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 readingTag: Life in the Emergency Department
Those Emergency Blues: Generation Gaps
I recently took a course with nurses of varied years of experience and ages, but it was primarily made up of fairly new graduate nurses within the last year or two. During one lecture the facilitator was speaking about the future of nursing and how we need to address the
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: The phrases junior nurses and most staff do not care to hear from senior nurses…
…or the negativity they can spew…. “You wouldn’t know what to look for in that type of patient assessment anyways…” How do you know I don’t know what to assess for? Are you the textbook I read from? The online periodicals I continue to educate myself with? Are you every
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: 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: Nursing Week Ain’t What It Used to Be
My Nurses Week joy was shattered last night when the son of a patient reamed me out for discussing the patient’s condition and treatment plan — wait for it — with the patient. He thought his father, who was a rather elderly but very independent and shrewd man who still
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: The phrases junior nurses and most staff do not care to hear from senior nurses…
… and other examples of nurses eating their young… A few statements I’ve heard in the last few years that I shall share periodically. “It is more important that I get all of my breaks than you young folk because I’m older and need to rest more often” I fail
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: 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: 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
Continue reading