Friday, June 7, 2013

I'm Free and It's So Easy to Get By Cause I Don't Try

As we must co-sign every ml. of narcotics from an unused vial that is not ordered for a patient, we have a tendency to sort of stack them up until 1.  the patient goes home, or 2. we have a minute to reconcile with each other.  This is so the hospital can rest assured that we nurses aren't taking all that perfectly good morphine or dila-la and selling it on the street.  Trust me: I could fill a fountain with the stuff I've wasted over the years.  Sadly, there are health care workers who use the stuff themselves but that is not today's subject.

Policy demands we must always have a paper trail to follow, mustn't we?  So when we are busy and we have a moment to sort track and co-sign each others wasted sh#t we refer to it as "cocktail hour".

And so, another name for waste narcotics is born.

"Dilaud-a-tini":  5 separate vials of Dilaudid to be wasted.

And because there were too many to put in a med cup, all the extra was stacked up in a paper cup.  Paper trail, paper cup.  Not a Red Solo Cup.  Please enjoy this musical interlude by "The Fifth Dimension".

 The lyrics are messed up but oddly go well when you think about a bunch of Dilaudid in a paper cup ready to be thrown away.

Here inside my paper cupEverything is lookin' upNo one comes in, no one goes outNothin' to get hung up about
I'm free and it's so easy to get by'Cause I don't try
In my paper cup, I have installedA shower stall across the hallRunning water and a denIt's looking just like home again
I'm free and I've installed refrigerated airYou'd have to look insideBefore you know that I was there
And everybody says I'm quite insaneAnd someday I'll be going down the drainI know they're right but I don't careI feel no pain
Here inside my paper cupEverything is lookin' upNo one goes out, no one comes inIt's lookin' just like home again
I'm free and it's so easy to getThe things I've always wanted'Cause I don't really want 'em anymore
An' living ain't so bad without a rudderAn' life is kinda groovy in the gutterIf you know how, and I doYeah, and I do, we do too
So if you'd like to come alongWe'll sing a little paper songAbout a lonely paper plateWho couldn't find a paper mate
I'm free, yes I'm free
And my life is lookin' upFrom inside my paper cupAnd I'm always lookin' upFrom inside my paper cup
And my life is lookin' upFrom inside my paper cupAnd I'm always lookin' upFrom inside my paper cup

5 comments:

Aesop said...

My standard line is to suggest to the charge nurse that for years I've been dumping the leftovers in the break room coffee pot unbeknownst to them all, on the theory that we all have a better night, and if they do audits/drug testing, they can't fire the entire shift. I love it when the youngsters aren't quite sure I'm kidding.

Around here if somebody wanted drugs, the simplest solution is to ask our frequent flier druggies where to get them.

Unknown said...

We were getting written up for not immediately wasting narcs. It used to be that the nurses would lock the extra up in the room's nurse servers until they had time, but now that's a big no-no.

I wish the pharm companies would make smaller doses available because we are wasting thousands of dollars of meds every year- no wonder healthcare costs so much!

Unknown said...

Glad you're back!

ob said...

Shoot me an email and I will invite you. :)

ob said...

opps wrwmd@aol.com