Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Original, at least

One of the better conversations I've overheard in a while-
Doctor: Sir, have you been doing drugs tonight?
Patient: Well, yeah. I was at my family reunion.

Oh, okay. As long as your family was there, I guess.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Well, hell.

I guess I'm gonna have to start monitoring my comments. There has been a disturbing trend on blogger lately where people whose names are in Japanese characters leave me vague comments along the lines of "Confucious say man who stand on toilet is high on pot......", except the "......" parts are all individual links to some kind of lipstick lesbian Asian girls porn site.

Great. Listen, trolls. NO ONE READS THIS. Except like, my family and a couple of other awesome people who happen to be amused by medical stories told using lots of swear words and hillbilly ghetto slang. Put that shit on Perez Hilton or some other blog people actually comment on. It may get taken down, but at least people will see it before it does. If you're gonna post that crap on my blog you might as well just go outside and hand out some fliers to the animals in the fucking woods, because it will get you about as much traffic as my blog will.

Reporting this stuff is pretty much impossible, with as vague as all the policy violations are when you try to do it. So, I have a suggestion for you, Blogger. As everyone should know by now, everything on the internet is about pornography. I think we should all adjust our expectations accordingly and put a big red button on top of every Blogger profile that says THIS BLOG IS A FRONT FOR PORNOGRAPHY.
Ahem. I accept check or money order, Blogger. Your move.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Stupid and ANGRY

Shit that has actually been said to me this week alone:

My baby has a virus, and you guys didn't even give him any antibiotics. I can't believe I waited 9 hours and brough him back twice in one day for you to tell me to give my baby Tylenol. I did that like, 6 hours before I brought him up here. His fever came back. That other doctor told me about that Pedialyte. Give me one of those to go.

That Norco you gave me didn't do anything! What is this? No. I want some more Norco. I am not taking a shot of Tramadol. Whatever. I know Tramadol and Toradol are the same thing. My Grandma was on that. What do you mean you're gonna give me a shot in the shoulder? I've never heard of that! The Tetanus shot goes in your shoulder? Uh, no. The Tetanus shot goes in here (pointing to forearm). That's the one that makes the bubble. TB test? Whatever. Same thing. No. I'm not gonna take that. No. I'm refusing it. Ugh. You guys aren't doing shit for my pain.

Yeah. Tell that doctor I'm gonna report her. For what? I've been sitting here and my blood pressure has been fluctuating and no one has been monitoring it.(Has been on cardiac monitor that entire time and has has BPs between 160/80 and 140/70). Whatever. That's bullshit. I don't think you guys think I know anything. That shit affects your kidneys. I know that. You don't treat blood pressure like that in the ER? That's bullshit. You guys haven't done shit for me. (Got a full chest pain workup and 4 hour repeat of cardiac labs). You guys just kept me here to keep me here. I don't even think you did a test on that blood. That shit is racist. I think you just kept that blood in case you need it. Whatever. Just take this IV out. I WILL BE REPORTING YOU.

I'm gonna quit nursing and create an accrediation based on browsing WebMD, half watching Discovery Health and word of mouth from your ex girlfriend who used to be a CNA for 6 months. That way, all these people can all get their licenses- I'm think a doctorate of douchebaggery with a concentration in medicine, and they can all treat each other in whatever way they seem to think is appropriate. Then they can all GTFO of my ER. Now please.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

An open letter to nursing home "nurses"

Dear nurses?/clowns?/hobos someone is paying to take care of sick elderly people?:

Please stop. Seriously. Stop sending stupid stupid shit to the ER ALL THE TIME. Even as I say this, I know it is absolutely too much to ask for you to stop sending over patients for lab values that were drawn two weeks ago that are abnormal, but have been treated already, instead of just calling the doctor. I know it's really a lot to ask for you to take a second blood pressure before sending a patient over for hypotension, so that we don't get them here and waste our time working up a patient with a pressure of 120/80. I know that's really a little too much to expect.
I won't even ask this of you. But please advise, just for next time-
If EMTs show up to your "CPR in progress" and the patient is looking at you and looking around the room while you do compressions, they probably always had a pulse. You just didn't feel the pulse because you are terrible at being a nurse and you should stop forever.
A "little grandma seizure" is not a thing. A Grand Mal seizure is a thing, but they don't come in little size. Only grand. Like grande. Or large.
If you walk into a room to find your patient cold, pulseless, and in rigor mortis, they have been dead for some time. Please don't call an ambulance. Call the funeral home. Quit doing compressions. You're just beating up a corpse.
Nausea is not a reason to stop all medicines. Especially when said medicines are for seizures or diabetes.
Also, guys. I'm really sorry to keep I keep interupting you at night. I know you're very busy sleeping or watching Cheaters, and that you just got here and you don't know anything about this patient, but sometimes I just have to call and check just to make sure you're serious. I know I shouldn't really be surprised by anything at this point, but you guys always manage to out do yourselves.
Congrats on that,
xoxo, Hood Nurse

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

OMFG, she came back.

Holy crap, dude. Remember Buckwheat lady? She came back the other day. This time, her chief complaint was that she had a hog in her stomach, and that she came to get it out. She then preceded to hit up all the other patients in the waiting room for money. Classic.
You know those above the influence my anti drug commercials? Yeah... well, patients on crack with hogs in their stomach? That's my anti drug, for real.

Okay, I'm ready for a change now please.

Alright. This may be the winter months getting to me, but this job is starting to wear down on me a little bit. I got into ER because I like to be busy- I want a steady stream of work all the time. I still partly love this job for that, not to mention the fact that I'm learning and becoming confident with critical patients pretty fast- but this seems to have gone to an extreme in the last few months. I need a break. Not even from work necessarily, but in my day. The last time I worked was on Sunday- 12 hour shift. I got to go pee once. I never got to eat- I drank coke at the nurses station and one of my teammates was nice enough to bring me a piece of cheese. Part of this is certainly my own fault- I run myself into the ground getting little things for patients instead of taking care of myself because I want them to be happy; I spend my free moments helping my teammates when I know they need it because I would want the same, and most of them would help me, too. I take responsibility for this part. But that's not all of it.
We need reinforcements, bad. We have a 45 bed ER- only 23 of those are really set up for true ER patients, the other areas or for non-emergency clinic patients, and half of those beds are usually closed because of staffing. We're lucky if we have enough for a skeleton crew- lately with call-ins we've had to close rooms in the critical areas. Essentially, upper management is killing us. We can't keep new staff because of the work conditions, and they won't spend the money on agency nurses. They replaced our fast doctors who got complaints but actually moved people with baby docs fresh out of med school. This results in patients spending around 9 hours in the waiting room on average lately- sometimes more- yet the justification for not giving us the resources we need is that we're not meeting our patient satisfaction goals. You don't say? Well, I wouldn't be satisfied if I waited 9 damn hours either. It wouldn't matter if I rubbed these patient's feet and cooked them a 5 course meal- if they spent half their day in the waiting room, they're gonna be pissed.
I know part of this is due to it being winter, and it should get better soon. But these conditions are insane. I don't know whether this is just the nature of ER, or whether it's just my ER, but I'm getting pretty sick of walking into a disaster area every day. My contract is up soon and I'm gonna start probably looking for a new job in the next year if things don't get better. I'll miss lots of things about this job- but not as much as I'd miss my mental and physical health or my nursing license if things continue they way they're going.