Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Rapid Door- to- Doc Update

I had no small amount of fun with Dr. Roboto the other day as I did a 4 hour Princess shift. Because he disdains hanging out at the nurses' desk with the rest of us lower life forms, he always scurries back to his office in the back between patients; we use an intercom to call him; me more obnoxiously than others, obviously.

Roboto is absolutely insistent that patients are put into rooms and he is called immediately; no problem. There is, as previously noted, quite often a lag between the completion of triage and the completion of registration. This was remedied by simply putting the unregistered patients in the rooms and calling him to come see them. We were really busy; so, after awhile he was so confused he didn't know whether to shit or wind his watch since, say it with me TRIAGE IS MUCH QUICKER THAN REGISTRATION. I had every room filled and nobody registered. Not that I was trying to prove a point or anything.

Not having anyone to blame but himself for this, he tried to take it out on nurses, shocker. All these times are noted on discharge; triage time, time to room, time of doc visit, etc., etc. Many of the docs note their times on a worksheet which is usually kept with the chart; Roboto, being the secretive weasel that he is, prefers to keep his notations to himself and hides them in some secret pocket of his prissy little lab coat. Then he keeps it for quite awhile, many times until long after the patients are discharged off the computer, which is a nursing task. For sanity's sake, we nurses try to keep track of the time that the doc visits. Or we make it up. Whatever. I am usually pretty good about those notations, but Roboto, now pissy because we are pummeling him, said we shouldn't be putting any times down unless it coincides with his exact time. I said we can't do that because you hide your notes it slows everything down on our end, besides, I can look at a clock to see what time you enter a room.

Challenge time; says he, "What time did you put for that patient I just discharged then, since you weren't at the desk?"

I looked at my note; "1:46 PM. What did you write?"

(Addressing left clavicle)"mmm, hrmm, mumble mumble....1:46 PM".

5 comments:

The Observer said...

Awesome! Touche! Victory for ER nurses over doctors who hide charts and commit other acts of disunity!

Anonymous said...

Hah. The thing I am not getting --- what the frig is this doc hoping to prove, anyway? His eternal prickishness?

EDNurseasauras said...

I think that in his small little world he has to prove everything to everyone every minute of every day. You know he was the recipient of many Atomic Wedgies in his youth.

too old school? said...

Having been in the ER for mere quarter of a century- I know that ER truth is certainly stranger than fiction.
I find that people either love or hate to talk to us about our jobs.
It sure is nice to find these blogs and enjoy reading from others so easily!

EDNurseasauras said...

Thanks, glad you enjoy mine! I really started this as more of an outlet. Mr. Ednurseasauras gets tired of listening to me rant!