Saturday, December 31, 2011

Coughing

One of the emergency departments that I work at is a freestanding facility in a shopping center.  On a normal night I could see anywhere from 2-10 patients with a wide variety of complaints.  The best one of the night belonged to a 30 something woman who came in with her husband at 3am with a chief complaint of " coughing".  During the assessment phase of her visit with us she proceeded to cough everywhere and of course she did not cover her mouth.  No other symptoms reported, just a COUGH.  Please.  I work with kids all the time and unless they are ranging from ages 0-6 or 7 they even cover their mouths when they cough. 

Thursday, December 15, 2011

ahhh, the holidays

I have a houseful right now at home.  With my brood and family visiting for the holidays I have at least 12 people in the house.  Makes it quite interesting when I am trying to sleep during the day to get ready for the night shift. 

Last night was a much needed break.  No one came in with an eye rolling complaint.  It was quite nice.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Pet Peeves top 10

So as you might have figured out by now, I don't blog every day.  I just don't have time for it.  I work full time at one ER and  sometimes at another as well as having a brood at home to deal with.  Oh and a dog too.  So I come on here every now and then just to speak my mind to keep the boredom away (sarcasm anyone?). 

Tonight I would like to go over a short list of pet peeves, some related to patient care and some related to home...

1.  Coming in at 0350 with your very awake/alert/hyper 7 year old who had an emergent fever of 99.7 but of course has no other symptoms and of course you didn't giver her anything because you wanted me to see how high the fever is-is not going to receive any sympathy from me.  Oh and it's a fever for her because she usually runs 97.

2.  Pull your pants up when you walk into the hospital.  I know I don't want to see your boxers.

3. Pick up your feet when you are walking to the room.  I can't stand the shuffle noises. 

4.  Waiting until the child is having sternal retractions before you bring them in to be treated.

5.  Being in triage on a standing room only night and having, not one, not two, but multiple people interrupt me from triaging someone who is actually sick to ask me how long their wait is, or to tell me that it is ridiculous that they should have to wait this long.

6.  I noticed that some hospitals in some states are advertising on billboards how long their wait time is in the Emergency Department and I just have to say, for the record, BAD IDEA.  Some places will even allow you to log onto their website and reserve a place for your totally life threatening emergency. 

7.  Not getting enough sleep.  Due to hubby not acknowledging that you work for like 12 freaking hours and are tired when you get home and you have to do it again the next night so he wakes you up at like 1300 or due to the phone ringing and of course no one else is home and the phone is in the room too. 

8.  When you as a nurse know that antibiotics do not cure viruses but your doctor that your working with tonight is going to go ahead and give the family who does not understand the script anyway because they don't want to do any patient education.  My absolute favorite is when the doc will give your crouper with stridor xopenex.

9.  Ambulance report that states "patient is a little short of breath but pulse ox is 98% on NRB. Patient arrives with stridulous respirations and has a GCS less than 8 and you have to emergently intubate them. 

10.  The one EMS personell that insists on us checking tube placement by auscultation before he will allow us to move the pt from his stretcher to ours.  I always wondered if he is willing to extubate if we refused?

Well, I am sure that eventually you will get a lot more of my pet peeves later.