Jacob Rockstar-RN Psych Nurse Action Figure

[Davey Do]

Psych nurse action figure ?

[Davey Do]

Safety Coach RN said:

By the way, did you hear about the one I took out with a rubber band?

Safety Coach, before your time at Wrongway Regional Medical Center, there was a legendary cockroach...

[No Stars In My Eyes]

American College Dictionary, 1948:

blat - blatted, blatting. --v. i. 1.) to cry out, as a calf or a sheep. -- 2.) Colloq. ​to utter loudly and indiscreetly; blurt. [imit. Cf. BLEAT.]

(you have la cucaracha uttering indiscreetly?)

[Davey Do]

From the Breakroom:

Davey Do said:

I have found my cartoons are often portends to what will be. "Behind the eight ball" would have been apropos.

Had a loud, profane, physically aggressive, psychotic patient who did not slow down after 25mg of Vistaril, 10mg IM of Zyprexa, and finally Haldol 5mg/ Ativan 2mg IM and required two therapeutic holds, seclusion, and chemical restraints. On top of that, administration saw fit to short us a staff member with five patients requiring direct care, several high fall risks, and a 1:1 who's an incontinent bolus tube feeder. Security was out of line and a little too assertive with the acting out patient and I had to give them some reality orientation.

It was a blessing to work with a helpful RN and a great Tech.

Administration got an "in your face" email from me about inadequate staffing before all hell broke loose, so I feel good about that.

Davey Do said:

Oh- I forgot to mention the self-stabbing patient with a s/p exploratory laparotomy who was puking his guts out, or the wandering dementia patient, or the patient who had a major complaint with other shift's staff behavior etc etc.

I wonder what cartoon will come to mind for the ninth?

Oh and BTW: The other RN was locked out of the computer system, and it couldn't be fixed, so I had to do all the charting on 15 patients along with all the paperwork required for, but not limited to, the seclusion/therapeutic hold/chemical restraints.

And I clocked out only 10 minutes late!

[OldDude]

So, other that THAT Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play? Many years ago when I was working in the Pedi ER, another short staffed night, I was Charge, and we were, as usual, packed; 3 RNs and 1 tech. Sometime around 2:00 am we received 3 ambulances in the span of 20 minutes...2 patients each in two of the ambulances and one patient in the 3rd ambulance...all of them on backboards; 5 patients on backboards. I called all over the hospital asking for anyone to just come and babysit the backboards until we could clear them and, as usual, no help available (including the house supervisor). I called my supervisor and described the situation and his response was, "WELL, ARE YOU DOING OK?" I responded, "Insert string of curse words...NO...I'm not doing OK, I need some...insert string of curse words...help!!" He said, "OK, I'll see what I can do." He didn't show up and no one else did. Fortunately no one died but I sure was behind the 8 ball. I feel your pain.

[Flare, ASN, BSN]

You guys know that I often equate our jobs on the "other" board with a fire extinguisher - meaning no one pays us much mind or cares much about us until they need us. And all HECK breaks loose should someone need us and were not there.

One of my other metaphors for nursing is being a duck on a pond. As long as you're gliding along smoothly, management doesn't really think about how hard we're kicking those little ducky legs of ours. Trust me - I was management for years. I tried to remember to look below the surface often. The suits at the tippy top hate that.

Quack quack

[Davey Do]

OldDude said:

I called my supervisor and described the situation and his response was, "WELL, ARE YOU DOING OK?" I responded, "Insert string of curse words...NO...I'm not doing OK, I need some...insert string of curse words...help!!" He said, "OK, I'll see what I can do."

I truly appreciate your response to your supervisor, Old Dude. Profanities are useful for their shock value in symbolically slapping someone in getting them to realize the validity of the situation.

It's nice to be able to honestly express yourself in a stressful situation. I feel free to do so with such coworkers as Rooty Payne and Eleanor. I am honored to work with professionals of their caliber.

However, with patients, the boundary of honestly expressing any personal thoughts or feelings myself is never crossed, and professionalism takes precedence. Even though thoughts come into my head during stressful situations, I am extremely aware of the things I say during those times.

I tend to attempt to get on the same level, physically, with the patient. I do not talk down to them. No matter what their behavior or what they say, my goal is to remain calm, professional, and therapeutic.

I sat on the floor in an attempt to be on the same level with the patient while they were therapeutically restrained, to explain the reason for the restraint and criteria for it to cease. I also mentioned that this was a legal process and I am required, by law, to inform the patient of this information

Still, as I previously stated, thoughts do come in to my head which are never spoken:

[Davey Do]

You guys know that I often equate our jobs on the "other" board with a fire extinguisher - meaning no one pays us much mind or cares much about us until they need us.

"Fire extinguisher" is a great metaphor, Flare.

At Wrongway, administration is continually "putting out fires" and any Plans do not follow the APIE process. It seems there is only the knee-jerk Implementation process after a parochial view of an Assessment, a thrown together Plan, and no follow-up Evaluation.

[Davey Do]

One time, Belinda was injured at work and had to go through ER:

Actually, the clerk said, "But it says Belinda Butcher in the system!" and could not change it. I had it changed later when a competent clerk was working.

[No Stars In My Eyes]

I spent 2 days in hospital once, with a name/ID band that had my last name spelled wrong, making it another name entirely. Every time I told someone their response was "Oh, okay. Well be sure to tell the next person, too."

What, someone can't type my CORRECT last name on another name band and replace this one?? Geeez!

I must say, I found it quite worrisome.

[Farawyn]

More Eleanor all the time!

[No Stars In My Eyes]

Quite honestly I can't say that I have. My mustache is not as long as yours, and I never wear scrubs.

[Farawyn]

I thought Davey was feeding a whale a big spoon of sugar.

Then, I saw it.