You are charge, the phone rings. There are 2 chest pains in the lobby and an ambulance on the way. You have 5 minutes to come up with 3 beds...GO!!!
Go directly to docs area, with a stern look on your face, ask docs who can go to the hall. Docs say nobody can move. You move their patients anyway! You come up with the beds! DING DING DING You score 25 points.
You are charge, the phone rings. There is a critical 3 minutes out. All the beds are full, including the stab rooms! GO!!! You do a 2 patient room switch and the ambulance rolls in just as a bed goes into the stab room! DING DING DING You score 25 points.
There are fifteen patients waiting in the lobby. The natives are restless. The triage staff is threatening mutiny. You are waiting for beds for 4 admits. GO!!! ou quickly called the supervisor, threaten to go on divert to ambulances. She comes up with the beds. DING DING DING You score 50 points.
Final score: 100 points. You win: $16.00 extra ($2/hr) for being the charge nurse for 8 hours. You stop and pick up some cheap wine on the way home.
Thank you for playing the ER charge nurse bed game.
Nurses are the world's most incredible people. I wish that they made the kind of money those damn pro athletes are sucking out of the economy. For every million they get a thousand kids go without textbooks or breakfast.
ReplyDeleteTriple Word Score or whatever for making some office doc admit someone waiting in the lobby directly after he sent him/her in to the ER after a full workup that resulted in a diagnosis.
ReplyDeleteWow! 2 whole extra dollars to be the Charge Nurse? Where do I sign up?
ReplyDeletePshaw....we got 50c/ hr. $6 for 12 hrs of taking everyone's shit!
ReplyDeleteBingo for charge nurse telling primary doc to cram his super stable "direct admit via the er for labs and elf on the way". Bite me.
ReplyDeleteIt certainly does sound like a game! Though it sounds like the prize is a sweat soaked pair of scrubs and stress.
ReplyDelete