“Who is this dude and why should we care?”

Halloskis! Welcome to my travel nursing blog where I talk about gross things I see and mean things I say to sick people! A writer I respect once told me to think of my citations in the context of “who is this dude and why do we care?” So let me start this thing by telling you those things:

Who Is this Dude?: I am a 32 year old registered nurse who has been a nurse in a busy Emergency Department (hereafter to be called ‘ED’ because duh doy) in Oregon for just about two years now. I worked in the same ED in different roles before becoming a nurse.

While in that ED, I did a little bit of everything. I was a security guard in the ED, but I don’t want to marry a gun and I can’t stand InforWars. I worked in the patient transfer center. That’s where the hospital pays someone to watch Netflix and wake up doctors so that they can talk to other doctors and compare yachts (this really happened). Then I was a ward clerk in the ED where I answered phones and said mean things to doctors when they needed me to page other doctors. Then I was a CNA in that ED. My first two minutes of being a CNA had me doing CPR on a little old person. I didn’t care for doing real work, so I went back to my ward clerk desk.

I spent nearly ten years in that ED. It is my home. The people there are my family. They’ve come to my parties. I’ve politely declined going to theirs. I’ve begrudgingly watched their children grow up in out-of-focus facebook pictures. I love them all. So, like my family did to me and as how all families work, I have decided to leave them for something better. Well. I hope it’s better. It’s different though.

Why Should We Care?: I don’t know that I have a good answer for this. You get to make that decision. What I can offer you is that I’ll tell you true things from EDs across the country and the things I notice about the people and places I go. I have a penchant for saying what I want whenever I want; incidentally, part of the inspiration for this blog was a coworker telling me that I should write down what I say to patients. This happened almost a year ago and, as you can see, I got right on it. I also plan to offer up anything that makes me look bad. Case in point: I once dropped an enema on my head and had to walk through my ED covered in it.

To Wrap Up: So that’s me. That’s why you should keep reading. I’m going to give you a piece of something you might not get to see. The EDs are not like what you see on TV. I’ll try to post pictures too. Not in the ED, but of cool stuff I see. If I can figure that out. I am on the older end of the millennial spectrum so this computer stuff scares me. Stepping on someone’s brains doesn’t scare me but trying to make a website does.

Housekeeping: There are laws in place about releasing health information so I can’t and won’t breach anyone’s privacy, and, to be honest, I never remember anyone’s names. If there’s even a chance a person can be identified, I won’t include the anecdote.

What I’m Into This Week: Reading–A Series of Small Maneuvers by Eliot Treichel, Movie—Lady Bird, TV—The Good Place, Music—Sleep Well Beast, the new album by The National, Podcast—Gilmore Guys 214 It Should’ve Been Lorelai