"Heeeeere's Johnny!

I am ready for some R&R after the last 5 day stretch, seeing 23, 24 patients per shift.  This wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been an endless parade of IV's, EKG's transfers, and nothing simple.  What made my last few shifts unbearable was the presence of Parvati.  The ex-surgeon in her likes to do her own dressings, but she is pretty helpless when it comes to actually finding anything:
"Where is the gauze?"
"Where is the bacitracin?"
"Where is lidocaine?"
"Where is the tape?"
"Where is the extra saline?"
Anxiety=cardiac workup, EKG, labs, etc.
Chronic migraines=IV fluids, narcotics, sometimes Toradol and then narcotics, anti-emetics and tying up a room for 3 hours.  And a prescription for Percocet.
The "I need a refill of my Percocet" crowd usually goes away empty handed for some reason.

I usually ignore Parvati's rapid-fire verbal orders which annoys her; then she asks the other nurse, who also ignores her.  This is not simply to be a pain, but she will frequently change her mind, which just makes work for me, inconveniences the patient with additional veinipunctures and makes me cranky.  Ignoring her really amounts to saying, "Just go ahead and write the orders, I am doing the other 4,000 tasks you asked me to do; remember, there is only the two of us to do everything.  It takes you two minutes to do the exam, but it takes us a lot longer to do these things.  You need to be patient.  Why don't you go eat dinner (and get out of my way?)".

Hilariously, Parvati hasn't complained about me yet.  She did complain to our boss about Second in Command, who in her desperate attempt to appear competent and all-knowing comes across as be a little overbearing with new doctors.  She will argue or give them her 2 cents about what they need, second guesses them and makes herself seem indispensable.  I never argue unless I have a damn good reason so I
don't come off as a squeaky wheel.  It's not time to argue until it's time to argue, a corollary to It's not time to panic until it's time to panic.  That way, if  tell a doc I am worried about this or that they actually listen to me.  Parvati, though...doubt she listens to anyone since she makes way too much noise to hear anything anyway.

After three of the longest shifts of my life with Parvatti for ALL THREE SHIFTS I was feeling a tad....homicidal. Which accounted for my mutterings

REDRUM
REDRUM
REDRUM.

I suddenly have the urge to re-read "The Shining".  And maybe buy an axe.