This is Triage (When We’re Short-Staffed, After Any Celebratory Occasion, and Your Least Favorite Provider is On-Call)

This is how I feel when all my favorite people are at work.

This is how I feel when I walk onto the unit, and night shift has the lights all dimmed.

This is how I feel when I realize that two people called in sick, and we’re going to be very short-staffed.

This is how I feel knowing we can’t ask any other unit in the hospital for help (because they don’t deliver babies and they are repulsed by the idea that blood comes out of a vagina).

This is how I feel when I clock in, and find out triage is already full. But I’m not worried about it, because I’m working with my favorite charge nurse.

This is how I feel prioritizing who I will see first.

This is how I feel when I discharge the patient with round ligament pain and the patient who “bled two days ago when I wiped”.

 

This is how I feel when there’s a revolving door, and I immediately get two more patients. One can’t sit on the chair and is doing this half-hop in the wheelchair.

This is how I feel when she stands up and a baby’s head pops out when she stands up to get into the triage bed.

This is how I feel catching her baby with my bare hands so it doesn’t hit the floor.

This is how I feel when I look at the clock and realize it’s only 10am.

And this is how I feel when I find out I missed breakfast.

 

It is so weird that we’re busy in triage after any holiday, after a football game, or any other event where people are celebrating—and maybe in more ways than one 😉 It doesn’t matter where you work or what kind of patients you see, when one of us is busy, we’re ALL usually busy.  Shout out to all my triage patients!! ❤

 

Until my next delivery ❤

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‹ A Nurse’s Wish

The Nurse Curse ›

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Categories: For Nurses..., Nursing Humor, Random

Tags: delivery, labor, nurse, nursing, patient