....when I send you a patient whose chest tube connections are not taped and banded. Really, I am not an idiot, believe me. You see, the pulmonologist swooped in and switched from the heimlich valve placed by the ED doc to a pleurevac *right* when I was packing up the patient to go upstairs, and we had a trauma arriving who needed the bed. The trauma patient could not wait in the hallway while I taped and banded the chest tube! And no, I didn't even have time to call you and warn you, because the second I sent the patient your way, I was already being pulled into a Stroke Alert.
...when my patient arrives to you cold, hungry, and grumpy as hell. I don't make a practice of ignoring my patients' comfort, and I'm usually pretty good at smoothing things over when we're really busy and people don't get the attention they expect. Many times I've warned them of what to expect when they get to you (that a meal tray won't be waiting for them, that it will take time for them to get tucked in, that lab draws will no longer be pulled from their peripheral IV, that it will take some time for their meds to be ready, etc.) in order to help make things easier for everyone. This time, I just couldn't. I had critical patient after critical patient, and so my stable ones didn't get much attention.
...if my charting stinks. Most of the time my documentation is decent. Not outstanding, but decent (we chart in narrative form on paper documents). But today, I chose bedside care over documentation, and I really hope it doesn't come back to bite me in the butt. Please, if you have any questions, feel free to call me. That's why my phone number is on the piece of paper we fax to the floor for every admit. I really don't mind if you call me. I might be in a hurry to answer your questions as quickly as possible and get off the phone so I can do the other five gazillion things I need to do STAT, but don't take it personally.
This is not satire. I really do feel badly about these things. Does anyone else have any guilty confessions, or is it just me?
