and to boil more water they said would take 10 minutes. I told them to forget about the food and fill up the water bottles with whatever water was currently being heated for cooking. I didn't get to stay long enough to get the bottles from them, as Robert said the docs wanted me to get the digital stethoscope up and running for when the climber arrived.

The next hour and a half were spent watching these amazing people that I had traveled up with give a climber on Mt Everest medical care that was equal to anything he could have received in any emergency room in North America. The doctors at Yale were there to look over our shoulders, verify our findings, and question our assumptions. The equipment went up without thinking -- we were transferring 3-d ultrasound in no time across the world, allowing everyone to see the condition of the patient's lungs.

By the end of the evening, everyone was in agreement that the climber was fortunate to only be suffering from Pneumonia. He was placed on oxygen, put on an IV for dehydration and a bunch of other stuff that I don't pretend to understand.

Up here, freezing their butts off, these funny people with all their quirks and idiosyncrasies turned into some of the finest professionals I've ever seen.

So you may hear joking and kidding around, and you may not understand what exactly we're doing up here. Not many people really know what "telemedicine" is. But last night I got to see a bunch of great doctors, both here and at Yale, work to make sure the guy sleeping in the medical tent next to where I'm typing this will be able to make it back home.