A Plague on its Own.

For the first time I found myself mixed in the corral of medical personnel. I looked at nurses finding ways to juggle two patients at once, observed doctors dictating their surgery notes to whoever they were dictating to on the phone, called in EKG and XRAY people to do their job on their respective patients.

I was in the mix of it all with orders from nurses coming from left and right.

"Scan and stamp this for me please."

"Can you call bed control and 5 west and tell them that patient X is coming in a few minutes?"

"Can you order an EKG for this patient?"

"Stamp me a rhythm sheet"

"Let us know every time when someone calls for a bed for a patient."

I found myself making mistakes. Not huge mistakes, but small ones that make me irk a bit as I know I could've prevented it if I was focused enough on it.

Busy busy day. But I think it was a fulfilling day nonetheless. I get to watch first hand the ratio of nurses to patients (with patients trumping nurses). I semi-watched a patient went under as a procedure was done to find out the rhythm of their heart right in front of me (I wish I had the chance to watch it more, but I was pre-occupied with the papers and the phoning that I needed to do).

I wish there were more of these days. As one of the nurses said, "its either a famine or a plague in here; we find ourselves sitting around waiting for the next one to come out and then we find ourselves wanting for them not to come out until we're done with the one that we're taking care of still".