On prioritizing

As we all know, cubicle-dwellers at the semi-administrative level generally have little in common with us clinical-types.  Jean spends a lot of her time in the office, although she spends a significant allotment of her day sitting at the desk in the clinical area.  Taking up space.  About 7 feet from most patient rooms.   Which is kind of scary when you consider that she is responsible for educating the young'uns about policy, procedures, and definitive form completion.  Aside from an occasional couple of hours in triage, I haven't ever seen her actually commit any patient care.

The other day Jean gestured for me to come over to her as she sat at the desk.  It was apparently not clear that I was busy, I guess I appeared to be loafing as I stood warily watching a ranting heroin overdose who was, through the miracle of Narcan, now insisting on leaving, unfazed by his brief episode of death and "had things to do".  Security was in the room trying to reason with him, I was poised to run, or at least yell for back up.

I indicated to Jean with a terse shake of my head while giving the 2 finger "I'm watching" sign.  She stood up, walked over to the adjacent med room door, which connected with the room I was in, and locked both, effectively cutting off any alternative emergency exit.  WTF.

"If the patient decides to go into the med room, now he can't get in"

Me: "So what?"

Jean: "Well, the med room would be safe"

Me:  "Did you consider that it might be necessary for ME to have another way to get out of the room?"

**crickets**