So, it’s been awhile, eh? It was Chuck Norris who found me. To everyone who emailed and texted and Tweeted, thanks. Everything is hunky and dory. I’m not dead, ok? Let’s get that out of the way. Nor am I afflicted with a Chronic Debilitating Illness, unless you count members of my family. (That
Continue readingTag: emergency department
Those Emergency Blues: When the Police Come Calling
The police are more-or-less a permanent fixture in every Emergency department. They bring in the drunks, the suicidal, the psychotic, the homeless and yes, the criminal, who have either sustained injuries as a result of their activities, or else have developed sudden (and convenient) cardiac symptoms upon their arrest. Most of
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Epic Hitler Emergency Department Charge Nurse Rant
I never thought I’d use the words “Epic” and “Hitler” and “Emergency Department” and “Charge Nurse” and “Rant” as a blog title, but what the hell. I was bored one night and thought it would be fun to make a Hitler rant parody. Filed under: What Passes for Humour Around
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Saved by Words for Friends
Ok, we’ve both been out of commission for a couple of weeks. Our Miss Jean Hill, bright future of the nursing profession and co-blogger extraordinaire, has a computer which has suffered last week the CPU equivalent of a massive cerebral bleed and maybe ethanol withdrawal too; the computer has since recovered, but
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Nurses Grieve Too
An underexplored or ignored aspect of nursing professional life: how nurses working in a Labour and Delivery unit grieve over the loss of their patients, and how this grief affects care and support of survivors. What is really striking about the film is the culture of mutual support and respect
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: In Which TorontoEmerg is So Busted, or, Welcome, Jean Hill
A few weeks ago, I was talking with a colleague, whom I will call Jean Hill, and by-the-by the conversation fell to nurse bloggers. Several prominent ones were mentioned, like Crass-Pollination and Emergiblog and Nerdy Nurse. “Oh,” said Jean Hill innocently. “I wish I could write like these guys.” At
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: More on When Labelling Patients Causes Patients to Die
In the comments WhiteCoat (of WhiteCoat’s Call Room fame) strenuously objects to my take on the Anna Brown case: Wow. Someone on my blog suggested that I check out this post after I just posted about this story yesterday. To all of you who think “something more should have been
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Just Because I Don’t Remember You Doesn’t Mean I Didn’t Care
In the Emergency Department where I work, the number of patients we see pushes 200 some days. We assess and treat a lot of people, mostly for lumps and bumps, breaks and bruises, but also for major, cataclysmic, life-altering events — MIs, trauma, stroke, what-have-you. I have a problem. The
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: A Poem for Easter
My own, with at least Easterish themes of death and rebirth. Originally published on 7/10/10. VSA You came to us, no vital signs, no breath Found dead, or nearly so, by the mall You last saw cars, careening carts, a child. Then falling, hard pavement, blood, a void empty Of
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: When Labelling Patients Causes Patients to Die
I found this story how a homeless woman died very disturbing: Anna Brown wasn’t leaving the emergency room quietly. She yelled from a wheelchair at St. Mary’s Health Center security personnel and Richmond Heights police officers that her legs hurt so badly she couldn’t stand. She had already been to
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Arizona is Where Educating Patients is Bad, Bad, Bad: An Amanda Trujillo Update
Just a few words about Amanda Trujillo. Jennifer Olin at RNCentral.com has detailed at the latest twists and turns of her case. I won’t repeat everything, but I want to comment instead on the Arizona State Board of Nursing’s latest action. The BoN has added a further charge that Trujillo
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Scripting Nurses is Bad for Patient Care
This might be a new low in nursing management. Instead of actually providing caring, empathy and compassion, some hospitals would like nurses to provide a simulacrum of caring, empathy and compassion, believing patients are stupid enough not to tell the difference: Nurses unions say an increasing number of hospitals nationwide are asking
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: The Guy in the Next Bed
Code Blue on the floor: a lot like a Code Blue in the Emergency Department, except we have to run to the elevators, take a ponderously slow ride up to whatever floor they’re doing compressions, and then run some more down some endlessly long corridors till we find a room
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Sleepy Sleepy Nurse
MY EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT COLLEAGUES are a youngish group as a whole, compared to me, that is, and most of them have school-aged children. A subset of this group of have traded shifts so they’re substantially working a straight night shift line,* in order to attend to family obligations. Almost all
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Those Emergency Blahs
I’ve worked as an Emergency Department nurse for something like thirteen years now, and at my present position more or less for ten years. It’s probably safe to say I’ve seen just about everything from the incredible tragic to the incredible funny, the good, the bizarre and the ugly. As
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Insert Snark Here
What this patient did not have Mr. CD, 88, took a little tumble at the nursing home when he slipped on a loose rug (or something, the details are a little vague here), obtained for his trouble a scalp laceration the length of Q-tip on his temple, bled like a
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: TV Series Hot
Gob-smacklingly stupid or hip advertising? I’m leaning towards the former. Via CBC: A Stockholm hospital that published an online ad looking to fill a summer position with a nurse who is “TV-series hot” says it was “written to catch people’s attention.” “We want people to be curious and have a
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Another One Bites the Dust
Via White Coat’s Call Rooom, I wanted to mention the demise of Weird Nursing Tales: After nearly 20 years on the internet, Weird Nursing Tales passed away. Weird Nursing Tales died on February 7, 2012 after it was reported to Administration that the true author was an employee of the
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: A Paean to ED Nurses or Just Annoying?
Twitter follower @camillelalonde — thank you — sent me this oldish link, which initially warmed the very cockles of my heart: Guest Editorial ACEP News September 2006 By David F. Baehren, M.D. [. . .] We usually look afar for heroes and role models, and in doing so overlook a group
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Long Emergency Department Admissions Shorten Lives
Via ImpactedNurse.com, another study showing prolonged emergency department stays are less than optimal: There were 41,256 admissions from the ED. Mortality generally increased with increasing boarding time, from 2.5% in patients boarded less than 2 hours to 4.5% in patients boarding 12 hours or more (p < 0.001). Mean hospital
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