Tuesday, September 24, 2013

That's Officer Nurse to you.

So my job: Nurse Specialist or Clinical Supervisor or whatever the French want to call it this week is a lot like being chief asshole. Part of my work is following what is written in the patients' charts and the practices of the nurses caring for them and looking for aspects of patient care that could be improved and more importantly to intervene when patient safety could be violated. Which, sadly, is pretty often. Wash your hands! Did you just wear those gloves into the latrine? How much is in that syringe? Are those patients sharing a bed? That one has a rash. Do you want the other one to get the rash, too? Remember what we said last time, of you think the patient has polio, put them in a separate room.
It sucks. It's not fun and most days I don't like being the hand washing police. But it is what it is. I can't in good conscience allow Marko to wear his gloves to and from the latrine and then back to mix up medications. That's just not allowed. I'm sorry, Marko, but I'm going to have to write you a ticket for this one. You can make your case in court.
Maybe I can ask them to change my title?

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