Med/surg at FHP.
Last night was totally unexpected. Being a Wednesday, I thought the census will be low and no work will be available. The Registry called and I'm going to Foothill Presbyterian Hospital in Glendora, Ca. It's only about 7 miles away from home. Unfortunately, I woke up at 9:00 a.m. that morning and has been up all day cleaning up the house. Oh well, I'm going to be tired but I also have to work.
I was assigned to the Medical/surgical unit. This is the lowest level of medical care in the hospital. The patients are mostly walkie talkie. Meaning they walk and talk. No constant monitoring. Little stress for me. Charting here is like charting in Intercommunity Hospital in Covina. I worked there a little more than 2 years ago. The computer charting came back to me easily.
The great thing about this place is they have soda fountain in the nurse's pantry. I can get Coke, Diet Coke and Sprite. Coffee is free at the cafeteria. The machine will dispense java 24/7.
I found two former co-workers from Intercommunity Hospital, a sister hospital of FHP. They have transfered to FHP for various reasons. One favors the 12 hours shifts and the other to leave ICU and become a supervisor. The supervisor also complained of the heavy workload in ICU, heavy fat patients. She said she's getting older and can't take lifting heavy patients.
Work load in M/S can get heavy. I had 4 patients until midnight when we lost an LVN and I was assigned an extra patient. The nice thing about this unit is that the rooms are small so the rooms are packed close to each other. I don't miss the large rooms of Casa Colina and the large sprawl of rooms. It can get tiring walking back and forth at Casa.
The night went by a bit slow for me. I took a break around 1:45 a.m. and called a friend at Casa who works every Wednesday. Stephanie is a LVN at Casa, she is a good worker and I miss her. We used to work days and she switched to nights about a year ago. I then followed suit as work on days was getting tough. We chatted a bit and agreed to keep in touch with each other.
One of my patients got real confused and agitated about 4:30 a.m. his wife was there with him. This dude is 84 years old and the wife is a Filipina about 30 years his senior. Oh well, gotta do what you gotta do to stay in this country. I called his doctor but the surgeon said it's not a surgery issue. I called his other doctor who ordered Ativan, a sedative. The doctor told me he doesn't know the dosing as he hasn't given it for years. There you go, I'm very impressed now. God, don't admit to me that fact, I don't need to know you don't know your trade.
The wife of this patient was a pain. She kept the patient on bay as he wants to leave. The Ativan kicked in and now she wants to know if he will be awake for breakfast. Shut the fuck up!! At this time, I was keeping my cool. The steam is already coming out of my ears. I just keep thinking to my self this is not worth losing my cool, she's scared and that is understandable. Fucking drama at this time of the morning. FUCK!
It got real busy around 5:00 a.m. Two patients need to be weighed, a blood sugar needed to be done on another, one wants pain medication, pills need to be passed, arrgh... LOL. I made it though and I was outta there on time.
Last night was totally unexpected. Being a Wednesday, I thought the census will be low and no work will be available. The Registry called and I'm going to Foothill Presbyterian Hospital in Glendora, Ca. It's only about 7 miles away from home. Unfortunately, I woke up at 9:00 a.m. that morning and has been up all day cleaning up the house. Oh well, I'm going to be tired but I also have to work.
I was assigned to the Medical/surgical unit. This is the lowest level of medical care in the hospital. The patients are mostly walkie talkie. Meaning they walk and talk. No constant monitoring. Little stress for me. Charting here is like charting in Intercommunity Hospital in Covina. I worked there a little more than 2 years ago. The computer charting came back to me easily.
The great thing about this place is they have soda fountain in the nurse's pantry. I can get Coke, Diet Coke and Sprite. Coffee is free at the cafeteria. The machine will dispense java 24/7.
I found two former co-workers from Intercommunity Hospital, a sister hospital of FHP. They have transfered to FHP for various reasons. One favors the 12 hours shifts and the other to leave ICU and become a supervisor. The supervisor also complained of the heavy workload in ICU, heavy fat patients. She said she's getting older and can't take lifting heavy patients.
Work load in M/S can get heavy. I had 4 patients until midnight when we lost an LVN and I was assigned an extra patient. The nice thing about this unit is that the rooms are small so the rooms are packed close to each other. I don't miss the large rooms of Casa Colina and the large sprawl of rooms. It can get tiring walking back and forth at Casa.
The night went by a bit slow for me. I took a break around 1:45 a.m. and called a friend at Casa who works every Wednesday. Stephanie is a LVN at Casa, she is a good worker and I miss her. We used to work days and she switched to nights about a year ago. I then followed suit as work on days was getting tough. We chatted a bit and agreed to keep in touch with each other.
One of my patients got real confused and agitated about 4:30 a.m. his wife was there with him. This dude is 84 years old and the wife is a Filipina about 30 years his senior. Oh well, gotta do what you gotta do to stay in this country. I called his doctor but the surgeon said it's not a surgery issue. I called his other doctor who ordered Ativan, a sedative. The doctor told me he doesn't know the dosing as he hasn't given it for years. There you go, I'm very impressed now. God, don't admit to me that fact, I don't need to know you don't know your trade.
The wife of this patient was a pain. She kept the patient on bay as he wants to leave. The Ativan kicked in and now she wants to know if he will be awake for breakfast. Shut the fuck up!! At this time, I was keeping my cool. The steam is already coming out of my ears. I just keep thinking to my self this is not worth losing my cool, she's scared and that is understandable. Fucking drama at this time of the morning. FUCK!
It got real busy around 5:00 a.m. Two patients need to be weighed, a blood sugar needed to be done on another, one wants pain medication, pills need to be passed, arrgh... LOL. I made it though and I was outta there on time.
