From a mere nurse's POV..
Jun. 4th, 2012 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
midnightsjaneThat old saw about surgeons thinking themselves as higher lifeforms than the rest of us mere medical mortals? In the case of a certain cardiac surgeon, it's totally true. Yesterday I had a fairly decent day, until just before 7 p.m. My patient was quite sick, had some issues with possible bleeding into her right lung, so we'd taken her down for a CT scan, and then were giving her blood, consulting respirology and then surgery to decide what needed to be done. Hadn't heard anything by 6:50 or so, when someone from the OR showed up at her bedside, to say that she was checking out what lines the patient had, and oh, by the way, the OR would be coming over in 10 minutes to get her....say what? It would sure be nice to have some sort of advance notice so we could, oh, call the family, get a consent, prepare the patient properly (and even tell the patient, novel concept!) Hearing that we had no idea what was happening, the OR person left; 5 minutes later the cardiac surgeon arrived. Yup, taking her over now, get her ready to go, by the way, take some blood work, give her 4 units of plasma stat, and oh no, she doesn't have a big central line? Whatever are you guys doing here? How incompetent, not being psychic enough to intuit what we'd decided to do without telling you. Never mind, just get me the central line kit and help me while you do all the other stuff as well.... Not to mention that it was almost end of shift and I had other things like charting and meds to give. I held onto my temper, did what I could, and luckily one of my co-workers had time to help with the line insertion. I asked the surgeon to call the lady's son because he was next of kin, and it is the surgeon's responsibility to get consent; he assured me he'd call. Within 30 minutes I'd managed to get everything together and get the first unit of plasma up, and the chart together, and try to reassure the poor woman, to explain what the surgery would be (since the surgeon hadn't said much to her besides, lie still, I'm going to put a big IV in you, and there was all this kerfuffle going on around her). The OR team came and got her, and then five minutes later someone came over to say, oh, by the way, did you get a consent signed? Um, no. That would be the DOCTOR'S JOB.
Really. That whole thing could have been handled so much better if they had just communicated with those of us looking after the poor woman. It's not like it was going to be a matter of life and death in the next five minutes, there was actually time to be organized. I guess the surgeon is used to being able to snap his fingers and have everything ready for him in the OR; just doesn't work that way outside those hallowed halls.
:headdesk:
Oh, well. In other news, I had a day off today. Took my car in for servicing. I was a little nervous, because it was way overdue for a tune-up and oil change, and the last couple of times there have been extra things that needed fixing. My car is almost 16 years old, on her second engine, too. Hurray, all is well. The mechanic said it was in very good shape. Good to hear.
After I dropped the car off, I walked up Fourth Avenue, got some stuff at Shopper's Drug Mart, then stopped in at Terra Breads for a cup of coffee and a very yummy pecan-cinnamon roll. Then I took the bus home, cleaned the apartment, made some stewed rhubarb (from rhubarb from the garden at the farm) and drank tea and read a book until it was time to go get the car.
Got home, made some scones for tea. It's very strange: I have made the exact same recipe many times, and today the dough was super sticky for some reason. Maybe it's the damp weather. I know altitude affects baking, so I guess humidity must too. Anyway, the scones turned out fine. I had some with the stewed rhubarb, it was delicious.
I was supposed to go to an ICU education day workshop tomorrow, but the staffing office called to ask if I could work a dayshift. So getting paid for 12 hours trumps 4 hours pay.
Time to get lunch ready.
Really. That whole thing could have been handled so much better if they had just communicated with those of us looking after the poor woman. It's not like it was going to be a matter of life and death in the next five minutes, there was actually time to be organized. I guess the surgeon is used to being able to snap his fingers and have everything ready for him in the OR; just doesn't work that way outside those hallowed halls.
:headdesk:
Oh, well. In other news, I had a day off today. Took my car in for servicing. I was a little nervous, because it was way overdue for a tune-up and oil change, and the last couple of times there have been extra things that needed fixing. My car is almost 16 years old, on her second engine, too. Hurray, all is well. The mechanic said it was in very good shape. Good to hear.
After I dropped the car off, I walked up Fourth Avenue, got some stuff at Shopper's Drug Mart, then stopped in at Terra Breads for a cup of coffee and a very yummy pecan-cinnamon roll. Then I took the bus home, cleaned the apartment, made some stewed rhubarb (from rhubarb from the garden at the farm) and drank tea and read a book until it was time to go get the car.
Got home, made some scones for tea. It's very strange: I have made the exact same recipe many times, and today the dough was super sticky for some reason. Maybe it's the damp weather. I know altitude affects baking, so I guess humidity must too. Anyway, the scones turned out fine. I had some with the stewed rhubarb, it was delicious.
I was supposed to go to an ICU education day workshop tomorrow, but the staffing office called to ask if I could work a dayshift. So getting paid for 12 hours trumps 4 hours pay.
Time to get lunch ready.
