I never thought I’d use the words “Epic” and “Hitler” and “Emergency Department” and “Charge Nurse” and “Rant” as a blog title, but what the hell. I was bored one night and thought it would be fun to make a Hitler rant parody. Filed under: What Passes for Humour Around
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Those Emergency Blues: A Nurse Contemplates Leaving the Profession
Dinner last night with an old friend who toils in the mines of Labour and Delivery. She has worked there for four years. She told me of an incident not too long ago working the night shift, faced with a post-partum patient who was bleeding, hypotensive, and tachycardic, in short,
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Guest Post: How We Can Fix the Malaise in the Nursing Profession
Nurse Practitioner (Photo credit: ekea7) by Amanda Trujillo If the newer generations of nurses out there are more confused than ever about their roles in healthcare — they should be. I’m one of the newer generations of nurses and I — AM — CONFUSED. Seriously. Think about it. We are taught
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: Nurse Love, The Real Kind
Some real nurse love — and incidentally reminding us why we have the most tremendous profession in the world and how we each day make a powerful difference in the lives of our patients. Via the blog The Spohrs are Multiplying, Mike Spohr writes about the day his child died:
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: On Your Feet, Nurse, the Doctor’s Here!
Should nurses give up their chairs for physicians? A nursing professor named Susan Kieffer writing at NurseTogether.com thinks so: If you have been a nurse for any length of time, you know how precious the seats at the nurses’ station really are. These seats are a rare commodity; one to
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: Doctors Are From Mars, Nurses Are From — Oh, To Hell With It
News flash! From Fierce Medical News, here’s the shocking headline: Docs, nurses miscommunicate on respect, job role When you guys pick yourselves off the floor from laughing, here’s the money quote: In particular, the survey found differing views of how doctors treat nurses. According to 42 percent of nurse leaders,
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: 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
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: A Small Rant from Your Friendly X-ray Tech
A note sent to me from my favourite MRT (Medical Radiation Technologist). A reminder too, that nurses aren’t the centre of the universe, even if we think we are. Some thoughts from an MRT. . . Now I know we aren’t perfect but I feel like a rant about portable
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: The Persecution of Amanda Trujillo
In the ugly, grey world of hospital balance sheets it’s almost a commonplace that physicians generate revenue while nurses represent a cost. Fancy procedures and sub-sub-specialties bring generous income streams, in terms of charging (and profiting) from the provision of a multitude of related services, such as nursing, while nursing
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Karma Sweet Karma
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 readingThose 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: Dying Alone, Continued
Thanks to commenter Pagan Chaplain (Twitter ~ web) for pointing out the No One Dies Alone program, where volunteers under nursing supervision support patients who would be otherwise alone at the end of life. The program was started by Sandra Clarke at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene, Oregon. She cared
Continue readingThose Emergency Blues: Back
More or less. Everyone who emailed me, thanks. I am quite well, if a little bruised. Therein lies a tale, you say — true enough, but one I’m not quite ready to tell, though I’m working on an article for a (non-nursing) publication about it. Everyone who sent me an
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: Got Mine. Got Yours?
The flu shot, that is. I got mine yesterday. And no, I did not get any flu-like symptoms. So get it over it, and go get the shot. Now. Especially if you’re a health care professional. What I wrote during the glory days of H1N1 two years ago still applies:
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
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