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 readingTag: Life in the Emergency Department
Those Emergency Blues: Best of 2011
A little late for 2011 retrospectives, but, as I said, I was busy. First list: the most popular by hits. Second: my personal picks. 10 Most Popular Posts (many of which were actually posted in 2010) 1. Can We Stop the I’m-a-Male-Nurse-Who-Isn’t-Gay-Contrary-to-the-Stereotype Routine? (An oldie-but-a-goodie. By far and away the most popular
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
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Under Construction
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 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: 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: 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: 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 […]
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 […]
Those Emergency Blues: Labour Day and the Toronto Sun: An Annotation
Public sector workers are lazy and overpaid parasites sucking at the taxpayer teat. Or something. Please remember to tell us this when we’re doing ACLS on your sorry ass. Happy Labour Day. Love, TorontoEmerg Filed under: Colour Me Cynical, Life in the Emergency Department, What Passes for Humour Around Here Tagged: Canada, emergency department, emergency nursing, […]
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: Choking on Your Own Vomit
Aspirating while more-or-less obtunded because of alcohol poisoning is not pretty, and I’ve seen a few VSAs related to chocking on your own puke that had very poor outcomes. Hence my interest in this PSA from the British Red Cross. (Facebook here.) [Via.] I’m actually a little skeptical an adolescent/young adult on some colossal piss-up is going […]
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: A Matter of Hours
I was talking the other day to young, surprisingly old-school physician who bemoaned nurses “doing things” she thought properly done by duly authorized medical practitioners. (She also implied, by-the-by, that when physicians said “Go fetch,” the proper nursely response was a demure “Yes, doctor, and do you want your neck rubbed?)” Clearly, this physician thought, […]
Those Emergency Blues: A Letter to a Younger Colleague
Dear Colleague You are fairly new to our Emergency Department, you have done your Emergency Nursing courses and you now have collected a slew of certification initials: ACLS, PALS, TNCC, ENPC. You are confident, and just a little arrogant. Believe it or not, creaking dinosaur I am, I get where you are coming from. You […]
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 […]