Enter at your own risk

WARNING: the following post is the result of one burned-out nurse's tumultuous week. Proceed with caution.

I think I will make a list of the top five areas of nursing that I might find interesting, arrange them on a dart board, and make it a true toss up as to where I should apply. Because right now, you couldn't pay me enough to continue to endure the constant bickering, whining and laziness that is the ER. And don't even get me started on the patients' behavior.

If you don't know how to do something, quit pretending that you do. Because if I decide all of a sudden to stop carrying your sorry nurse's ass, your patients are going to die. Plain and simple. I'm sure their loved ones would appreciate your admitting "I don't know how to do that" or "I could really use some help here, would you please take this patient for me?" Post-script: that funny looking wavy line on the monitor is called v-tach. Do something about it besides standing there looking stupid.

Don't bolus the hell out of your patient with the Diprivan if you don't intend on staring at the monitor for the next 5 minutes. It drops their blood pressure. Duh.

If I look like I'm about to snap, don't ask me "are you ok?" Gee, do I look ok? What do you think? You wouldn't be asking me that if I didn't look like I wanted to stand in the ambulance bay waiting for an opportunity to hitch a ride the heck out of here, now would you? Unless you can find something constructive to do to lighten my load, without interrupting my train of thought to tell you what needs to be done, just shut up and continue your conversation with the three other co-workers about that great party you all got drunk at. It's ok. Really. The work-ethic class was optional in school. I was one of the two that signed up.

If you tie the restraint to the side rail, don't look surprised when you walk out of the room and I re-tie it. I like the ET tube where it is. Call me silly.

Believe it or not, I actually know some stuff. So even though you are an old nurse, or an egotistical, womanizing snot of a man with MD behind his name, I may know something you don't. And yes, I do secretly swell a little inside when I am able to prove that. Makes me wonder what I could do with a little effort in another arena. Are there any nursing foci that provide for the basic need of gratitude or appreciation? Or even more base than that, is there a nursing job where your co-workers (a) work just as hard as you do, all the time, (b) know enough to keep their own patients alive, (c) aren't all a bunch of drunks? I am in search of this position.

I think it is a sick trick, this ER nursing addiction. Kind of like being on a heroin high, if I understand heroin addiciton correctly. You sacrifice feeling like crap 99% of the time for that 1% where you feel like you're on top of the world. Just makes me wanna puke. How about a little Phenergan, right here in the left cheek. Easy to do; I'm already bent over.