Health care reform is often heard bouncing around the office. Honestly I rarely listen. The way I see it is that I have zero say so and things are going to happen regardless right now. Things will also change 25 times before it all gets settled. While I realize the whole "sit back and wait" approach isn't the best to have in life (esp. when it involves your future career), however this whole ordeal is just twisted. I read this tid bit and I really think it sums up how people feel about reform:
Notably, "a Gallup Poll in March found 77% of Americans trust doctors to do 'the right thing' on health policy, compared with 32% for Republican leaders and 49% for Obama."
This article also noted that 47 physicians are running for the House or Senate this year. Could turn out to be very interesting...
Sunday, April 25, 2010
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Bloody Blunder
Don't go getting squeamish on me just yet-I promise I'll tone down the part that involves blood. (Btw-did you know how to spell squeamish? strange looking word isn't it?) I went in to work at 7:30 this morning with coffee in hand (not gonna make THAT mistake again) and a chipper attitude. I enjoy working with my Wednesday crew since they're pretty laid back and the crazies are limited because we only deal with one part of the body. When you come in and tell me your right shoulder, left elbow, between your shoulder blades on your back, lower back, right knee, and left big toe hurt....do you really expect me to take that person seriously? Ok then.
We have a ton of post-op patients which means I take out a million stitches and apply 3x as many steri strips. My doc typically likes to see patients back the day after surgery, ten days after surgery, and then a few follow up visits depending on what was done. Therefore, I have to rely on the date in the chart and the patient to make sure I know how far out they are. Most of you know we just started changing systems to eventually go all EMR [read MASS CONFUSION and the reason I feel the need to drink at 10am. speaking of which anyone have a rum cake recipe? we need a legit way to chill at work. they won't hand out adavan or let us bring flasks]. There's been a little issue with dictation getting backed up in the system so I have no heads up about the previous visit...this makes me look like a fool when I have to ask a few round about questions to find out why they're here and what the heck we did to them. It's easy to look at a fat bandage and know obviously that left wrist had some kind of problem...but when they walk in w/o a bandage period-well it gets tricky. I digress-
Ok let's set the scene. It's somewhere b/w 8:30 and 9:00am. Clinic is in full swing and I'm doing my thing. Routine deal. Patient comes in with massive bandage over wrist and hand. I see the surgery listed, glance at the date, and evaluate my next step. Well hello- suture removal, duh. I start talking to the patient and companion asking if everything has been ok since surgery and tell them I'm going to remove the stitches. They nod and are relaxed with this. I bring in suture kit, glance at his wrist, and start doing my thing. Stitches on his wrist come out w/o issue, but this guy also had another small operation done on his thumb so I'm looking at those stitches and thinking about the best angle to remove them. Suddenly my new friend decided to squeeze, open, and twist his palm...yeah...um this was a MAJOR problem. The incision burst open (imagine you just sliced your finger open and it's like the Dead Sea parted) and a trickle of blood appears. Oh no-it's ok- I got this. Gauze in hand and hold pressure for a minute. Bleeding continues...my doc happens to enter the room followed by his nurse. So awesome, my patient is bleeding and everyone knows now. Um about that trickle...see it never stopped and sorta turned into gushing. yeah...that's definitely a problem...
Come to find out the patient was 1 day post-op. Meaning the surgery was done the DAY BEFORE-as in 24 hours. We tried to steri strip him but nothing was holding Old Faithful down. He ended up having to restitch him which was not only annoying but slowed clinic down big time.
Ugh. My chipper mood went down the tube and all I could think was "please don't yell at me in front of people...please let this be over fast and I not screw up anything else this morning." Thankfully, both my doc and nurse are nice people and there was no yelling; this could have been because I was profusely apologizing about being a idiot. The nurse brushed it off, told me I wouldn't make that mistake again, and jokingly gave me a hard time the rest of the day. Irony of the situation- another MA had done the exact same thing the day before. The doc just shook his head and said he didn't know what was going on with all the new system changes but it was obviously giving us problems. I feel no shame in letting the EMR systems play the scape goat even though we all know I was just dumb haha.
I'll leave you with one final thought: you know it's been a rough day when you can't decide between chocolate and alcohol so you imbibe a little of both. I'll let you know how that works out later ;)
We have a ton of post-op patients which means I take out a million stitches and apply 3x as many steri strips. My doc typically likes to see patients back the day after surgery, ten days after surgery, and then a few follow up visits depending on what was done. Therefore, I have to rely on the date in the chart and the patient to make sure I know how far out they are. Most of you know we just started changing systems to eventually go all EMR [read MASS CONFUSION and the reason I feel the need to drink at 10am. speaking of which anyone have a rum cake recipe? we need a legit way to chill at work. they won't hand out adavan or let us bring flasks]. There's been a little issue with dictation getting backed up in the system so I have no heads up about the previous visit...this makes me look like a fool when I have to ask a few round about questions to find out why they're here and what the heck we did to them. It's easy to look at a fat bandage and know obviously that left wrist had some kind of problem...but when they walk in w/o a bandage period-well it gets tricky. I digress-
Ok let's set the scene. It's somewhere b/w 8:30 and 9:00am. Clinic is in full swing and I'm doing my thing. Routine deal. Patient comes in with massive bandage over wrist and hand. I see the surgery listed, glance at the date, and evaluate my next step. Well hello- suture removal, duh. I start talking to the patient and companion asking if everything has been ok since surgery and tell them I'm going to remove the stitches. They nod and are relaxed with this. I bring in suture kit, glance at his wrist, and start doing my thing. Stitches on his wrist come out w/o issue, but this guy also had another small operation done on his thumb so I'm looking at those stitches and thinking about the best angle to remove them. Suddenly my new friend decided to squeeze, open, and twist his palm...yeah...um this was a MAJOR problem. The incision burst open (imagine you just sliced your finger open and it's like the Dead Sea parted) and a trickle of blood appears. Oh no-it's ok- I got this. Gauze in hand and hold pressure for a minute. Bleeding continues...my doc happens to enter the room followed by his nurse. So awesome, my patient is bleeding and everyone knows now. Um about that trickle...see it never stopped and sorta turned into gushing. yeah...that's definitely a problem...
Come to find out the patient was 1 day post-op. Meaning the surgery was done the DAY BEFORE-as in 24 hours. We tried to steri strip him but nothing was holding Old Faithful down. He ended up having to restitch him which was not only annoying but slowed clinic down big time.
Ugh. My chipper mood went down the tube and all I could think was "please don't yell at me in front of people...please let this be over fast and I not screw up anything else this morning." Thankfully, both my doc and nurse are nice people and there was no yelling; this could have been because I was profusely apologizing about being a idiot. The nurse brushed it off, told me I wouldn't make that mistake again, and jokingly gave me a hard time the rest of the day. Irony of the situation- another MA had done the exact same thing the day before. The doc just shook his head and said he didn't know what was going on with all the new system changes but it was obviously giving us problems. I feel no shame in letting the EMR systems play the scape goat even though we all know I was just dumb haha.
I'll leave you with one final thought: you know it's been a rough day when you can't decide between chocolate and alcohol so you imbibe a little of both. I'll let you know how that works out later ;)
Tuesday, April 20, 2010
passive aggressive much??
Please give me some advice as to how to deal with these urges...I seriously might do something awful soon. Wish I was kidding but the limit has been reached and it won't take much more...
Monday, April 19, 2010
Always obey the stickers
What up people. I have a somewhat embarrassing story to tell you guys. I preface this upfront so you don't feel guilty for laughing at me...we wouldn't want that now would we. I might have gotten stuck in an elevator for 15+ minutes today.
Sooo I left my coffee in the car this morning when I got to work. I prepped clinic, found someone to cover for me, and grabbed my keys to fetch my fix. From the back parking lot there are 3 ways to enter the building: elevator, stairs, walking around the building. I was trying to save time and the door to the stairs was locked so I went for the elevator. Scottie had passed me not 3 minutes before and taken the elevator up. When I reached to push the up button there was this little green sticker which I may or may not have really read...the words "maintenance" and "closed" prolly should have jumped out at me. I thought Scottie was messing with me since he literally had JUST gotten on it and it was 9am-who does maintenance on a Monday morning at 9am?? Evidently TOG does. Elevator stopped with a jolt b/w the ground level and first floor. I know this because the door opened and I saw a metal wall. Long story short I drank my coffee in the elevator and tried to remain calm. I also resisted watching my watch but gave in enough to know that I was there for over 15 minutes. Comforting thought: no one missed me.
Yeah...so lesson learned today: obey those little green stickers! Or else you will be detained...
Sooo I left my coffee in the car this morning when I got to work. I prepped clinic, found someone to cover for me, and grabbed my keys to fetch my fix. From the back parking lot there are 3 ways to enter the building: elevator, stairs, walking around the building. I was trying to save time and the door to the stairs was locked so I went for the elevator. Scottie had passed me not 3 minutes before and taken the elevator up. When I reached to push the up button there was this little green sticker which I may or may not have really read...the words "maintenance" and "closed" prolly should have jumped out at me. I thought Scottie was messing with me since he literally had JUST gotten on it and it was 9am-who does maintenance on a Monday morning at 9am?? Evidently TOG does. Elevator stopped with a jolt b/w the ground level and first floor. I know this because the door opened and I saw a metal wall. Long story short I drank my coffee in the elevator and tried to remain calm. I also resisted watching my watch but gave in enough to know that I was there for over 15 minutes. Comforting thought: no one missed me.
Yeah...so lesson learned today: obey those little green stickers! Or else you will be detained...
Monday, April 12, 2010
Yummy in my tummy
So friends I ventured out, stretched a culinary muscle, and made an ICE CREAM CAKE!!!!! Baaahhhh! I love love love love love ice cream cakes. There's not a DQ close to me and I just can't bring myself to buy one at Baskin Robbins. I did a little research and voila!
Yummy in my tummy!!! Look at those layers of deliciousness...hmmmm...might have eaten a big chunk this evening, as did today's birthday boy :)
Now I'm pretty darn excited that Glee comes back on tomorrow; not gonna lie-siked might be a more appropriate phrase. Tonight Sarah introduced me to a show called "Pretty Wild." I'm not even going to justify the show by describing it...let's just say it's a whole new level of ridi. TV these days-takes cray cray to a whole new level.
Yummy in my tummy!!! Look at those layers of deliciousness...hmmmm...might have eaten a big chunk this evening, as did today's birthday boy :)
Now I'm pretty darn excited that Glee comes back on tomorrow; not gonna lie-siked might be a more appropriate phrase. Tonight Sarah introduced me to a show called "Pretty Wild." I'm not even going to justify the show by describing it...let's just say it's a whole new level of ridi. TV these days-takes cray cray to a whole new level.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
RIP
Dear friends I keep forgetting to inform you about the passing of someone special to the Seay family. Roco Seay tragically passed away last week. "Roc," as he was so lovingly called, found a sago palm seed and ingested a generous portion. All parts of the plant are poisonous and the seeds happen to be the most poisonous part, so we now know...He may have lived a short life but it a rich one and he will be greatly missed. He was buried at the Lake close to a tree he loved to climb. Roc is survived by his father Jason and sister Inda.Please keep the family in your thoughts.
Wednesday, April 7, 2010
I forgot the best part
I forgot to tell you one of my favorite moments from yesterday. I decided to take a break to eat dinner. Put everything on the plate...was looking forward to it...and then I dropped it. Oh yeah, face down dropped it. That was the bottom of the hill; I mean we all know how I feel about food...haha
Hope you had a good hump day!
Hope you had a good hump day!
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