Friday, April 11, 2014

#1672 - On Jumbled Mess


The last three days at work have felt like a Jumbled mess all right.

I usually like to get into a flow of sorts at work.
Patient comes in, gets seen, get the workup started,
move onto the next patient.

But, it's been more like:
Four patients waiting in the rooms when I arrive.
Three are old from the prior shift waiting for studies, and one is new.
See the new one and get things going.  Then another new one gets put in.
Try to see the new one while one of the old ones screams that 
they are ready to leave.  The new one needs nothing done and 
can be discharged.  Now two new ones are put into rooms,
and I get called quickly into a room because one of them is really
sick and needs attention yesterday.
Trying to put in orders on the new sick one, while trying to write discharges
on the old and new one, when another old one is ready to go
and the third old one turns out to be sicker than thought
and now needs more orders and a consult.
Get orders in on the sickest new one, haven't seen the other new one,
but then another new one gets placed into a room,
and, oh yeah, the PA didn't show up and there's
four other patients waiting to be seen in Fast Track.
I send my medical student to go see the "stitches removal"
because that should be easy, right?
While I discharge three, try to admit one, finally see another
and put in orders, the medical student comes back saying
that "something doesn't look right."
Now it's leave my work area and go to look at a wound in Fast Track.
Reassure patient and medical student that everything is ok,
and look at two of the three other patients that are there.
They're ready for discharge, so I grab their charts, remove the stitches
from the original patient, and grab their chart as well.
Stack of charts in hand, I go back to my work area to 
find that the nurses have roomed another two patients to replace the ones
I discharged, plus my sick patient is ready for admission,
and, oh by the way, a STEMI is on the way in and
will be in the ED in 3 - 5.

How many more hours until my shift ends....?




2013 A to Z Challenge Post:


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Howdy!

I am a bit confused, are you a MD or an RN etc?

what is a stemi lol you might want to put that out in parenthesis in non doctors terms what that means :P

Whats fast track?

enjoy your off day!
Christopher

www.CWMSJOURNAL.com

betty said...

I know the answers to the questions above, LOL

You are a M.D.

and a STEMI is a type of a heart attack

Fast Track - get them quick out of the ER (loose explanation)

So when you watch reruns of ER, do you just laugh because it really isn't like that?

betty

Jeanie said...

I'm breathless reading this Veronica.

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