when i’m feeling sick the hospital is actually a nice place to be. i don’t have to worry about any of my meds and i get to just nap and watch tv and do online puzzles and just let my body get better. sometimes it’s overwhelming and sometimes i feel lonely but as i get older i understand that sometimes it’s the best place for me to be.
I’m in the hospital and the guy in the doom next to me is an old man who is clearly suffering dementia (or something) and is Russian. He spends most of his day standing in the hall, speaking and talking in Russian to whatever poor staff is stuck working the phones at the desk right in front of our room. He’s fairly good natured but DAYUM does it get old eventually. It’s also unclear how much English he speaks or understands.
Mostly he’s left patients alone, but he just looked into my room and he said “ma’am, ma’am, ma’am” until I looked at him until I looked at him and said “Yes Boris?”
And he goes “Smile!”
Even demented old men in the hospital want to tell me to smile! Also, I know that in Russia smiling for now reason is seen as a sign that maybe you’re not as smart (at least according to my cousin’s wife who is from Russia and was explaining to us once why Russians always look so serious).
Mai even though Boris (that’s legit his name!) actually is kind of funny, I looked him dead in the eyes and said “No Boris, I do not want to smile.” He legitimately looked a little taken aback but then was like “okay” and went off to keep looking for a nurse who may or may not exist named Katia.
I realize I should probably just be nicer to the poor, confused, probably lonely man in the hospital but honestly….
I swear to god I have collected some of the funniest hospital roommate/other patient stories in the world (and some not so funny ones).
Anyone else want to help entertain me while I’m here by telling me YOUR funniest hospital stories? Because honestly I’m getting pretty bored and I think I’ve watched almost every documentary Netflix even HAS!
After a few weeks of working ortho/trauma/bari/tele I want all you whump fans out there to know that your hospitalized whumpee is quite possibly the onlyperson on their nurse’s assignment who isn’tan incontinent 96 year old with severe paranoid confusion (that might be a brain bleed), a DNR order, and at least one broken hip.
I don’t know what new nurse needs to hear this, but I want to give a little insight from being a nurse for 5 years and then going through orientation again in a new position:
They will tell you everything is 11/10 important.
They will not differentiate importance-wise between getting someone a blanket (because prompt customer service is 11/10 important), encouraging someone to walk ASAP after surgery (because preventing bad outcomes through good nursing care is your job and therefore 11/10 important) and initiating CPR (because that’s an emergency and is obviously 11/10 important).
And if you’re outside of nursing (or medicine in general), you might think “well obviously the CPR is the most important of those things, how could anyone think getting a blanket would be equally important?
But then new nurses have just spent the last 4 years being told that everything is 11/10 important, and that no decision you make is the right one in any circumstance. But also that they’ll never make it if they don’t learn to prioritize.
And that gives you a really special kind of anxiety. The kind that makes it full-on impossible to prioritize in any meaningful way.
So I just want to say: Despite what they’ve been telling you for the last 4 years, some things are genuinely less important than other things.
The mnemonic is CURE: Critical Urgent Routine Extra.
CPR/titrating a drip/assessing a change in status/responding to a monitor alarm is Critical.
Taking a call from a doctor/drawing a time sensitive lab/giving a time sensitive med/pain and nausea management/cleaning up soiled patients/assisting patients to the restroom is Urgent
Passing daily meds/doing routine assessments/educating/discharging patients/charting/bringing patients things/basic customer service is Routine
Tidying up a patient’s room/calling a pt’s family member*/refilling ice water/looking at your care plans, etc… is Extra.
And there will be people- patients, patient family members, people on tumblr who have had bad experiences in hospitals, maybe even your manager- who will disagree with your prioritization choice.
That’s okay. They can disagree with you. Your job is keeping your patients alive until the next shift, and prioritization is a huge part of that. And everyone has a different perspective on it, and everyone thinks their choices are the only correct ones. Stand your ground.
*unless there has been a significant status change, then it would be urgent, or you’ve agreed to call them about something specific, then it would be routine
Genuinely happy that the epic corporation has tapped into the primal urge to change these little icons into green check marks by completing quests such as “medicate patient” and “calculate shift intake and output”.
If only they added a point system that was visible to my coworkers or redeemable for cool unlockable backgrounds and stuff I might even chart my post-pains and hourly rounding on time.
