PyxisPrincess

St. Barnabas has several fine hospitals but they also have a few worth avoiding just for the internal politics. Community Medical Center in Ocean County is one of them. (They did just file for a union vote, though, so things might change for the better.)

Tarascon pocket books were recommended to me by several ER docs and I use mine more than I do the CheckMate. (Not a fan of personal electronic media here.)

Is it just me, or does anyone else love and live for the turnover? Yes, an 8 patient assignment is insanity, but it's the turnover that keeps things lively. Hell, if I had wanted to be a floor nurse, I would have become a floor nurse. I want to get 'em in, get 'em better, and get 'em out. Sit on my patients? No way! Holding for the floor? Please, dear Lord, don't let it be so! Turn 'em over and keep 'em coming.

Cut if off of him in the OR. Someone did drop a dime on local animal control authorities; nothing ever came of it (or at least it never made the papers.) Someone asked about the Newman's Own salad dressing. The patient had douched with it, perhaps thinking that vinegar is vinegar is vinegar, regardless of the added parmesan cheese.

Coming from the busiest ER in New Jersey, which just so happens to have a no divert/no bypass policy and is not (yet) unionized, my average pt load runs between six and eight and the majority of these patients are truly ill. Our Minor Treatment and Kid Care areas relieve us of sore throats, blisters, sprains, breaks, UTIs, and febrile seizures, so our ER concentrates on Cardiac, Respiratory, GI, and anything with a nausea, vomitting, or syncopal component. We're in the middle of a huge senior citizen population, so we see a lot of change in mental status and septic patients, as well. For me, a light assignment is having at least one patient who can actually tell me that she needs a bedpan. A truly heavy assignment consists of four ICU admits, three CCU admits, and one trauma to be transferred out. How unsafe my daily assignment is depends on the acuity of the patients and how long they will have to wait for beds upstairs. Six patients with diarrhea can keep you plenty busy but eight psych holding patients will suck the life out of you after 12 hours. :chair:

Lots of advice, starting with stocking. Now learn the departments stock room inside and out, same with the pantries, and linen closets. Learn to make up a stretcher to the department's specs, which usually varies greatly from how beds are made up on the floors. Memorize the menus so patients won't terrorize you into providing them with some delicacy which simply doesn't exist. Know how to operate and fix wheelchairs. Practice steering stretchers, both empty and occupied. Learn what cleans what and when it gets cleaned. When you get your hands on the Pt Rep's portable phone, guard it with you life and adhere to a 10 minute max on calls. If the phone is going to be used in psych holding, cut it down to 5 minutes. Smile all of the time and always look busy, even if you're only stocking chucks and diapers. Refer all medical questions to the medical staff and avoid oth agreeing and disagreeing with patients and their families. Get healthcare BLS and learn at least one wrestling manuever. Most of all, enjoy the trip, because it sure is a long, strange one!:monkeydance:

More wacky people and their sick perversions ... This is the tally from the last three months in the busiest ER in the state of New Jersey: Retained tampons: 8. Slow season, I guess Retained condoms: 11. Another slow season. Retained headless Polly Pocket dolls: 5 for one patient, 2 for another. Half & Halfs: A toilet bowl brush inserted brush end first into the rectum. Laid the patient on his stomach and had to drape a sheet over him. Everyone who walked by muttered "Land Shark." Friday's cobb salad inserted beans and guac first, causing the lettuce leaves, corn, and bacon bits to shake and finally fall to the floor whenever the patient walked. An 89 year old woman complaining of lady partsl bleeding caused by her having inserted a fork into her lady parts. The banana her male friend had put up their earlier had become too mushy to extract in the usual (???) manner, hence the choice of cutlery. All the way gone: A rigid butt plug minus it's base which passed through the second sphincter. An old fashioned riot stick jammed so far up the wazzo, the handstrap wasn't even sticking out! My favorite, however, was the local prosecutor who showed up complaining of a recurring lady partsl infection after she douched. The culprit? Newman's Own Light Italian. Seeing pointy toed boots and shoes up asses is a daily given, as is the assortment of veggies incubating in curious spots. But gross has got to reach new depths when a good looking, well dressed local celeb wanders in holding a strangely shaped box before him and demands to see the best surgeon we have on call NOW! One of the ER docs managed to bump the box out of the patients' hands and we got a clue right quickly: Poor dead Puss was in rigor and the man's member was trapped in puss's ass. He'd tried to saw the animal off but was afraid he'd miss and slice his own member. He'd even tried to soften up the cat by dipping it in a hot bubble bath. How long that cat had been attached to his member, I never found out, but we did learn that he engaged in sex with the animal after it was already dead. So, that's what some folks do with road kill, eh? :paw: :paw: :paw::paw:

First male I ever foley'd in the ER had some serious swelling around his testicles so I asked if he really wanted me to do it. He did, so I tried. It just kept coiling up in the member and when retracted revealed lots of bright red clots. My preceptor then went in to try inserting a coude and I could hear her asking him what he'd been doing with his groin. No answers were forthcoming, so she attempted to foley him. No luck for her, either. Finally, an ER doc shows up and he happens to be a guy who looks like a cross between the Michelin Man and the StaPuff Marshamallow Man. We hear him say, "Buddy, I don't care where you've stuck yourself and what you've done to it, but I do need to know if there's a reason why we can't catherterize you." At that, the patient admits that 3-ply industrial wire he knots and inserts in his member "got stuck this time, so I had to yank it out really hard." We had no urologist on call so we discharged him to the local member Palace and he returned 2 hours later with a suprapubic cath. He sees me and says, "I'm never going to piss right again and I don't know if I should tell my wife. She always thought I was working on a clock out in shed and I think this would upset her." One of my colleagues suggested that he complete the clock before telling her about his trials with home grown member enhacements. :biere:

"The baby has pink cheeks." Was the baby sick? No. Was the baby sunburned? No. "He has pink cheeks. Someone pinched him." (Sniff, sniff) Did the baby have candy recently? "No, but he ate an ice pop about an hour ago." More like he painted himself with the ice pop, cause his cheeks were both pink and sticky. These people procreate and I can't even get a dinner and a movie out of a guy. Sheesh!