You know it's a slow night when....

Published

Specializes in NICU.

So our census has been rather low for the past few weeks now (in the mid to high 20's, when we are usually 40+). It's gotten to the point where we are all starting to go a little stir crazy... We havn't gotten a new admit in over 5 days... and when we do, it's a term kid for glucose monitoring or something like that.

So tonight, our charge nurse and one of our other nurses decided to get some laughs. They got all dressed up like they were just coming back from a c-section. They had the code bag, and they even had a transporter. They took one of our demonstration dolls, wrapped them up, and put a hat on it. They then walked into the first admit room, and pretended like this was a "crash section... last min... sorry didn't have time to call and warn you" deal... The charge nurse takes the baby/doll out of the transporter and goes to put it on the scale to weight it - but instead - drops the it (the doll) on the floor!!!!!

Everybody about has a heart attack - until they realize that it was a doll....

I have never laughed so hard in my life. They then went and repeated the process by our "boarder" admit. Same reactions. Our RT even got in on it and was asking what type of oxygen the baby needed as they were walking in the room... It was awesome.

Sometimes - you just gotta have some fun.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Level III NICU.

Sounds like my unit right now too....we're losing our minds!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I would love a little down time. We are at capacity. It seems like a lot of the babies we have gotten lately are going to be chronics, which makes me sad. When we send one home and two more come in.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Level III NICU.

We've got a couple of chronics ourselves, one being my little primary :o

I know there are a few "ticking timebombs" up on ante as well, so there is always the potential for things to pick up anytime now. I would like a little OT though! I picked up an hour of OT yesterday after going out on a late transport, but it's nothing like what I was doing over the summer.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in midwifery, NICU.

....all the staff get a take out meal around midnight and sit together and eat. It's a wee party! Doesn't happen very often, but when it does..its great. Makes work not seem like work, if you know what I mean! And makes up for most of the times when we have no meal breaks!

Up Vote Up Vote ×

I would love to work at a place like that.

If this happened where I work people definatly would not be laughing. Instead the people involved would probably be trash talked and would be in trouble.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in NICU.

That is hysterical!

We're really slow right now too - also have about 20 babies when we usually have 40.

Glad to know it's slow other places than here! Of course, whenever we say "Man we need some babies!" the non-NICU people in our lives look at us like we're insane. We don't WANT to have more babies sick, but it's hard to explain that to people who have horrified looks on their faces...

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in NICU.
That is hysterical!

We're really slow right now too - also have about 20 babies when we usually have 40.

Glad to know it's slow other places than here! Of course, whenever we say "Man we need some babies!" the non-NICU people in our lives look at us like we're insane. We don't WANT to have more babies sick, but it's hard to explain that to people who have horrified looks on their faces...

lol.... so true!

Our docs have told us that the antepartum unit is bursting at the seems right now, so I guess we will probably get slammed pretty soon...

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in NICU.
Glad to know it's slow other places than here! Of course, whenever we say "Man we need some babies!" the non-NICU people in our lives look at us like we're insane. We don't WANT to have more babies sick, but it's hard to explain that to people who have horrified looks on their faces...

Totally hear ya there! Like when we had a slow spurt in the summer and we were all joking that we were gonna have to go over to ante and turn on the heaters!

We're actually at capactity and a little plus. It's been kinda opposite for us this year .... usually we're busy busy during the summer, but the summer was a bit slower and we're busier now.

Up Vote Up Vote ×
Specializes in Level III NICU.

We're slow, PICU and peds are slow (no floating :yeah:) but I wouldn't mind a little OT. We've all used so much vacation time in the past few weeks, nobody wants nights off anymore! Last night my assignment was one Q3hr feeder, and every other feed is an NG feed! Can you say BORING???

Up Vote Up Vote ×
+ Join the Discussion