This week has been incredibly hard work – mostly due to short staffedness; well, that and doing 1.7 extra shifts. I know it’s bad when work call me at home and invite me to come in early, because I’m about an hour away from work, and if they’ve reached the stage of calling someone who’s going to take an hour to get in, it’s going to be bad.
We’ve actually been short, I think, every day I’ve been on. Our new method of work requires one extra nurse, and the shifts quite simply aren’t being filled. No one wants to do either of the new shifts – the early one is not different enough from an ordinary early, and in fact makes you leave at a worse time. The late shift goes on waaaay too late; meaning that, well, no one wants to do that either.
Which has lead to us really, really struggling. Now I’m qualified to not-triage (we do something simpler and quicker than triage), this has also lead me into a minefield of being annoyed and frustrated. It is the most unrewarding job of all time. One of the most amusing things is that we pick people up who we think are likely to need an xray (mechanism of injury, obvious deformity, etc) and then will inform the doctor that we suspect they’ll need an Xray. Quite often they’ll listen to the mechanism of injury or the description from us and just order it without seeing the patient. In fact, I think I’ve only every had one turned down – who was later Xrayed anyway. That certainly doesn’t mean I’ve caught all the people who need X-rays, but means I generally catch the ones who are likely to. But much to my amusement, a poster has appeared at work reminding nurses that we’re not allowed to independently order Xrays for patients without our knowledge being assessed. I presume someone has been doing that; but the fact is, the Xrays that get ordered by me, following discussions with the Dr and them writing the card? Well, it’s essentially the same thing…
I do, however, want to get a lot more knowledge on proper triage assessment, because I’d like to be better able to assess injuries.
One other thing I’be picked up from a much more experienced nurse is to not say that I’m a nurse. We have a variety of protocols for ‘nurse led referrals’ – where we can see, assess and refer the patient without involving a doctor. Ear, Nose and Throat; pregnancy and gynae problems can quite often be sent straight to the specialists without wasting the patient’s time on two examinations and telling the story several times.
This is a great idea – except that when you say it’s a nurse led referal, some docs have a strop and say that they have to be seen by an A&E doc; this is often all the more frustrating as you’ve spent 10 minutes bleeping them and trying the wards they’re on to try and find them. But my new method – which is really the only method I’ve known, is to say “Hi, this is [my first name] in A&E, I’ve got a referral for you…”. This seems to work much better, although they do still get a little stroppy sometimes…
I’ve actually though, looked after a lot of really charming and lovely people. People who you feel real full-on good about looking after. You shouldn’t have favourites, and I have certain masochistic enjoyment when I’m looking after the stroppy indepentent sort, or the mad-as-a-badger-with-UTI-or-other-infection sort, or indeed the dementia-pissed-off sort. But looking after nice people who are just nice, is really a bit pleasant.
Anyhow, all this work has got in the way of quality snuggling time with Kathryn; which has been quite distressing. We have however made some progress on the wedding and the ceremony in the states. Although they’ve both ended up being lots bigger than we originally planned. It’s funny how these things expand and expand :)
It’s also led to slow progress on the DAF. Well, that and the hub puller’s frustrating absence from my life. All that’s left to do to make it road-worthy (not, you note, finished or anything. But roadworthy) is to reattach the end of the bumper and to unseize the brakes (well, I say ‘all’, it may be that the brake cylinders are shot). These are potentially trivial jobs, but I can’t actually *do* the latter because the hub-puller ordered from e-bay more than a week ago hasn’t turned up. The seller’s not answered an email yet, either, which is also frustrating.
I’ve busied myself with prepping (in a very limited sense) and painting the new metalwork. One side’s got a coat of Nissan Arctic White on the sills and a bit of the back quarter (which looks a little whiter than the rest of the car, but never mind). It’s a gash job, I should, really have spent time with filler and carefully prepped things. But I didn’t have time for niceties and I’d rather get paint on there to protect the new metal than worry about getting it looking pretty. It also turns out my wire-wheel has vaporised, which is frustrating. I’ll have to go and pick up a new one. because the area by the rear window needs cleaning up before I fill it.
And the side I sprayed (with one coat) and had left all the masking on so I could spray today? Well, it’s rained overnight…
….which is terribly annoying. I’m hoping the sun (which has come out now) will dry it out and then later in the day I’ll be able to throw another coat of paint on. I’ve had to take off all the newspaper though, which is quite bothersome.
