Emergency department no-no's

Emergency department no-no's:

1) Don't fall and come in by ambulance and have a baggie of crack in your sock that the doctor finds when he examines you. At age 65 no less. Then keep coming out of your room yelling that we have no right to take your property.
2) Don't come in with your girlfriend (the patient) and then go out to the ER entrance and try the door on a car that is sitting there and get in and look around for something to steal. Then go back in your girlfriends room like nothing happened.You see my dear moron, we have cameras at the entrance, so smile you are BUSTED!
3) Don't come in with your boyfriend and both of you ask to be seen for the same thing: chronic back pain. Then expect both of you to get a supply of Vicodin. I don't think so.
4) Don't go in the bathroom and down a bottle of jack daniels before you are admitted to mental health.
5) Don't be banned from 3 local hospitals because you were sexually aggressive and threatened to kill the staff, then set your sights on our hospital.
6) Don't adjust your own IV pump to cause yourself another medical problem so you can be admitted.
7) Don't pack some hospital sheets and towels into a patient belongings bag and try to leave with them. EWWWW!
8) Don't come in for something related to your pregnancy and then steal the fetal heart monitor that we used to hear your baby's heartbeat.
9) Don't tie up your dog at the emergency entrance and then come in to be seen.

questions that deserve answers

Questions asked of the ER staff:

1) By phone: do you do c-sections in the ER? I'm tired of carrying this baby... (I hear ya sista)
2) To triage staff: can you borrow me $20? My car broke down a couple of blocks from here - I promise I'll bring it back...(sure...let me go get my purse)
3) Can you give me a ride to my car that I left in the parking lot about a mile from here? (no problem let me go get the ER van..)
4) On the way out: Have you got any condoms? (oh how I wish we did)
5) by phone: is doctor so and so working tonight? (he was fired yesterday..)
6) How many milligrams of Dilaudid or Morphine did you give me? (98)
7) Can I see: Jane, John, Mary, Sue? No I don't know their last name. I just met them an hour ago. (Isn't it nice how you make friends so easily...)
8) Do I have time to go to McDonalds before you call me? (of course, hey will you get me a blizzard while your there?)
9) Can I have a warm blanket, food, footies, a cab voucher, a bus token, a soda, some coffee? (you can have all that and more...let me get the ER conciere)
10) What's that smell? (ha....haha....hahahahaha...)

there's fungus amongus

When the tide turns in the ER, it can be an ugly thing. You know the patient is kind of a wacko, but you go along with all their aches and pains in an effort to just get the visit over with in the least stressful way possible for everyone concerned. So everything is honky-dorry and you are the patients new best friend, la dee dah. You are the most wonderful nurse who ever lived. And then it happens......something does not go the way the patients way and BOOM!!! New patient....a transformation from sweet, polite, best friends to THE PATIENT FROM HELL!!! The transformation is instantaneous and usually involves shouting, dramatic announcements: I"M LEAVING!!! Okay....hey I thought we were friends...

A patient comes in with some kind of cellulitis/fungus ( there's fungus amongus) thing on their feet. Oh by the way I have carbuncles (abscess like things that drain nasty goop) on my head, and I have an open sore with VRE (organism resistant to some antibiotics) on my derriere. Oh and by the way, I tip the scales at 350. The patients takes their shoes off and the bottom of her feet are black. And I am thinking to myself ICK!!! (You know that feeling you get when you are emptying a commode full of doo-doo). It just sends a shiver up my spine. In the end, said patient was going to be admitted and everything was copacetic. So, being the nice nurse that I am, I offer the patient something to eat (she's gotta keep her strength up after all). She chows down and in comes Miss Resident to do a history and physical. Miss Resident says to pleasant patient "Hey dude, there you are chowing down on a sandwich. I thought you were hurlin' so much, you were blowin' chunks all day!" (Or something to that effect) "I guess you can blow this pop stand and make tracks back to yo' crib after all".

This is when pleasant patient turns a bright shade of red, steam comes out of their ears and shouts: "I knew you weren't going to admit me, you rat faced imbecile" (or something to that effect). "Chill out, fool, let me get with the ER doc" says Miss Resident. "I'm out" says pleasant patient. (Cue dramatic exit music). Moral of the story: When someone seems too polite, too sweet, thinks you are the best nurse who ever lived, calls you ma'am, be afraid be very afraid and look for THE TIDE TO TURN....

fun with emergency room math

Math. Does anybody really like it but math geeks? You have to have a certain amount of math to get into nursing school and become something like a licensed practical nurse. I wonder if you still learn the apothecary sytem...anyway we don't use much math in nursing anymore because they don't trust us to do the math, literally. Machines do it for us nowadays. In ER there is a special kind of math that we all get to know involving equations. Let me demonstrate:

1)Xanax + ETOH + Lexus +75 mph = airborne driver + multiple fractures
2)Tractors + old men = Death
3)ATVs + young men = Death
4)Bicycles + riders - helmets + cars = Death
5)300 lb old women with UTI + old man with hematuria + anybody with back pain + young woman with abdominal pain = crazy nurse
6)Mean drunk + anybody on meth + overdose needing lavage + anybody constipated = suicidal nurse
7) Unwashed feet + alcohol and cigarettes smell + GI bleed smell = sick nurse
8) Fibromyalgic + migraineur + helicopter relative or friend = nurse running out of ER

Whats up yo? Nurse Jackie rips off the nurse blogosphere

What is this shit? Is this sarcasm? Are we being mocked? What the hell is this tomfoolery? It seems that someone around the Nurse Jackie show thought it would be CLEVER to have Zoey the nurse have a nurse blog. This is obviously another ripoff of Nurse K's blog. When are they gonna start payin my sista K?!! Just remember K, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and all that crap.

Here it is: NURSING IT YO (clever title)