Wednesday, March 17, 2004
Nightmare Shift from Hell
re-minisce is beginning to suspect that patients accrue their pathologies intentionally so that they can unleash them all upon re-minisce after midnight, during his week of nights.
monday night was pretty bad.
yesterday night was worse. Just when re-minisce thought he was getting a handle on things - it'd been abdo pain night all night, steady trickle, always 1 in the box waiting to be seen, no time for breaks... but nothing re-minisce couldn't handle, after all half of them were nutters who didn't need admission, and one was a real (repeat offending) nutter who'd just come in for pethidine (who, thanks to some clever re-stacking of priorities on re-minisce's part, never actually got seen before she self-discharged! hehe)
said nutter came in screaming and shouting. she had her own folder dedicated to her. a full length ring binder. comes in every 3 days for pethidine or so it appears, final dx : IBS. of late the consultants had been denying her pethidine, which usually makes her discharge in a huff.
instead, last night after putting her at the back of the pile for the third time (an acute urinary retention HAS to be more important than some fat women screaming her head off in "agony" who clearly isn't really that unwell) four acutely ill patients arrived at the same time at 6 am. 3 chest pains and 1 infec exac COPD.
enough said?
1x NSTEMI, +/- aortic dissection
1X ACS
1x thrombolysable anterior MI... re-minisce almost kissed her when she said in response to "so do you have any other medical problems" "oh, I had a stroke last month..." (and he only just bit-back the oh thank God just in time)
and of course Mr Premature Discharge for infec Exac COPD with his PO2 of 8 and Ph of 7.2
re-minisce felt right shattered after that. close to bubbling. or babbling. or whatever he was close to.
Sleep. must. sleep now. thank goodness for on call rooms.
re-minisce is beginning to suspect that patients accrue their pathologies intentionally so that they can unleash them all upon re-minisce after midnight, during his week of nights.
monday night was pretty bad.
yesterday night was worse. Just when re-minisce thought he was getting a handle on things - it'd been abdo pain night all night, steady trickle, always 1 in the box waiting to be seen, no time for breaks... but nothing re-minisce couldn't handle, after all half of them were nutters who didn't need admission, and one was a real (repeat offending) nutter who'd just come in for pethidine (who, thanks to some clever re-stacking of priorities on re-minisce's part, never actually got seen before she self-discharged! hehe)
said nutter came in screaming and shouting. she had her own folder dedicated to her. a full length ring binder. comes in every 3 days for pethidine or so it appears, final dx : IBS. of late the consultants had been denying her pethidine, which usually makes her discharge in a huff.
instead, last night after putting her at the back of the pile for the third time (an acute urinary retention HAS to be more important than some fat women screaming her head off in "agony" who clearly isn't really that unwell) four acutely ill patients arrived at the same time at 6 am. 3 chest pains and 1 infec exac COPD.
enough said?
1x NSTEMI, +/- aortic dissection
1X ACS
1x thrombolysable anterior MI... re-minisce almost kissed her when she said in response to "so do you have any other medical problems" "oh, I had a stroke last month..." (and he only just bit-back the oh thank God just in time)
and of course Mr Premature Discharge for infec Exac COPD with his PO2 of 8 and Ph of 7.2
re-minisce felt right shattered after that. close to bubbling. or babbling. or whatever he was close to.
Sleep. must. sleep now. thank goodness for on call rooms.
