Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Lessons from the ER, Part II: Keep Your Mouth Shut

3:08am. Lord.

I sat there in my chair, constantly pushing F5, hoping that new test results would come back from the lab so I could update them in my chart and get rid of the patient. I felt my eyes start to droop.

Sunday, December 11, 2011

Lessons from the ER, Part I: Leave Your Jimmy Choos at home

I sat at my computer station, staring at the ER patient status board on the screen.

Twelve patients in the entire ED. Twelve. Out of thirty-four beds, fewer than half of them had bodies. And about a third of those weren’t even real emergency cases, just whiny twenty-somethings with itchy va-jay-jays and blood in their urine.