Distracting a screaming toddler

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 [...]

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Help! I’ve been ramped!

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 [...]

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10 surreal minutes – did that just happen?

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 [...]

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Taking some responsibility for our health issues

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 [...]

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Watching a patient die

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 [...]

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