Thursday, March 17, 2011

Taking Notes

I was working in Preop Holding the other day when another nurse emerged from one of the rooms with a large spiral notebook in her hand. "Someone left this behind" she said. We decided we would try to reunite the notebook with its owner later, but also noticed that the notebook was opened to a page filled with scribbled notes on the patient's care. I'm not sure why the note taker wrote all this stuff down. To understand the care of their loved one? For ammunition in future lawsuits? Who knows. But it was pretty interesting. The notes went like this, spelling and all:

Socks on bed  nightgown on bed  plastick bag on bed Put clothes in plastick bag
Sine paper
Start hose in hand
Lactade Richard's in hose
Vankamyson 4 Mercer in hose
U want warm blankit   6 minutes to get warm blankit
Nurse won't let u drink water
Tony come to sit with us
Tony want warm blankit   8 minutes to get warm blankit
Nurse won't let u chew gum
Anastisiologist talks to us say u will get pain med
6 minutes to get pain meds fetanil
Dr come to room to rite on arm
U ask if u can get fed meal after   Dr say yes
Nurse come to take cpap to recuvery room for after
Lisa and Michelle come to sit with us want to take some more socks home
Ask for more fetanil nurse say she cant give u more
U go to your sergery
*******************************************************************


Was it Chili's or Applebees that used to have the timers at tableside where if your meal was not delivered in 30 minutes, it was free? I guess this person had the same concept in mind.

7 comments:

  1. 8 minutes for a family member to get a warm blanket?? wow... that's not going to sit well with the jury ;)

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  2. Wow. I am all for patients taking note of their care [because when we are under stress, we tend to forget] but still. kind of bizarre.

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  3. I totally love this note taking. If I were getting older I'm sure I would put everything down even to the exact minute because that's how anal I am, and with schooling I've learned how to spell a few more words than this patient. So I'm not hating on them for their odd behavior, actually I'd welcome it seeing as though not enough patients know what they ate for breakfast.

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  4. Rolling my eyes at this one. I must have gotten jaded by nitpicky family members of my residents already. Check this out: once, one of my old men had his 2 daughters come to visit. I toileted him & put him in his wheelchair so they could go out to dinner. While out, they ordered ice cream for him even though they KNOW he's lactose intolerant & diabetic. And they don't admit to it until his bs is high and he's having explosive diarrhea. Then the next day they get all mad that some of his TED hose aren't in his drawers. So I get to calmly explain that they all got soaked in diarrhea and each time I cleaned their Dad up, his clothing had to go through the BM laundry cycle. You can't just hand was poop out of socks. Argh!!!

    Okay, I feel better now, lol!

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  5. Nice. What I love is that most of those times are really good. Oh, and the spelling of the word, "blankit," of course. :)

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  6. Oh, also thanks for following my blog! It was nice to find yours as a result!

    I just read your profile and yay to South Florida. I grew up on the east coast, near to Palm Beach. I understand that you feel like you have entered a new world, because I felt the same way when I left. I was appalled (APPALLED!) to discover that people in the north live without air conditioning in the summer. Also, they don't tint their car windows and are pretty nonchalant about the use of sunscreen. Hopefully you will adjust soon...I assure you that overall, people are very happy in South Florida.

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  7. Your hospital has clearly employed a time and efficiency consultant; management will want that report back, it will have cost tens of thousands!

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