I was discharging a young lady who had called an ambulance because she didn't want to walk to be seen for her armpit abscess. I was reviewing the discharge instructions when she interrupted me in the middle of a sentence - "you gonna give me dressing stuff?" Now to be honest, we often do give dressing supplies for a couple of days but this girl was just too much, she had been rude when she got sent to triage, she was snotty when she had to wait for the doctor, who was in the middle of a code. She had asked for a blanket, a phone and a sandwich the minute she got put in the room. Frankly I was fed up and not inclined to give her any favors so I told her that mini pads make great dressings - which they do, we recommend those and maxi pads quite a bit - they are cheap and stick inside your clothing or stick good to tape. Then she wanted a free cab and when she was told no she snottily said "WELL......I GUESS I'll just have to WALK since you won't pay for a cab."
Yep, I guess you will.
Later on another ambulance brought in a 20 year old male with a sunburn.
Good grief.
Friday, May 30, 2008
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7 comments:
I found your blog one time when I was searching for something else and I started reading it and really enjoyed it. I have since bookmarked it on my "favorites" list and read it again every so often. While I'm not a nurse, I work in psych, and every so often get called to the ER to do psych evals so I can relate when you talk about some of the psych patients you have seen :) Anyway, just wanted to say, awesome blog...keep it up :)
I have a sunburn today. I am going to spend all day tomorrow on an ambulance. It must have wonderful curative properties that have only been discovered by system abusers. I'm feeling better already.
I'm going to try to get a sunburn tomorrow so I can go to my ER after calling in sick and get Dilaudid. There, I will get drugs, wonderful care from my overworked coworkers, since they're now a nurse short, and maybe they'll send me in a helicopter to Miami because my sunburn is so traumatic.
More and more lately I find myself wanting to tell people that the law (EMTALA) only states that they have to be evaluated and treated for EMERGENCIES and send them on their way
The ER is biggest system abuser.
I was asked to admit a 34 year old man for chest pain. 12 hours of continuous chest pain. Normal chest x-ray. Normal EKG. Troponin not detectible 3 times in 10 hours. CPK of 26.
High on coccaine and methamphetamine.
How exactly is having this man pace on my telemetry ward until the charge nurse gives him ativan going to help anyone?
And we wonder why there is a bed crunch... Hospital admission is not supposed to be the plan of disposition because the ER staff is changing shift.
Anonymous,
There are some ED doctors who behave as you describe. I believe that most do not. I have worked for a couple of places that have a stand-alone ED. Both of these stand-alone EDs were staffed by attending ED physicians from university medical centers. They transfer any patient needing admission to the main hospital.
Everyone would know what the shift would be like based on the doctor on duty. Some admit everything requiring more than a band-aid, but this is the minority.
to anon at 830
You sound like the typical floor nurse ER hater. Let us get something straight. The ER doctors decide who gets admitted (not you or I) and it doesn't make a damn if it's shift change or not. Sometimes patients that you don't want to take care of are admitted and you have to take care of them. As near as i can tell that is your job so let me help you out with some advice:
#1 quit your damn whining.
#2 do your damn job.
#3 if you don't like your job quit and do something else.
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