Ambulance patch of the day

"……72 year old patient with history of Ebola….".  

I exchanged a dubious look with my partner.

"Wait for it",  I said.

"Correction.  Pt has a history of ecoli".

I love those guys.

New girl in town

There have been a lot of nurses hired in the last couple of years who have the same first initial.  Frankly, I have found it difficult to keep all the kids straight.  Maura, Mary, Merry, Maisie, Mac, Myra.    But they are a good bunch of ER nurses, smart and young they are.  We dinosaurs are still in the fight, but less prevalent on the off shifts which I prefer to work as the others have gone on to work  day shift.  So it's me and the "kids", 20 somethings to 40.  

Several months ago Susan was hired, with lots of experience.  She is around my age and has a similar haircut and glasses.  Lots of people have been getting us confused.  Which is disheartening since she outweighs me by a good 30 pounds.

One night at least 4 people in one hour, notably all the social workers with the psych patents, approached and started rattling off info about their oh-so-important revolving door suicidals and acting out teenagers.  "Nope", I said.  You want Susan.  I'm Regina".  Off they toddle to find her.  No, I don't know where she is.  With a medical patient most likely and not fixing a meal tray for your entitled douche bag who lacks coping skills.  

Marge is a social worker without any adult social skills, I have no idea how she keeps her job.  She barges in on any conversation and actively seeks out nurses in patient rooms in order to do some sort of emergent phone retrieval, take orders from a psychiatrist, or call report RIGHT NOW to the receiving psych facility.  Doesn't matter if you are in the middle of a code or mixing meds.  

She annoys the shit out of me.

Therefore, when she started to rattle of the latest  ridiculous needs demands for her critically ill attention seeking revolving door suicidal pt, I simply put my hand up in a "stop" gesture.

"Marge", I said. "I am Regina, you want Susan.  She is the other red-headed middle aged fat white woman wearing glasses on the floor tonight".

She spluttered, turned red, and walked away.  

Really it's not that hard. We have ID badges the size of dinner plates at chest level.