So, instead of working at Sketchy Ghetto General Hospital, I'm at the sister hospital, Barrio Knife & Gun Club. Oh, and they're short again tonight. And tomorrow. And maybe Monday too?
(Funny how the staff sick calls always pile in on three-day weekends. Just a coincidence, for certain.)
And an interview for a long-term position somewhere else on Tuesday.
It's better to be feared than loved, but it's better to be loved than panhandling.
Upsides:
1) Nights. No Good Idea fairies, no labcoat leaders, no clipboard commandos.
No b.s., just get 'em in, patch 'em up, and get 'em out.
What could possibly go wrong...?
2) Job security, unless people stop acting stupid and self-nominating for Darwin Awards.
(IOW, Never Going To Happen, Adam/Eve-now, inclusive.)
3) Two people in charge I worked with for a decade, up until 5 years ago, and hadn't seen since. In fact, both were proto-nurses then, and now they're in charge.
Okay, it's not like that, and one of them I pushed to get the education to get paid what he was worth, and he did it. Kind of gratifying, actually.
(Lesson: ER is a very small pond, if you leave yours you find out. So you might want to treat your reputation as your life jacket, and not mangle it. Would suck to interview for a job and find out the person with hire/fire authority is that bridge you burned up consequence-free - or so you thought - 5-10 years ago, and find out "Not so much".)
4) Oh, the future stories I'm going to get out of this!
Downside:
1) New kid in school. Again.
2) Another horrible Electronic Medical Record that's a walking disasterpiece. (Thanks, ObozoCare!)
Write this on your hands in permanent laundry marker Sharpie in case you forget:
Every medical worker, doctors, nurses, techs, administration, is absolutely convinced that *their* EMR is the worst one ever inflicted on mortal man.
They are ALL correct.
So, as Leon Askin said in One, Two, Three*: "Two to one: Plan carries."
Anyways, I'm going to be a bit busier for a bit, as I get back on the hamster wheel non-stop for awhile.
's okay, though. I'm going to need the new muscles to carry those heavy paychecks to the bank every week.
Labor Day: the holiday I've worked every year for...oh, wait, ever.
You're a cruel bitch, Irony, but the compensation is adequate.
*{Haven't seen it? Go. Find. Watch! Classic.}
10 comments:
"...Sketchy Ghetto General Hospital, I'm at the sister hospital, Barrio Knife & Gun Club."
Nothing more need be said, and thanks for the (not derisive) laugh.
Be well & cha-CHING!
:)
I liked the night shift for those very reasons... I hated the idea people. They were like those little minions that got their way and lab coats, what can I say, most good nurses refused to be seen in them, only the dweebs and gammas wore them and most doctors that were nincompoops anyway. Most everybody used a clip board so it wasn't a commando thing.
Aesop, I don't know which medical profession you're in, and no, I don't need to know. My wife was OR trauma coordinator at San Jose Medical Center for many years. During her tenure, the Vietnamese gangs were at their height of operation, so she was busy to say the least. That's was 1980s and 90s. Those people literally died out, prisoned out, or decided to seek legal professions.
While she was at that task, I was in a rather calm hospital, located in Palo Alto, right across the highway from Xerox PARC. I liked my environment and colleagues quite a bit. In the two months before I started, I worked as a Scrub Tech (though I had an RN license) at about six different hospitals, including Alameda County, the ER for Oakland, CA. Lot's of Gun and Knife Club players there.
I found that each hospital has its own "personality", either you fit in, or move on. I never did "traveling" nurse stuff, I could see that it would not suit my personality.
I worked ER night registration at a rural Level III Trauma for a few years after my Army-ankle let go and I couldn't run in the bush painting trees anymore, or much of anything useful until it got stronger.
The final straw, after the non-profit was bought out by a big regional, to saying "F#@K THIS!" was when I was told we were going to start running credit checks on patients.
Didn't burn that bridge so much as reverted to my 12B past, and rigged it with C4...
OH MY GAWD!!!
How in hell did they slide THAT through EMTALA/COBRA??!!??
My most recent clinical experience was riding the phone for our tertiary teaching Hospital (OK Cleveland has several of these, this is the one with the College/University in their name, not the city or county) and my job was, yep, answer the damn phone. could be a squad SERIOUSLY needing Med Control (grabbed a passing doc or paged one and they handled that shit), or a smaller near or DISTANT quasi suburban hospital with a patient that DESPERATELY needed to come down to the Mother Ship and die on OUR M&M report, or a doc's office who wanted their patient to get his/her/ze's ass into an institution of higher healing RFN!!!!
I also dispatched a couple birds and the Green Machine for the neonate shop we had. (Neonate shop typical national rating=1, 2, or 3) When I went back to work there 20 friggin years later, after my Medic precepting, there were 3 nurses who I was VERY HAPPY to be working with since they had been my Medic Preceptors 20+ years before. So yeah, DO NOT treat folks poorly. It's a DAMN small pool. the Bride did HER Medic clinicals at the CLE Knife and Gun Club (St V's) and THEY enjoyed running the nurses from the major Level I shop thru there just to teach them how to handle penetrating trauma...Metro is and was SPECIAL for multi-system trauma. On Adults.
WE did kids.
Night Driver
Started in '96, nights at the community hospital, working charge on a rehab unit.
From there, 7 years of nights..ICU, ER, locked Psych...
Loved the simplicity. No managers, no white coats, no idiotic CNOs.
Just the trauma, drama, and crazy mommas...
And yes. Very small pool.
I always tell the orientees- "you LIVE and DIE on your professional reputation."
Some get the message. Some don't.
I understand. Much like you, been there, done that for the last 15 years. Tired of it.
I hear you on the EMR. In the last 20 years, I have only worked with 2 that I liked, one I wrote myself, and one the agency involved sent one of their supervisor types back to college to get another Master's in computer tech so she could talk with the software company to be able to get the program to do what we front line nurses needed it to do when we are in the home. That EMR was awesome!!
I would go back, but it would entail moving back to NY...so, no, putting up with a lousy EMR here in MI.
And yes, medicine is a very small world indeed...have worked for a couple of folks a couple of different times. Never, ever burn bridges is truly a pearl of wisdom!
Pat H., I'm trying to think of calm hospitals in Palo Alto :) LOL! Stanford's ER isn't calm (well not anymore), and PAMC become PAMF and they're not calm anymore either, though back in time they were PAMC and didn't have an urgent care or surgery center, just great doctors on Homer Avenue who were awesome with patients. Now it's like anywhere else - you're a number. My mother retired early because of that number thing - with eyes you NEED time with patients, and that time is now limited. Bay Area got crowded :( El Camino is in Mountain View.... they're sort of calmer.
I'm about to put together a relocation enticement package for doctors to head up here to the Sierras - two VERY calm hospitals within 15 minutes of each other. Had to go to the ER twice in the past 6 years (once for me), both times (once a weekend night) the ER was just about empty. Most up-to-date equipment, better than Stanford's, I mean the CT was new and FAST! But lack of doctors who didn't get their degree from "Podunk School 'o Medicine and Chitlin Fryin'". Beautiful area, clean air and water, and up here you can get 10 acres with a mansion for under a million - I have no idea why any doctor or nurse would CHOOSE to stay in the Bay Area anymore. They should move up here :D
I do not burn bridges. I just loosen the bolts a bit every day.
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