Friday, September 3, 2010

Isolation? What?

Dude. Seriously. ER nurses are a special breed. I took care of an MRSA patient today and I was thinking back about how we had to deal with that on the floor when I was in nursing school. Gown and gloves if you're going to step over the red line. Don't you dare cross that red line to hand that MRSA patient the phone or give them a glass of water if you 're not decked out in that sexy plastic gown.
ER is the polar opposite. Pretty much projectile blood and shit are the only reasons I will put on an isolation gown these days. Oh. Flesh eating bacteria. That's about it. So many of our patients come in without any kind of information that when we realize we should be wearing PPE, it's already way the hell too late anyway. We took this little MRSA lady up to the ICU today and they were teasing us about our lack of gowns. "ER nurses have special immunity", they said. I agreed with her. "Yup. It's called we've probably been exposed to everything ever."
I just feel sorry for the nurses that will have to take care of me when I'm old. Those poor bastards are going to need hazmat suits.

4 comments:

  1. The gowns are not to protect the nurses or keep them from catching bugs (you are right, all nurse probably do carry god-knows-what), they are to keep exposure to the other PATIENTS to a minimum. Just saying...

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hahahahahahahaa! Yup. So special. You make me laugh... :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Usually I don't even find out they are isolation until I'm on my way up to the floor and the charge nurse there gives me the stink eye. Oops.

    ReplyDelete