Change of Venue

When you’re working about 3 billion days in a row, with neverending lines of patients waiting to be seen, you have to find the humor wherever you can.

Our ER tracking board has a “comments” section, often used for “needs xray” or “needs lab” or “hospitalist coming to see” or whatever.  The other night we were so busy that we had patients waiting in the lobby outside triage (vs in the typical waiting rooms, as they were full) so they were noted as “in the lobby.”  Fair enough.

Well, you have to click on these little comments to deactivate them, or they’ll stay on the board for the patient’s entire stay.  So after one unfortunate lady was put into a room and assessed, the phrase “set up for pelvic exam” was added to her comments, which still contained “in the lobby.”

We figure that the speculum light can be plugged in next to the Coke machine, no problem.  All part of our continuing services as a “no-wait” ER!*

*A marketing tool used by the higher-ups.  Ah, how we laugh.

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