My Day Job

…a bowl of corn. 

Add a little pepper and stir for the yummiest corn from the freezer.

The day job is doing well, but I need to work on some important skills to meet the desired competency levels necessary to work at this position.  

Like being aware of patients being taken from our floor to another department for a procedure and then returned, no matter what the activity level is at the front desk.  Noting who is and is not on the floor is very important to the nurse in charge of that patient.

Patient transporters are supposed to stop and tell us about the comings and goings, but when they see the desk crowded with doctors or visitors,  hear the peals of both phones,  and the call light phone going off non-stop?   They tend to keep on going without a word, and there are also a couple of them that just don’t.   I have no idea why.  A few get missed and everybody misses one here and there, but as the newby?  I’m still the worst clerk when it comes to missing the most of them.

Or making certain the right nurse or tech gets the right requests from the patient call buttons.  They hate being sent to the wrong room and I hate that a patient had to wait any longer for a bedpan.  

Getting better at distinguishing which calls need to go directly to the nurse in charge of that patient and which ones (mainly family members calling to speak to nurses) to take a number for instead.   It’s surprising how many family and non-family members will call wanting to speak to said nurse or sometimes even the doctor.  Like the doctors all have an office on our floor and never leave.

I’ve been training during the day shift — the absolute busiest time in patient care.  There is no downtime for nurses and techs.  They barely manage to eat what with having to go back and forth from one patient’s need to another.  (Even we usually have to eat our lunch as discretely as possible at the desk, but at least we’re getting to eat while our food is still hot, fresh, or whatever.)  

There really just isn’t time to stop and chat with family members without the lessening of valuable patient care for your family member and everyone else’s — so a lot of calls do not get returned.  I do feel for the family members that call, but patient care comes first.  

Cold coffee is consumed rather that dumped because cold coffee is better than none.

It’s all about being able to do eleven things at once without a one of them being any less important to patient care than the other.  It seems the busier we are the better I am and doing everything thing at once.  It’s fun.  Almost like a rush.  But I need to keep that carefulness at all moments of the day. 

I do it by trying to write everything down before I refer or do it and by pretending I’m the patient it concerns.  Or it’s my dad, mom, brothers — you get it. 

I really do like this job!

All the flurry of activity is my job.  It’s not like I’m trying to do something completely unrelated and being continually interrupted.  And while there is quite an audible buzz going on at all times; it’s not the same as listening to someone constantly complaining and slamming things around me all day while coughing up a lung every five minutes; or surrounded by horror of insufferable din while running a cash register all day for Wal-Mart (worst job ever).

Everything around me directly relates to my job and how well I can improve patient care.

Tomorrow night I begin my third shift training.  I know it will be much calmer and quieter, but I hope it is not boring and empty time.  I’m hoping it’s the third shift that keeps those forms stocked I use all day long and other like stuff.

So far I like everyone I’ve worked with even when I can’t keep everyone happy all the time.   Hey!  I’m still shiny and new with lots of kinks to work out!

Remember my limping about?  Yep, still limping.  I had a doppler done the fifth day of pain and it is not a blood clot. 

This past Wednesday a x-ray was finally done and nothing amiss was viewed by the attending, but a radiologist will have a turn at the films, too.  

I thought I could see a bit of buckling on my fibula, but the attending said that was normal — except I couldn’t find such a normality on any of the x-rays I found on the internet.  

*Sigh.*  

It could be muscle strain or even diabetic related (the worst diagnosis of all).  I’m holding out for muscle strain or even a stress fracture.  

My doc’s office has a few pieces from the same artist in the waiting areas.  While I like all the different color and textures expressed in each one I just don’t get the whole picture.  And I usually "get" abstract art!

Which is prolly why it is so easy for some errant person or another to add little touches of their own to this (at least) six by three foot piece…

(Click either image to see a much larger view and more graffiti.)

{ 3 comments }