Evil Genius

First of all... I have now added links to my blog! I am becoming a freaking computer genius! Ok. Maybe just a little more savvy, and am doing minor html editing within the template. A true genius writes their own templates. Oh, yeah, and I have been looking at the MySpace universe as well... and um, there are like 93 million people on MySpace. Right now, I have like 4 friends and one of those is my sister. Nerd, I know.

Yesterday was crappy at work. I was walking from the parking garage into work and the scuttle-butt started up. Apparently JCAHO was doing some inspections in the hospital yesterday. This is a group that our hospital pays to make sure we are adhering to the proper standards, so that we can continue to recieve medicare paid patients. It is really important and a needed service to make sure hospitals are up to par.

The down side is that there are a TON of rules that interfere with the daily workings of the ER. One is that often we are so busy and there is no extra staff to cover lunches, so we as nurses, eat at our desks. Um yeah. No. JCAHO states, there is not to be any food at nurses stations. WTF are we supposed to do?! Yesterday at 2pm, I snuck away to a break room, leaving my patients unattended, for a few minutes while I scarfed my meal. Ugh. not good. When I got back to my desk, I discovered that one of the ER docs had been looking for me. I explained that I just had to eat a bite of lunch, and couldn't do it at my desk because of friggen JCAHO. He went to one of the supervisors, "Hey! Did you know that your nurses aren't eating? They can't eat at their desks today, and there is no one to cover lunches?" Mgnmt didn't have an appropriate solution, of course.

I wish they remembered what it would be like to work 12.5 hours with only 2 minute potty breaks, scarfing meals, having Doctors breathing down our necks to complete all the orders in a timely fashion, a patient on the call light every thirty minutes demanding coffee, a patient with irretractable pain, a patient having an allergic reaction, a patient who is a lonely old lady that just wants to talk, CT, MRI and Xray calling, "Is your patient in room 11 ready yet?" Plus then there are papers to write assesments, vitals, meds, orders to note, IVs to start, Fluids to hang, meds to calculate and verify. All.day.long.