Quote:
Originally Posted by ronsroni
Someone posted about King's County and the harrowing cases and pace. To assume that what WE experience in TV ER is really NOT happening is pathetic. I, for one, have been a nurse for 43 years. I worked at Columbia Presbyterian-Babies Hospital, North Shore University Hospital and Long Island Jewish; all 3 NY hospitals. I can assess the doings of most places I experience FIRSTHAND. While we may be aging here in TV, however, don't let the hair kid you. I can still run circles around many new grads. If something does not make medical sense; is that the point being made? Confounded might be the word to reach for.
I simply feel that diminishing our firsthand experiences is making me wonder if we should genuflect and do the 'we are not worthy' wave.
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I wasn't going to respond to your post, but I changed my mind. It was I who made the reference to Kings County.
First, thank you for 43 years of service to the community as a nurse; I can tell from your wording that you are a good nurse as well. As you know, many younger nurses, especially the good ones, find alternative career paths in the pharmaceutical or insurance industries, or go on to become a NP, or earn administrative positions. It takes special dedication to hang in there for 43 years. I too spent time at Columbia-New York Hospital. I was at LIJ for a time and my brother was a patient there as well. I spent time at North Shore, and in fact I was born at that hospital, so we share many firsthand experiences. We may have even run into each other 35 years ago or so. I've also had the "joy" of running Staten Island University Hospital ER on occasion.
Perhaps I failed to make my point clearly in my post. Certainly you don't think I believe everyone who goes to TVRH ER has a great experience, and then some lie about it. I was not diminishing anyone's experience. Likewise, I doubt you believe every word that people post about the ER on TOTV. This ER has problems, but they are very fixable. However, there are SOME posts that are so bizarre that they appear to lack credibility.
How many times have you tried to explain something to a patient and family and can literally see the exact moment they shut down and stop listening? I'm sure you learned early on to avoid the words "cancer" and "Alzheimer's", since at that point all communication, all memory, and all judgement goes out the window and emotion takes over. Likewise, there is extreme frustration from waiting in an ER, and stress and fear of the unknown, so not all recollections are entirely accurate. Just ask any detective what they get when interviewing "eyewitnesses"; I'm sure you know what I'm talking about.
There are only about a dozen posts over the last 2 years that seem incredible, so let's play a game with the one I found most egregious. I'll be the ER director and you'll be the ER charge nurse, a position you may have held in your career, About a year ago a OP stated that her 90 year old mother was brought to TVRH ER with a fractured hip and waited
22 hours to be seen by a doctor and get pain medication. What do you think? Do you really believe that is 100% accurate? Given your 43 years of experience. I know you don't believe it either.
So here we are, running the ER when EMS brings this 90 year old in. What happens first--they want to give report to a nurse, who starts a chart (paper or electronic), and points to a room to put the patient in (or the hallway if they are all full). So EMS tells the nurse they have a 90 year old woman unable to ambulate, pain in her left hip, and an externally rotated left leg (not too hard to diagnose). As charge nurse, how long do you tolerate no one from the nursing staff seeing the patient and at least getting vitals and doing a pain assessment? 5 min, 10 min, 15? At some point you would probably go in and do it yourself, as I'm sure you have. I have. How long would you tolerate the physician not seeing the patient and getting x ray/lab ordered and pain meds administered? Same? I wouldn't tolerate it and likewise, I'd go do it myself if no one else did. I've seen similar patients being wheeled in with pain and administered fentanyl right on the stretcher. You've probably seen that as well. How long would I wait before an orthopedist sees the patient? An hour, maybe.
Did that OP have a wait that she considered unacceptable? Probably. But do you honestly believe it was 22 hours??? I'd guess that nationwide about 1/2 of the patients who come in with the same hip fx are in the OR before 22 hours.
I'm not sure why you chose to use the words "pathetic" and "not worthy", since it is pretty certain we are on the same page on this.