Re-living the 80's while reading nurses' notes; William Shatner's book

I've been sitting down actually reading nurses' notes. To be honest, I've hardly ever read another nurse's notes. Most are too vague and not well constructed, and the penmanship (mine included) can be horrific.

But our facility had gotten ding'ed (is that a word?) for nurses writing notes that didn't match the Plan of Care (if you're a nurse, you know what I mean). Folks would write absolutely nothing about why the patient had come to the hospital in the first place. Or the Plan of Care wouldn't mention anything more than Alteration of Comfort/Pain, Discharge Planning, and Anxiety (the ones that happen to be pre-printed on the form).

So now I have to read at least some of my nurses nurses' notes.

It felt like I had time-warped to the late 80's when I graded papers as a high school teacher. I had the whole bit going, with the red pen, corrections written in margins, and a summary opinion on the bottom. All I was missing was the grade at the top.

As I read over each one, I'd fold the papers (a copy of the note along with a copy of the Plan of Care) in half "the long way" and wrote their names on the "cover." Then I walked around and, in mocking teacher fashion, called out their names from the middle of the station and handed them their papers.

All of them know I used to teach, and got the joke pretty quickly.

Hmmm... Ithink I'll pass by the teacher store my next day off and pick up a little plastic box filled with those gold stars and start putting them on the superior samples.

Sometimes (not often), I miss those days. Particularly the part about having every weekend and holiday off. (Although I usually spent most of them grading papers and coming up with lesson plans).

I've been reading William Shatner's Star Trek Academy: Collision Course. I'm only a few chapters in but it's actually pretty good. The introduction says that the book is "from the imagination of the author." I guess that's a disclaimer that it has nothing to do with the plot of the upcoming movie.

Comments

[Eric135]

I am really amazed at how much rain we have gotten in 24 hours. I have not seen rain like this since Virginia. It was a cold constant rain, at times coming down so hard I could hardly see out the windshield as I drove. I was certain there would be serious flooding, but I think it came down at a steady rate that could pretty much be handled by the city's drainage system that there was not much flooding. I think we officialy got 2 inches but it certainly felt like a lot more.

[Karen]

Are you ok? hear that you're going to get some 2 inches of rain!!