• LIke the pt whose mum had to know EVERYTHING.....Thing was, pt was in their 20's, male and had gonorrhea in their eye..... there are some things I am sorry, that once your kids hit 18 you DON'T need to know as a parent. For me, that's one of them.
• Also had a pt with a bilateral perilymph fistula = medical case write up. Poor thing was only in their teens and are now looking at a cochlear implant in one ear and a hearing aid in the other... all because no one picked up something was wrong until it was too late after he went diving.
• Multiple penetrating eye injuries. This month seems to be the national month for it I swear. Had one patient with a IOFB (Intra-ocular foreign body) in his eye that had embedded itself just above the optic nerve. Of all the bad luck, that's one of the worst places. It's better to be simply floating in the middle as another one was.
• Bloods here there and everywhere. It seems to be a fashion statement as well for this week.

Why?

Because apart from cannulation, there wasn't a great deal of autonomy. I am someone who likes to be left alone to do my job and when I have an issue or need something answered, I will come and find out about it from someone who can let me know.  As much as I enjoyed anaesthetics, I think I would prefer something like ICU (which I am investigating) where there is a substantial amount more of autonomy. Also, I still get to wear scrubs, although I do like wearing a uniform.

I'm currently in emergency and today was the first day. 140 pt's and still counting when I left at 1800. Apparently that's as hectic as it ever gets. i like the autonomy there more than anaesthetics too.

Don't get me wrong, what I learnt there will be imperative in ICU - airway management being number one in that dept and I was told that will certainly be viewed favourably when I apply. Which can only be a good thing. Not to mention but if you don't have an airway, then anything else that you try to do is fairly fucking pointless. I mean you need O2 in order to facilitate life, and if you don't have an unobstructed airway to do it, well anything else you want to do is fairly pointless, no? That's what I think anyway. No airway, no life.

So I am a lot more confident in basic procedures, but on occasion still find myself acting like I was as a student. It's a mindset that I am going to need to get out of, as I am qualified, but I think it's just everytime that I rotate to a new dept, that will happen. I go back to the Ward in a month, and I know I won't have the same mindset as I've already been there.

I might write about some more of the procedures that I got to check out. Some of them were pretty bloody awesome!
 

The hospital was on bypass for all patients needing admission to wards bar emergency admissions (eg chest pain, burns etc). All emergencies, where possible were diverted to another trauma hospital in the cbd, if coming in by ambulance. If people walked through the door they were still treated, but it was pretty much Cat 1 and 2 triages only. Otherwise, you were better off waiting to see the GP on Monday.

So last night, I got hammered. I did discover that I quite like night shift, as long as it is (10 hours) and I don't mind PM shift either. AM can still kiss my butt. But I coped well, I did make a mistake, but nothing too serious, and discovered that I don't think I could cope with working in the specialty of burns.

But it was certainly a learning experience of when the world goes to teh crazee, of just what people when they work together are capable of.

Arsonists should be strung up by their thumbs then made to work for 24 hours straight in a burns/ICU/Emerg. Just so they have to face those that were caught in the stupidity of their actions and the consequences of what they have done. Because hearing a burns patient having a bath, or seeing them having to be sedated because of the pain, is not something I would gladly want to see. And neither do the people going through it.

 

Things have finally become a little more organised. Which makes for a very happy Nurseynursey as you can all imagine.

I however am not happy about having to work my birthday. On the contrary though, I have managed to either make sure I had annual leave or it landed on a weekend. This time round, no can do. I spose I should be happy that for once, the AFL Grand Final (aerial ping pong) is NOT on my birthday. Therefore there are no conflicting issues with the engineer about what takes priority. The gf or the footy. Obviously, a very hard choice, but one that does not need to be made this year. Lucky.

Attempted to take blood today. I was successful somewhat. By that I mean that I actually (on the second attempt) managed to get the vein and blood was very nicely going into the syringe.....until the blood decided to clot. I for once, wished that the patient was still warfranised, but we can't always get what we want. I was more successful than my preceptor who couldn't get the vein, let alone the blood at all. So we cheated and pulled it from the IVC.

Now, normally this is NOT standard practice as the bloods can be affected by whatever you are forcing into the pt. However, it was just NSaline going in and IVT had not being going for a couple of hours. So you can understand why we cheated. That and the bloods had been ordered about 2 hours ago and our excuse was that the pt had only just gotten back from a transthoracic echo. But I digress. So I was pretty proud of myself as I wasn't shaking and I managed to get it on the second go. Yay me.

I must say, I'm wondering when the shit will hit as I've had it pretty easy so far.... Having said that, I can just see that tomorrow is going to be insane. However, I can't help but wonder is it because I have finally managed to time prioritise or time manage or what. Who knows, but while I am only managing 2 pt's at the moment (due to one having a psych special and the other there is massive family issues and the staff are documenting their arses off consequently) I am actually wanting more.

I'm helping out as much as possible due to having a lighter load though, and I think that it's making things a little easier for a few grad nurses. I don't mind, gives me something to do.

Speaking of grads, today was the deadlin (5pm actually) to change any preferences for computer match. I changed from A Hospital to A Hospital as seemed that they actually were quite keen for me to work there. I'm not worried about whether I will get in or anything, as I have a back up plan if I don't, but I also would like to know NOW dammit! Ah well, 10th of Oct here we come.

Anyway, it's near the end of my shift (about an hour and a half) and while its not the best placement I have ever had so far, it's not the worst either.