In Winter in My Room In Winter in my Room I came upon a Worm – Pink, lank and warm – But as he was a worm And worms presume Not quite with him at home – Secured him by a string To something neighboring And went along. A Trifle
Continue readingAuthor: torontoemerg
Those Emergency Blues: Friday Night Flicks: Last Minutes with ODEN
Bring tissue. Some time I’ll tell you guys why my dog — well, why I love her better than most people. [Couch mode here.] Filed under: Friday Night Flicks Tagged: Short film
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: A Nasty, Medically Unnecessary, Coercive Procedure
This is just grostesque: A Republican supermajority has muscled two of the most restrictive anti-abortion bills in years through the Virginia House, despite bitter yet futile objections from Democrats, with one GOP delegate deriding most of the procedures as “matters of lifestyle convenience.” You want to put what where? [SNIP]
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Nurses are Like Howler Monkeys, Poo and All
When I was a young, inexperienced nurse, I quickly learned one lesson: the cliché that Emergency nurses are fabulously assertive, mouthy, in-your-face pitbulls is absolutely true. I don’t mean ED nurses are bitchy or backstabbing eat-their-own-young types, though this was true also, at least for some of them. I mean
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: How to Make a Myocardial Infarction Funny
A very droll short video featuring Elizabeth Banks having a heart attack. Part of the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign. Not too edgy, but undoubtedly some will be officially ooffended/hurt/annoyed by the light treatment of a very serious subject. *Shrug* Filed under: Advertising Hitting The Mark, What
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems LXVII
A poem for a Saturday morning. Just because. To Winter O winter! bar thine adamantine doors: The north is thine; there hast thou built thy dark Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car. He hears me not, but o’er the yawning deep Rides
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Friday Night Flicks: The Incident at Tower 37
Powerful and moving, without being maudlin or having a Hollywood ending. What good animation looks like. Filed under: Friday Night Flicks Tagged: animation, friday night flicks, short films
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Observations and Assessments
Notions to small for a blog post, all in one place, a.k.a. the periodic link dump. Giving all aid short of actual help. First, some words from the American Nurses Association on Amanda Trujillo. The ANA finallyissued a news release, in which they absolutely avoided, like nervous grannies dithering over
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Why Nurses are Furious about the Amanda Trujillo Case
The case of Amanda Trujillo has generated a great deal of passionate commentary across the nursing blogosphere. Trujillo, as you may well know, is the nurse who was fired by Banner Health Del E. Webb Medical Center for requesting multi-disciplinary hospice care case management consult for a pre-transplant patient with end-stage
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: What Breast Cancer Is and Is Not
Susan G. Komen Run for the Cure doesn’t have much of a direct presence on this side of the border, so I could watch the recent public relations train wreck here with a sort of Olympian dispassion and, I have to admit, grim satisfaction. Frankly I’ve never been a fan
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems XLVI
Winter Night It snowed and snowed, the whole world over, Snow swept the world from end to end. A candle burned on the table; A candle burned. As during summer midges swarm To beat their wings against a flame Out in the yard the snowflakes swarmed To beat against the
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Friday Night Flicks: Internet Story
Very cool and very disturbing. Filed under: Friday Night Flicks Tagged: short films
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 readingThose Emergency Blues: A Little Nurse Bashing to Start Your Day
For breakfast, how about some outrageous libel from physician-blogger Terry Simpson (Twitter: @DocSimpson). File this under how not to blog about a serious issue in health care: The Arizona State Nursing board has asked that this nurse [Amanda Trujillo] undergo a psychiatric evaluation. The board is charged with protecting the
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: 10 Questions for Banner Health
Lo, a Tweet from Banner Health on the Amanda Trujillo incident, and possibly the most content-free in the history of Twitter: Uh, huh. “Listening” and “hearing” rather imply, in this context, some sort of follow-up action (though I think Banner Health SM guru is advising the appearance of action, rather
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Bedside Nursing as Menial and Demeaning
Ian Miller, blogging over at ImpactedNurse.com, notes a disturbing trend in Australia, one, I’m afraid, is becoming more common in North America. “These days,” he writes, “being a nurse is tough. Really tough.” I look around and see many struggling at the bedside. I see the increasing perception that this
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: What the Amanda Trujillo Case Tells Me About Nurses Behaving Badly
Amanda Trujillo can take cold comfort that her situation is not unique. In the two years and odd months I have posted on this blog, I have written about six other cases where nurses (or nursing students) have been bullied and hounded: the nurse whose hospital fired her for mouthing off
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Voices For Amanda Trujillo
Each of them eloquently speaks to the heart of what we do as nurses — and why nurses find how Amanda Trujillo was fired and subsequently reported to the Arizona State Board of Nursing so troubling. (Via The Innovative Nurse.) The first is from Andrew Lopez (Twitter: @nursefriendly.) Kevin Ross
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