Fancy that, eh? Just another way the system known as patriarchy in our society expresses itself. Women are not listened to or taken seriously, even in life and death situations. Kinda hard to be successful in society when your words are taken, by default, as less than face value.
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THE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM A Blog by Donna Thomson: The ER Caregiver Effect
There’s a tourist attraction in my city of Ottawa (Canada) called The Crazy Kitchen. It’s a room in the National Museum of Science of Technology that’s designed to demonstrate the effects of optical illusion on the mind and body. Entering the Crazy Kitchen is like walking through the doors of
Continue readingTHE CAREGIVERS' LIVING ROOM A Blog by Donna Thomson: DOUBLE VISION in the ER – DO THEY SEE WHAT I SEE?
My friend and colleague Vickie Cammack and I are co-writing a book of reflections on caregiving. Vickie and I would love to know your thoughts about our work so far! This is the first instalment from a section we’re working on abo…
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Charge Mommy
A few days ago, one of my colleagues said to me after a particularly frantic day in the ED, “You guys aren’t Charge Nurses, you’re Charge Mommies.” She is right. This is what we do: tell all the kids don’t fight and play nice fix boo-boos give hugs as needed, or
Continue readingThose 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: Jean, ROSC*
So as J mentioned before, I was in a near catatonic state due to my VSA* computer which has fortunately been resuscitated. The hypothermia post resuscitation care was beneficial but it suffered an anoxic brain injury that may not be possible to overcome. Despite this crushing blow, (more so financially really since
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: 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: 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: 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: Karma Sweet Karma
The latest instalment of Nurses Behaving Badly featured the night charge and the day charge (i.e. me) getting a status asthmaticus organized in Resus 1 a few minutes after shift change. It’s probably reasonable to wonder why the two Resus Room nurses weren’t attending (and attentive to) the situation, especially after we
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: What Nursing Leadership Doesn’t Look Like
A small, belated Christmas tale on how not to manage an emergency department. But first a few preliminary points of information. First: in Ontario, front line nurses are generally forbidden from taking vacation over the Christmas holidays, usually from some point from the first or second week of December to
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Dying Alone
A few weeks ago I had a patient named Helen who died. I’m not talking about a dramatic code or trauma, with people running around shouting for IV access, but rather an elderly woman who was at the end of her natural life. Dying in the Emergency Department is not
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Awesome
A few days ago, we had VSA come into the department. According to EMS, the patient had collapsed while grocery shopping down the road; CPR was started almost immediately by another shopper; EMS arrived and gave the usual ACLS drugs — epinephrine and atropine, as well as defribrillating him, but
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