credit: jenn_jenn When I first started nursing in an emergency department I was amazed at how we treated injured toddlers. I’m being a bit liberal with my use of the word ‘toddlers’ here, basically I mean any child between the ages of around 1 to 5 years of age. I was amazed for a few …
credit: martinhoward I had something rather interesting happen to me this week – I was ramped! While ramping is not an uncommon process every day in Australia, it is one that usually annoys / frustrates and infuriates ambulance staff more than anyone else. What is ramping? From the health and community services union: “Ramping occurs …
credit: la_cola_de_mi_perro So today using my powers of amazing dodge-ability, I managed (by mere milliseconds) to get out of the path of a power-vomit. Not just any power vomit, this was the kind experienced only by those who have joined the ranks of the bowel-obstruction team. As any emergency nurse would know, this normally entails …
credit: D Sharon Pruitt As any emergency nurse will tell you, sometimes it’s really difficult not to be judgmental of emergency presentations, particularly if they are self inflicted. For example, some of the more infuriating presentations include: The long term smoker with chronic smoking related problems who continues to smoke heavily, and once again ends …
credit: roujo Today I watched a man die. A few of us stood around as his heart stopped beating, and did nothing about it. It was kind of surreal, but the mood in the room was quite calm – there was no frenzy of activity with buzzers going off and people running: instead there were …
There has been a lot written on emergency departments and the frequency of patients who attend for frivolous and stupid complaints. Certainly this has become a part of my day to day life, and there have been many times when I have wished that the Australasian Triage Score system had a category 6, 7 or …
I’m a parent, I’ve been one a couple times over now! And, I can appreciate it’s not always easy being a parent. credit: ElvisHuang Some parents bring their kids into emergency for such minor reasons though, its hard not to raise your eyebrows and think “errr…. and why are you here!?” Some classic examples are: