eric135

You're Gonna Laugh

Another three shifts complete at work. I'm not yet sure if I'm "happy" with my work. I know I'm good at it, and that I have skills that enable me to do my job in a very efficient manner.

I also am pretty sure I'm a good clinical resource for the nurses I take care of. When I'm asked, I usually have a good answer.

But is my present job as "impact-ful" regarding patient care as my bedside nursing position?

Dunno. I doubt it.

It's a wonderful thing to be so well liked by my co-workers. But I miss the direct patient care. I miss the responsibility of direct patient care. I miss the look in my patient's eyes when I come through the door. When I've done my job, that look usually says, "THANK GOD, IT'S YOU."

I miss wishing them Good Morning, and being asked if I'll be back that night.

And some of my organizational skills is overkill. I've got scheduling down to such a fine art, I'm almost finished with the October/November schedule (in other words, I've managed to even out about 35 employee's working days so that every day is evenly covered).

But it's so unrealistic. God only knows how many nurses will decide to throw in the towel and quit before now and October. Or how many fresh new faces will appear. Or who will decide to take a week off in Vegas. Or who's parent will become terminally ill, making an extended absence necessary. Or who will get pregnant. Or who will get caught diverting drugs and lose their license.

And my patients, all 51 of them, couldn't care less.

My boss has asked me to chair a new committee. You're gonna laugh. She wants me to head up a committee -- ON HOW TO GET OUR FUCKING PRESS GANEY SCORES UP!!!!! Oh. My. God. OH MY GOD!!! OOHH MMYY GGOODD!!!!!!

Do you think she'll appreciate a cc'd copy of my memo to my last boss, indicating the most common ways hospitals CHEAT AT PRESS GANEY?:

• Coaching patients at discharge.
• Computer deletion of survey mailing for angry patients.
• Financial reward for hospital employees for increasing scores.
• Buttons/signs/posters indicating patients should score "5 or just don't fill one in."
• Telephone survey coaching after discharge.
• Discounts or bill credits for patients that return surveys.

I doubt it would be appreciated.

Don't worry, I'll bite my tongue. I'm working on SOME CRAZY BULLSHIT CALLED SCRIPTING. It's all that canned speech that is supposed to get our scores back up. I keep hearing about how it's such a great way to guarrantee customer satisfaction.

Meanwhile, I keep thinking, do we really "Want A Shake To Go With Those Fries?" Must we, as caregivers, succumb to corporate America's ubiquitous efforts to get the consumer to buy products and services we do not want, need, or even asked for? Must we really join in?

And if you're a Press Ganey employee that's crawled across my blog because of some paranoid-assed web-watch program, please overcome the urge to email me, and

just

fuck

off.

I can not deal with your canned-text lame-ass cut-and-paste silliness at this time.

War of the Worlds

War of the Worlds was OK. I'd personally give it a 2 stars out of 4. Roomie loved it, and he has a pretty good take on movies, so it might just be me. I might have been too overly influenced by the version that came out in the 50's. Instead of a nerdy-yet-dashing scientist, a priest and his daughter, we have Tom Cruise, a daughter, a teenaged son.

More of the story was devoted to the preservation of family, rather than the survival of the human race (and, per the Wall Street Journal, that is turning out to be one of the good points). In the 50's version, there was more of a "beat-em-with-science" feeling.

The special effects, of course, was the star of the show. They did stick closer to the original vision of the aliens, with tripod walking machines (rather than the flying triangles of the 50's movie). Also, there was a more faithful treatment of the environmental changes, such as the red plants that took over the earth in the book version (not even mentioned in the 50's movie). In the book, the boat that sank was one of the last naval destroyers; in this version, it was a refugee-laiden ferry. Also, this version stuck to the story that the humans were being harvested and held as a nutrient source (again, not mentioned in the 50's movie).

I don't think I'll need to see it in the theaters again, I can wait for the DVD release.

And I wasn't that successful in trying to imagine it was Toby McGuire instead of Tom Cruise.

Happy July 4th (belated)! Of course, a special thank-you to our armed forces overseas, defending our way of life. I was off July 4th, but spent most of it in bed, having worked the previous three nights. Nothing too terribly exciting happened at work. We spent some time looking out our 4th floor windows at the brush fire burning a few miles north of us. While the risk of fire is pretty low in the city, we are far enough north that, just a few more miles is land with a lot of dry brush, and with our recent thunderstorms, our wildfire season has begun.

The only risk to me personally would be if the electricity (and, thus, the air conditioning) shut off, due to the city shutting down power lines. I'm wondering if it would be possible to sleep in a tub of water. Doubt it.

Everyone knows I just love Paula Dean. Her method of checking whether her deep-fry oil is hot enough is interesting. She takes her wet hands and flings water into the hot oil, and if the water pops, it's hot enough. Not exactly the safest method I can think of, but I must consider her an authority, since at least one dish in every show is deep fried.

Sadly, I just heard that the FBI show, The Inside, has been cancelled due to low ratings. I still think it's a great show. The last episode was unsettling -- the murder of a young child. But, thank goodness, it turns out he was murdered by another young child. Whew! That was a close one...

We're seeing War of the Worlds tomorrow morning. I thnk Tom Cruise has just gotten too much of the wrong kind of publicity, with all of his silly rantings and immaturity. I so much more respect stars like Toby McGuire of Spiderman, or Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter. Few appearances on television to alienate fans.

I got my lab results from my doctor yesterday by mail. Nothing too bad. My fastin glucose was 76 mg/dl, which I was worried about because it was elevated last year (I think I had a sip of Mountain Dew before I went to have my blood drawn and forgot about it, but was more careful this year). My Uric Acid is high at 9.5 mg/dl (normal is 3.5-8.0), but I have not been taking my prescription of Allopurinol. My BUN  was 15, creatinine was 1.2, which are normal (they were slightly elevated last year, I think it was the Allopurinol, which was why I stopped taking it).

My cholesterol was 156 (not bad, I'm usually in the 130's). My Triglycerides are now high at 172, and my HDL is one point lower than desired. My cholesterol/HDL ratio is 4.1, normal is <5.0.

I'm going to try to limit my servings of red meat to no more than 2 per week. I have periodic cravings for grilled rib-eye steaks, and I've been trying Paula Dean's recipe for pot roast, which has gotten me eating red meat more often than usual. Also, the lipid profile really should be prepped with 12-14 hours of no food, and I don't think I was "NPO" for more than 6 hours, which might have skewed the test.

I haven't been eating very much fish either. My room mate hates any kind of seafood, so I don't eat it much. I used to grill or stew fish once a week, which I'll have to get back into.

I was back in the pool early this morning. My "lap partner" was an old guy that just wanted to walk up and down the lane, and occasionally float using those "floating noodle" things. No accidental bitch-slapping. I'm nowhere near my past ability to swim a mile a day (that's 72 lengths in an olympic pool). For right now, I'm just working myself up to 30 minutes of swimming, and if I'm tired out, I just take a 60-second break and then keep going. I'll work up the number of laps when I can go 30 minutes swimming with no breaks. It actually felt good today. I'm there by 4 or 5am, so it's still dark outside and very few people are in the club, which is nice. They usually have not yet turned on the disco music yet.

I'm at the hospital for the next three nights.