Meaning me, of course. I worked a (rare) Night 12 a few days ago. It was the usual dog’s breakfast of high acuity, walking wounded without end lining up at Triage, and the particular Emergency Department hell of having no beds for, you know, emergency patients, the department being a
Continue readingAuthor: torontoemerg
Explaining Gay Rights
Not exactly relevant in Canada, but still useful for dealing with your fundamentalist relatives over the holiday season. [Via.]
Continue readingAll You Really Need to Know About Herman Cain
Herman Cain sees the Virgin Mary on a tortilla: He has won over some voters . . . by telling them that, when he was suffering from colon cancer, he knew he would be cured because he met a hospital worker named Grace and had a surgical incision in the …
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Asking for Drugs
In the Emergency Department, part of a nurse’s job in discharging patients is to figure out if they are good to go home, because in part it’s good nursing practice, but mostly you don’t want to have them bouncing back in a few hours because they didn’t understand something, or have a question. So you […]
Those Emergency Blues: Adventures in Depression
I swear Allie Brosh has channelled everyone who has ever suffered depression in this brilliant webcomic. Including me. Check it out by clicking on the graphic or the link.
Filed under: Health, I Really Have a Life Outside of Nursing, Random Thoughts …
Those Emergency Blues: Poem for a Saturday
I am really pleased to offer another poem by Michèle Katrina Thorsen. I have a couple more to offer over the next while. my dreams of your recovery died waiting in windows, at last disbelieving the roar of medical swank; the unraveling, dazzling myth of an exquisite, impossible) remission. — Michèle Katrina Thorsen Filed under: Michèle […]
“Christian” Family Values?
Texas judge William Adams beats his daughter with a belt. Warning: this video will trigger victims of abuse. I could only watch about thirty seconds at a time. The video has gone viral, with well over five million hits as of this writing. A few points…
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Smokers Have Other Problems Besides, Well, Smoking
If you work in the North, you’re familiar with the scene: patients in gowns, riding wheelchairs and trailing IV pumps scrambling over snow banks and icy walkways and braving frostbite-inducing winds to get off hospital property to have a smoke. I suppose for most of my readers, the image will induce a great big “Meh.” […]
Three Thoughts on the Greek Debt Crisis
1. Just wondering. If the Greek people are being asked to make extraordinary sacrifices to resolve a crisis largely not of their own making (see here, for example, on the mythology surrounding the Greek debt crisis, which — dare I say it — has a lot of vaguely racist shite about lazy southern . . . → Read More: Three Thoughts on the Greek Debt Crisis
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: All Nurses Are Not Equal
My best friend Reid made an interesting point the other day. “I have,” she said, “an alphabet soup of certifications. I have ACLS. I have BCLS. I have TNCC. I have ENPC. I have pieces of paper that tell me I can run traumas and defibrillate people. I have critical care courses up the wazoo. […]
Those Emergency Blues: Page 23
A cool take down of the consumerism and the scarcely vocalized passions lurking in every IKEA catalogue.
Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Short film, Vimeo
It’s Climategate II! Except It’s Not.
Kate at Small Dead Animals is virtually peeing herself with excitement: the lyin’ bastards have been caught again! Data manipulation! Climate change is a hoax! Etc.! She quotes from a Mail on Sunday article at length, which in itself quotes an American colleague of Richard Muller (of BEST climate study fame) named Judith . . . → Read More: It’s Climategate II! Except It’s Not.
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Where Breasts Meet Art
Breast casts of various celebrities customized and tarted up by artists (more breasts here) to be auctioned and proceeds going to the Keep-a-Breast Foundation, a charity which promotes breast cancer awareness. The charity has been in the news lately because assorted fuddy-duddies principals and school boards have banned students wearing the charity’s “I ♥ Boobies” bracelets as a […]
Those Emergency Blues: Favourite Poems XLII
Two poems on the theme of Autumn. Autumn Valentine In May my heart was breaking- Oh, wide the wound, and deep! And bitter it beat at waking, And sore it split in sleep. And when it came November, I sought my heart, and sighed, “Poor thing, do you remember?” “What heart was that?” it cried. […]
Those Emergency Blues: “We Will Now All Be Unwilling Participants in a Social Experiment That Will Undoubtedly Place Canadian Lives at Risk”
My thoughts exactly, from Alan Drummond of the Canadian Association of Emergency Physicians. His full statement on the proposed repeal of the Gun Registry. It is regrettable that we, as a nation, are about to embark on an unwelcome social experiment. The Conservative government has been very clear that they intend to finally abolish the […]
Those Emergency Blues: On the Gun Registry
Globe and Mail headline: “End of long-gun registry seen as victory in war on Big Government.” The headline could have just as easily read, “Government wants to kill Canadians to make Lanark County gun owners happy.” Filed under: Before I Start Throwing Things, I'd Better Write This Down, Health Care Policy That Matters to Nursing, […]
Those Emergency Blues: Watching Your Employees Die Gets You -1,000,000,000 Karma Points
This is pretty appalling. Actually no. It is un-freakin’-believable: Last month, Julia’s daughter, Vianney, buried her mom, after the 67 year old woman died Sept. 8th at her desk, at Time Warner. “She went to Time Warner and didn’t come home,” said Vianney. What Vianney didn’t know, is that more could have been done, to […]
Those Emergency Blues: Sometimes Things Ain’t What They Seem
Niagara Health is taking a beat down lately. First it was an uncontrolled C. difficile outbreak, then a provincial administrator was appointed to deal with the outbreak, and now this: When Doreen Wallace fell and broke her hip in the lobby of a Niagara Falls hospital, she figured at least she’d get help — and fast. But […]
Those Emergency Blues: Says Blatchford, First We Shoot All The Nurses
I actually did a double take, and my jaw dropped, slightly when I read this: It’s why, where I used to think that before I got really old I’d get me a gun so I could shoot myself, I now wonder if I won’t instead turn the weapon on some officious hospital executive, wanker bureaucrat […]
Death to PowerPoint and Other Notions
Back again.Yeah, I’ve been away for a while, for reasons that have absolutely nothing to do with writing or blogging. However my unintentional sabbatical has had the benefit of leaving me refreshed and full of ideas and so maybe wasn’t such a bad thing after all. I mean, in the two years I have operated […]