Thursday, March 24, 2011

good job ... and WTF?

nursing unfortunately... for the most part, is a thankless, under appreciated job. once in a while though, amidst the chaos and unnecessary ranting, I get a pat on the back -- or 2:

- little lady waiting patiently be seen by me because I had one patient who decided to get up and walk to the bathroom, almost fainted, clammy, sweating profusely with systolics in the 70s and another patient whom I've seen twice already to try and get a history plus start an IV, but keeps ranting about how he's been here for over an hour and he was just here yesterday and how come he hasnt been seen yet. i finally made my way to see her and she's cute and soft spoken. I spoke with her and the daughter, gave her meds and gave report to another nurse because I moved to a different location. a couple of hours later, the daughter stopped me on my tracks to say "thank you for being so kind and gentle with my mom. not a lot of people would have been."

- patient's wife was a retired RN from a nearby hospital. she was very pleasant and so is her hubby, we chitchatted a little bit while I was giving him meds. she witnessed my interactions with ranting guy who demanded he speaks with my superior (no prob, bob. he wouldnt let me do my job anyway and expected me to apologize on behalf of the 5 doctors that walked past him who didnt stop to see if he's ok). retired RN commended me saying I was doing great and handled that patient well and if it were her, she wouldnt have been so pleasant.

on another note:

- sent a patient upstairs to the ICU from our critical area. unit RN calls me an 30 min later:
ICU RN: does mrs xyz have any belongings?
me: (staring at the area where pt was) i dont see any bags.
er tech: tell her to check under the stretcher
other er nurse: the husband is with her
ICU RN: yeah mr xyz is looking for her stuff. she should have the clothes she came in with.
me: yeah its not here. call transport bc we dont necessarily get the stretchers back.
ICU RN: yeah, can you do it?!
me: what the fcuk is wrong with your fingers, you lazy btch?! (jk i didnt say that -- out loud. ever the professional, I did call transport and the dispatcher said she'll ask the transports to bring it up to said floor if they find it. called back the floor)

all i'm saying is...why couldnt you do that yourself? that took literally 1 minute to do, all of which you are capable of. we werent super busy in the critical area at the time and i was working with a super RN, but sometimes I feel like floor nurses really underestimate us being in the ER.