unwritten rules of ER

1) If you come in on a backboard you will have to go to the bathroom within minutes of arrival.
2) If you come in with a probable broken hip you will have to to the bathroom immediately on arrival.
3) If you order food you will be too busy to eat it.
4) Xrays that were done in a nursing home of that broken hip will never come with the patient to the hospital. They will have to be done again.
5) If your patient overdosed on pills and you have to do a gastric lavage, they will always have eaten a disgusting meal before they took the pills.
6) If you get a loud, obnoxious drunk, detox will be full.
7) If one person comes up to the triage window to ask how much longer it will be, it will have a domino effect and everybody in the waiting room will come up there too.
8) If your pro football team is any good at all, you will slow down during the games.
9) If you wear any kind of new uniform or shoes someone will bleed, vomit or pee on them.
10) If you are the charge nurse and go to the bathroom, your phone will ring.
11) If you are having a horrible, busy day, at least one of your frequent flyers will show up. (Its like they have radar or something)
12) If you have a patient who is crashing, ICU tell you they have to transfer a patient to take yours.
13) Its true that when the moon is full, or there is a change in barometric pressure, the weirdos come out of the woodwork.
14) At some point in your time in ER, an embarrassing relative, old boyfriend, hated friend will come in while you're working.
15) When you are really, really busy, one of the following things will happen: the computer will go down, the tube system will go down, a lab machine will go down,
the hospital down the street will go on divert.

a long ride to help

Is it just me or are young adolescents coming out of the woodwork with mental illnesses? I swear we see at least 3-4 thirteen or fourteen year olds a shift depressed and suicidal. Are their more of them or are the parents taking them for help now a days?

Mental health care is a farce in this country. Especially inpatient mental health. There is a shortage of psychiatrists and it seems like we are always short of beds. I guess mental health is not profitable. So our patients at times sit in the ER for up to 24 hours waiting for a bed.

Sometimes they are transferred to other hospitals in the city and sometimes even to another city in the state or neighboring state. A couple of weeks ago I transferred an adolescent 250 miles away to a hospital. For some reason the parents couldn't go with, so I sent this 14 year old 250 miles away by himself with medics.

Its really sad how we treat the mentally ill in this country.

another fun day in the hood

The caliber of folk we get in the ER gets lower and lower. Witness: Women with 3 kids under 5, now pregnant with 4th kid comes in to be seen. It is late evening and kids are tired and what do kids do when they are tired? They rev up and start running around. Of course rocket scientist mom does nothing to stop them.

Family #2 also in to be seen. They have a couple of kids under 5 in same situation: tired, ramped up. The kids are whooping it up. Rocket scientist mom calls Family #2's kids motherf----ers.

Security is called before a fight breaks out. All is once again calm in the lobby. Another fun day in the hood..

a sticky wicket

stupid survey shite

Oh how I love modern corporate medicine. They want so much to make you feel that they care how you feel, that your opinion matters. hahahahahaha. Right.

The latest stupidity? A survey of course. Hospitals love this shit. Well, of course, yours truly had to take the survey...I love surveys. What was interesting about this was the following question: Describe the hospital in 3 words...I read those words with glee, rubbing my hands together. Let me see:

CEO bonus bonanza

mediocre management paradise

feng shui nightmare

corporate hack refuge

hood rat haven

Then: Describe what your vision of the hospital in the future in 3 words:

registered nurse dreamworld

wealthy nurse stronghold

pampered nurse spa

great staffing fantasy

JCAHO/CMS free zone

I filled out the survey a hundred times...har