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 readingTag: ER
Those 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: 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: “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: 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 […]
Those Emergency Blues: The Hockey Season Cometh
Overheard in Fast Track: Grandmother: (pointing to hat on child with a Canadiens emblem) Who are they? Who’s your favourite hockey team? 3-year-old child: Habs! Some other patient: Losers! I tell you, she had some nerve, that child. In Toronto, no less. Filed under: Life in the Emergency Department, What Passes for Humour Around Here […]
Those Emergency Blues: O Why O Why Did I Pick Up The Phone?
Phone rings. I look around. There is no ward clerk in sight. Damn. I answer. “Emergency, Charge Nurse.” “Can I ask you a question?” The voice on the other end sounds flat and tired. “Sure,” I say warily. “I came to see you guys a three days ago and I had a sore chest and […]
Those Emergency Blues: In Which TorontoEmerg Discourses on Some Aspects of Human Nature
It’s probably more than little trite to say the Emergency Department is a microcosm or laboratory of humanity, but like most clichés it has an element of truth. We see all types in the ED, the good, the ugly, and the purely despicable. (And then I could talk about the patients.) We’re human, after all. But in […]
Those Emergency Blues: Observations and Assessments
Notions to small for a blog post, all in one place. You need to take your pain medication. Once upon a time, TorontoEmerg had some fairly significant surgery on a major joint. It was (theoretically) exceeding painful, but fortunately TorontoEmerg’s orthopod was very generous in supplying TorontoEmerg with Percocets and Tylenol 3s, and thusly TorontoEmerge experienced very little […]
Those Emergency Blues: Shi(f)t Work
Wanderer over at Lost on the Floor makes a point: My manager remarked to me that night-shifters tend to, “have a bit of chip on our shoulders, almost like the world owes you something.” Damn right I do. I’m up when most sane and rational people are asleep. I sleep when the rest of the […]
Those Emergency Blues: So When Does This Become a Crisis?
I walked into the Emergency Department one hot morning a couple of weeks ago and found every last stretcher — twenty-five beds, including the two we try to reserve for trauma or codes — was filled with admitted patients; furthermore, five additional patients were waiting for consultants and likely admission. We were operating at 120% […]
Those Emergency Blues: Flattery Will Get You Everywhere
It’s been a tough couple of weeks for Team TorontoEmerg. First, I’ve been working like a rented mule, and secondly, a colleague whom I trusted and respected sandbagged me with a nasty and embarrassing (and devastating) personal attack, which frankly put me in a bit of a tailspin. How bad was it? Think about being […]
Those Emergency Blues: Hotocalypse
Hot enough for ya? For you non-metric types, that 38C is an even 100F. I think I speak for most of my fellow Canadians when I say, “WTF?” I suppose it’s redundant and unnecessary to add that staying out of the sun, finding a cool, air-conditioned place to hole up in (if possible) and drinking […]
Those Emergency Blues: Triage
The world in four patients, plus interruptions. Who’s next? Come in. Do you have your Health Card? Take off your hoodie and sit down. What brings you in today? Where exactly is the pain? On a scale of one to ten, if ten is the worst possible pain, what number would you give the pain? […]
Those Emergency Blues: The Most Useless Form on the Planet
Imagine this: you’ve had the shift from hell, no beds, every other patient is moments away from seeing Jesus/Allah/Buddha and to top it off, the department is down three nurses, another nurse is transporting the multisystem trauma downtown, and you feel really think working conditions were unsafe for both you and more importantly, your patients. […]
Those Emergency Blues: How to Clear Out a Waiting Room
A couple of weeks ago we had a spectacularly bad day, traumas, codes, STEMIs, septic shock, status asthmaticus, what have you, plus (of course) a department filled with the haunted faces of the damned admitted patients and volumes of epic proportions. Faced with an angry and hostile waiting room overflowing with the walking wounded, the […]
Those Emergency Blues: Bad Nurse! Bad!
I guess my venting, raging post the other day offended and/or ticked some people off, or at least the use of the strong language did. No sooner had I posted my screed than no fewer then five Twitter followers immediately dumped me, and I lost a couple of email subscribers to boot. (I’m losing sleep.) […]
Those Emergency Blues: In Which I Swear, Repeatedly, or, TorontoEmerg Gets Bullied
I write this blog for a number of reasons: my own amusement, to educate, to share various random thoughts, to tell stories, to stimulate discussion on topics important to nursing, to provoke thought beyond the superficial, to challenge assumptions, and lastly, to rant. Today I am going to rant. Those of you with delicate sensibilities may want […]
Those Emergency Blues: Don’t Tell Your Patient This. Or That.
Jo over at Head Nurse had an interesting question about a month ago. She was prepping for an interview for a Reader’s Digest article called “50 Things Your Nurse Won’t Tell”. It’s a common format for RD, I soon learned after checking their website, and features such articles as “50 Things Your Flight attendant Won’t […]