Far be it from me to suggest that some of our nursing colleagues can be a bit dim at times. I know that any such suggestion is likely to invite a cyber kicking.
But what is it about nurses and their inability to understand metric units when it comes to patient height? Every week I see some howler written down. According to the recorded heights we regularly have patients who are 168metres tall, or 1.68 cm. And all sorts of other blatantly obvious errors. Surely they know what a centimetre is, or a metre. Don't they?
Yesterday, I received a ‘Magic’ letter
4 hours ago
Nurse Rant 1: "The amount of times I've seen a JHO prescribe 1000units of insulin or 250mg of Digoxin blah de blah blah"
ReplyDeleteNurse rant 2: "Stop being such an arrogant twat of a doctor, as if you have never made a mistake!"
Nurse Rant 3: "Us nurses work bloody hard and mistakes can be expected while we run around after the lazy coffee drinking docs."
That should cover most rebuttals right?
Dr Z; most of us are too old to have learned this new fangled centipede stuff. I still want to give medicines in grains and insulin should still come in 40 and 80 or was it 60 I can't remember.
ReplyDeleteDobbing Doctor; Yes, that about covers it, especially number 3.
I'm not a nurse so don't have any axe to grind - but please also bear in mind that in outpatients at least the weighing is not necessarily done by a nurse. In a northeast hospital, I have been weighed by a volunteer - who appeared to be about 80 - who then put my notes to go to the wrong consultant waiting area. This was after another volunteer had called my name incorrectly and when corrected said "it's near enough". Result - I was in the diabetic clinic not the general medical clinic. I initiated a complaint (was encouraged to do so in fact). What happened? Nothing.
ReplyDelete