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 […]
Tag: Nursing
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: Snapshots of Nursing History
Courtesy of the National Archives of Canada. Filed under: Our Proud History, Public Images of Nurses and Nursing Tagged: Hospital for Sick Children, Nurse uniform, Nurses, Nursing, Toronto
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: 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: 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 […]
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: Get Me the Frickin’ Goat!
If only there was a magic goat. Part of an advertising campaign from the Nova Scotia Ministry of Health Promotion and Protection aimed at reducing harm from high risk behaviours. According to the No Magic Goat website: 911 is your friend. The goat, not so much. (She bites, for one). She’s cute and furry, but […]
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: Happy Canada Day
And all that. No Cobourg frolic this year, unfortunately, just work, work, work The dearth of posts the past week is not for lack of trying — have several rattling around in the draft file, but circumstances — work and family commitments, and also some (usual) nursing nastiness, which i will probably write about in a […]
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: I’ve Been Selected for a Not-So-Clever Marketing Scheme
This blog has been named as one of the ”20 Best Blog for Nurses” by that august institution, Jacksonville University School of Nursing. My jaded, cynical, shrivelled heart tells me it’s a trojan horse marketing scheme, since the button they emailed me links to information on their MScN program, and there doesn’t seem to a “20 […]
Those Emergency Blues: New Contract Beats Up on Ontario Nurses
On 3 June 2011, an arbitration panel handed down the new contract for the majority of Ontario hospital nurses. The panel was set up when negotiations between the Ontario Hospital Association and the union, the Ontario Nurses’ Association broke down. This is a pretty routine procedure when the union contract comes up for renewal, because […]
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 […]