Some Thoughts

Throughout medical school, we've always been warned to treat nurses well - 'nurses can make you or break you' - the saying generally goes. As I got closer to actually approaching residency, though, I heard some addendums to that saying. Most often, the addition of "some." As in "some" nurses really know what should be done. You should listen to "some" nurses. How to tell the "some" from the rest? "You'll know," they said ('they' being the amorphous symbol of a generic resident)

As a student, I never really knew which nurses were among the "some." Today, though, I realized that it didn't take me long to identify them. Mostly because I met an anti-"some" today. She really wasn't that bad. She was just driving me crazy. Mostly because, even though I called back right away when she paged me, she never answered the phone (someone would have to find her), and everything she said started with "I'm sorry, but..." It's my job to answer the pages, and my job to deal with annoying little patient issues. I believe that an intern is truly at the bottom of the totem/feeding pool in a hospital. Even med students - powerless as they may be - have the whole med school backing them up and, you know, giving them 'days off' and junk.

Anyway. The nurse wasn't really bugging me that much. She was just freaking out about very small issues.

The nurses at my hospital practice what is called 'primary nursing.' Well, maybe not exactly that. But that's kind of what it is. When a patient comes in to the hospital, a nurse on each shift takes them on as their patient, and if the patient ever gets re-admitted, they'll be the nurse again. Which is totally handy in a teaching hospital, where the doctors rotate on a regular basis. And totally handy when a chronically ill kid comes in - the nurse knows all about the patient's baseline and home meds. It is very helpful!

How boring my blog posts have become. But, I just ran some stats. Maybe this will explain... In the past five days, I have spent about:
48% of my time at work
4% of my time driving to/from work
6% of my time getting ready for work
2% of my time reading stuff for work
3% of my time talking/writing about work
22% of my time sleeping.

Leaving my 15% of my time free. Most of which I spend thinking about work.