Sunday, July 12, 2009

working with a bad doctor


I used to work with a doctor who I really didn't trust. I thought he was a bad doctor. He was a condescending ass.

I really didn't like working with him because I worried that he would miss something espescially with a trauma. He tended to dismiss stuff. He has before and someone else caught it. The thing is he is not the type of doctor that you can reason with. No lowly nurse could ever talk to him about anything. He would go running to the director to complain. The medical director was a chicken shit who was friends with him before they worked together. So going to him was worthless. So there you are with this bad doctor between a rock and a hard place.

My question is have any of you dealt with this? Worked with a bad doctor? How did you handle it? What are other options?

Saturday, July 11, 2009

I could tell you but I'd have to kill you


I have spoken of codes and locks in our ER and how you would think I work at the frickin' CIA. Well I thought it couldn't get any crazier, but of course it has.

Our med room door has a lock with a code. It seems that those rocket scientists at JCAHO have decided that things like staff ibuprofen, tylenol and vials of saline have to be locked up within that already locked room. So the genuises in our management put them in a cabinet. They put a lock on it that requires a code. Then you remove part of this lock you put the code into and within it is a key. You use that key to open another key on the cabinet. Once you have gotten out that dangerous tylenol, you must again enter a code in the thing where the key is stored in ORDER TO RETURN THE KEY. Just kill me now...

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

we put the d in dysfunctional

I'm embarrassed. I really am. To be a citizen of this country after yesterdays spectacle. Thank God I was working.

When I got home I switched on CNN and they were rerunning the Michael Jackson memorial. I shut it off after a couple of minutes. It was so over the top. I don't know maybe it was appropriate for a guy who himself was over the top.

What struck me most about the whole thing was the fact that the coverage started in the morning and went well into the night. It was on the three major networks. Their news anchors were there for the thing. Here we are, as a nation, memorializing a man who probably died of a drug overdose, was mentally ill. It was as if the president of the United States had died.

The bits and pieces I have seen of the service portray him like he was the second coming. Sure he had talent. So what. He didn't deserve all of that coverage. What does it say about this country that he was treated in the this manner?

Saturday, July 04, 2009

he took him down and brought him up


I wonder how much the anesthesiologist who supposedly travelled with Michael Jackson made? Now anesthesiologists make a damn good salary just having a normal hospital job. Can you imagine what this guy made?

Another question, assuming this is true, how did he get access to propofol? Did he pocket a few from the hospital or wherever he worked? Maybe he got it on the internet. I'm not sure if propofol is something that is tracked (a controlled substance). I know we have to waste what we don't use in our ER.

Propofol is really very safe and works well in the proper setting. A setting where you have a cardiac monitor, oximetry, C02 monitor, etc to monitor the patient. You have to have airway equipment, a ventilator, someone who can intubate. Did the doctor travel with all of this?

Apparently the abuse of propofol, mostly by medical professionals in on the rise according to this article. If this story about Jackson is true it is an amazing story. Proof that if you shove enough money in homebody's face, some people are willing to do just about anything. Makes doctors look bad.

Just out of curiousity, do you use propofol in your ER? Do the nurses give it?

Wednesday, July 01, 2009

my favorite blog

This is my new absolutely favorite blog: Margaret and Helen. Even if you don't agree with the poltics it is funnier than shit.

drug execs shittin' their pants


The executives at Abbott Laboratories and Endo laboratories must be shittin' their pants right now. Their prescious money makers Vicodin and Percocet respectively, might just go off the market. I doubt it but one can dream.

It seems that an FDA panel has recommended their removal because of the acetominophen (tylenol) content. Acetominophen can damage or destroy the liver (and therefore kill you) if taken in an overdose. Many people don't realize how toxic this drug can be because it seems so mild. I have had a patient who overdosed on it intentionally and was transferred to another hospital to hopefully get a new liver. Their age: 20's

I have four big fears with the possibility of particularly Vicodin going off the market:

1) What the hell are all these doctor feelgoods (including ER docs) going to prescribe now if Vicodin is gone???!!!!!! They might actually have to say "NO". Oh no, not that, oh my God. They might actually have to practice medicine and stop avoiding confrontations.
2) There are probably millions of Vicodin addicts in this country. If Vicodin goes off the market, there is going to be mass withdrawal. We could become a very cranky country. ERs will be overwhelmed with people jonesing for for their Vic and Perc.
3) Is this FDA panel expecting the American people to not have big time relief for every little ache and pain? What the hell? In this instant gratification, no discomfort society? Yeah. Okay.
4) What about the drug dealers and all the people associated with them? They will be out of a job. That will have an economic impact on our economy. Worsen the recession. Heh heh

I predict this won't happen. The drug lobbies are way too powerful. The governemtn is way to wimpy. I predict there will be no more FDA panels of this kind or if there are they will a very different makeup.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

madness as CIA operative


I like to pretend I am an international spy when I go to work. A sort of female James Bond in scrubs. Yeah. Jane Bond. My security clearance: top, top secret. Ask me something and I could tell you but I'd have to kill ya. Everything is on a need to know basis.
Working where I do is like working for the CIA. Apparently we have to be just as careful as they are about what lies within the confines of the ER. Like the CIA, as we go from room to room, a secret code is needed to enter different rooms. Want an enema - secret code needed. Got a headache - need tylenol - secret code needed. I mean there are rooms in my ER where not only do you have to have a secret code to get in but you have to have a secret code to go into cupboards within the secret coded room. A secret code within a secret code. It doesn't get any more secret than that.
There are no less than 8 secret codes in my emergency room. All different. Can you see why the security clearance is top, top secret? Only the elite are allowed into this area.
Every couple year of years a mysterious organization called JCAHO comes in to check if our enemas are still behind those secret coded doors. If they aren't, well I don't even want to get into the consequences - lets just say some people have disappeared...
Now if I can only get the powers that be to buy some secret decoder rings 'cause I am gettin' to old for this secret code bullshit.

Monday, June 29, 2009

oh please...


Buy my jewelry on etsy because I am a nice person and nobody loves me and I am very, very lonely and it would make me feel so much better. You want me to feel better don't you? Well don't you? Click on etsy at bottom L of this blog.