Dr. Cranquis' Mumbled Gripes
(Disclaimer: Questions related to medical topics will be answered to the best of Dr. Cranquis' (and Google's) knowledge, but the internet-delivered wisdom on this blog CAN NOT AND SHOULD NOT SUBSTITUTE for your Real-Life Doctor's personal attention + examination, and your own common sense too! If you think you're having a medical emergency, hang up and go email 911. The author of this blog takes no responsibility for any medical, relationship, scholastic, financial, or other decisions you may make based on information found in this blog.)
And since people seem to be a bit confused about this: any "real-sounding" patients names are just horrible puns, and not HIPAA violations.
(A re-post of a question & answer, to allow for reblogging at nikitaanneli’s request)
Nurses, you ask? What do I think about NURSES?
- Nurses and their constant dedicated service make me want to break into song (although it would probably be some yowling country tune about “You do the things I need, and I need the things you do.”)
- The best piece of advice I received before starting my clinical years of med school was: “Be nice to the nurses, and they will be nice to you.” It has helped me many times. [Med school and beyond!]
- Nurses are the backbone, hands, shoulders, feet, eyes, ears, heart, and liver of any successful medical facility or practice. A good nurse will also be the cerebellum and temporo-parietal lobes of the brain, allowing the doctor to focus on the hippocampal and frontal-lobe stuff.
- Nurses don’t get no respect (or rather, not ENOUGH respect) for the jobs they do. Once a year at my clinic, the administrators throw a “Nurse’s Day” party — I think there should be one of those parties every 3 days or so.
Does that answer your question? ;)
Happy Nurses’ Week to all the fantabulazing nurses in the worrrrrrld!
Future certified nurse midwife (CNM) amanda-pearl had asked for some nursing and OB blog recommendations, and I turned to my Cranquistadors for suggestions. I checked out all of their recommendations, and here are the blogs that seemed to fit those categories.
- Nurse-On-Duty — Tumblr; nurse; one of the most “nursing-related stuff ONLY” blogs I found.
- Rubylipstick1 — Tumblr; registered nurse; sources tell me she has “lots of other nursing blog suggestions”.
- Nocturnal Nurse — Tumblr; registered nurse; gross anatomy, pharmacology, medication safety, mnemonics. (-2 Cranquis Points for having auto-play music in the theme — pet peeve!) :)
- Charmainegrace — Tumblr; graduate RN resident, with interests in psychiatry and gross anatomy.
- Natural Night Nurse — Tumblr; registered nurse working in peds with dreams being a CNM, also has auto-immune conditions.
- itsjustcharli — Tumblr; registered nurse working ICU.
- theitunurse — Tumblr; registered nurse working ICU.
- Stand and Deliver — Blogspot; Doula/midwife’s assistant; pregnancy, birth, women’s issues.
- At Your Cervix — Blogspot; Labor/Delivery nurse working towards becoming nurse midwife. (+10 Cranquis Points for the yummy pun title)
Thanks to all my Cranquistadors for their recommendations!
EDIT: Here’s another good one…
- Bloopz — Tumblr; nursing student about to graduate, lots of NCLEX review questions and pictures and tips.
I know this was a while back, but thank you so much to Dr. Cranquis for recommending my blog!! I did not know it was recommended until recently! I’m so honored! :)
For the reader who recently asked me for some nursing blog recommendations: this list is about a year old, and I haven’t checked to be sure that all these blogs are still active — but I stand by my original recommendations!
Every med student on Tumblr needs to read this blog post. It’s spot on, golden advice for your future work relationships ( ;
I remember my Internal Medicine rotation as the best I had! Not only bc is my favorite, but bc the team work was amazing.
We, interns and nurses were one, we helped each other, and our pts were alway our n°1 priority. Nurses are always gonna have your back, -I know so, cause i’ve been raised by one- and if you don’t listen to them my friend, you are screwed!
Everytime I’m gonna check a pt, my beautiful mom always reminds me certain things. For example, if my pt is with diarrhea, she always says “don’t forget to check if his/her pulse is consistent with his/her T°” (to rule out typhoid fever, since is very common here in Peru).
This post is amazing guys! (= And every single word written here is TRUE. Nurses rock!!!
Dr. Grumpy (no relation) speaks true. Much boundary-appropriate love to all the nurses out there!
- Wife of man with end-stage cancer and hemoptysis (coughing-up-blood): See, his clothes are all spattered with blood!
- Patient: *futilely wiping at blood with paper towel*
- Wife *hands a hospital-grade sanitizing wipe from the sink area and hands it to the patient*
- Greatest ER Nurse in the Universe: Oh, please don't touch those wipes without wearing gloves, sir! They are very strong and can cause cance.....Er. Sorry. I, uh...
- Patient *sad grin*: It's a bit late for that precaution, I think.
If a tooth is completely knocked out of the mouth:
- This is a true “dental emergency” — see a dentist or an ER ASAP.
- If the tooth is found, DO rinse it with saline or tap water — but DO NOT TOUCH THE ROOTS OR SCRUB THE TOOTH — before putting it back into the dental socket.
- If you’re worried the patient would swallow the re-implanted tooth, DO put the tooth in saline or MILK for transport — Do NOT put the tooth in sports beverages or contact lens solution.
- If the tooth has not been found, assume it has been inhaled or swallowed — get an xray to check the lungs and stomach.
(A post mainly written to help me remember what I’m learning from the article “Dental Emergencies” in Emergency Medicine journal, Sept 2010)
My phone scared the shit out of me. It was a little after 2 AM and it was my last night on call during my ob-gyn rotation. I always kept the volume on high because one of my peers once missed a page and, well, that ended badly for him. “Josh, I need you to meet me in Room 412423513452345324!” I…
Great story!
Twist ending! (not really, if you’ve ever been a med student, but funny ending nonetheless…)
The part which really irked me was this:
The nurses looked back and forth at each other baffled. “We don’t do blood draws in L&D, so none of us are comfortable with doing that.”
So who ends up doing it? The med student who hasn’t drawn blood in however-long (successfully, on a critical patient — up top for the high five!). In my (admittedly non-nurse opinion), nurses are going to be in phlebotomy-necessary situations way more often than doctors will, and should strive to be able to do those basic skills if called upon in an emergency. Not hatin’ on the L&D nurses (it’s a tough job which I do not envy at all!), just my opinion on this situation.
My nurse has a divine sense of retribution.
(I would’ve just called security and moved on with my day…. which would’ve just created more paperwork for ME and a slap on the wrist for the patient. Lame.)
I guess most of these tips are really applicable to any IV placement, but since I’m a pediatrician I’m including some extra tips that a re pediatric specific. Also, it’s my blog and I can do whatever the heck I want. I’m talking about a routine IV placement here. Obviously in an emergency…
Not that I have to do this in my job ever (hallelujer!), but maybe YOU do? Read on.
A collection of all the GNU ER-Nurse posts, for your enjoyment.
Looking for that perfect gift this season?
Consider Nurse Barbie – a crankier, more sleep-deprived version of Mattel’s classic Barbie. This doll is designed for young children who dream of becoming a nurse (or even for current nursing students!) who don’t yet understand the daunting reality of the real world. After just one day of play with Nurse Barbie, your child will never again consider this profession.
Nurse Barbie is not only adorable with her messy pony tail, poo-stained scrubs (don’t worry the poo is only on her sleeve and not real! It is, however, completely impossible to remove) and…
I was gonna make a sarcastic comment about the “Doctor Ken gets paid more but does less work” line — but I’m nervous that Nurse Barbie might retaliate with her Spring-Loaded Foley-Catheter-Placement Action.
(Funny “advertisement”. Go read it!)
- Printer repair-guy: Do you have any other printers in the Urgent Care that need service, doc?
- Cranquis *pointing in the direction of the nurses' work area*: Yeah, there's a really old one over there.
- Repair-guy: Is it pretty slow?
- Cranquis: Oh yeah, you know how it goes. The older they get, the slower they are.
- Two admittedly-close-to-retirement-age nurses *sitting in work area*: HEY!
- Cranquis *suddenly aware of what he was saying*: I was talking about the printer!!
Ok, so I already love the Grandma Got Run Over Christmas song. It’s a holiday tradition in Casa de Cranquis to try to fool various relatives into believing that something terrible has happened to our real-life Grandma, with the punch line being this song.
But then my long-time Cranquistador Poet Laureate Confessions-of-a-Redhead (already a prolific submitter of poetry/parody for this blog) whipped together a delightful Cranqmas parody of the lyrics, riffing on this recent post about jinxes in the Urgent Care, and I fell in love with the original all over again! So please to enjoy you will!
A Nurse Got Ran Over By Dr. Cranquis
A nurse got ran over by Dr. Cranquis
When she left the UC Christmas Eve
You can say there’s no such thing as jinxes
But as for me and Cranquis, we believe
She’d been drinking too much coffee
And we begged her to shut up
But she actually said the Q word
And then she began to put her stuff up
That’s when ten patients walked inside
And they all signed in their spouse
One man even brought his grandma
Who wasn’t sick, but wanted out of the house
A nurse got ran over by Dr. Cranquis
When she left the UC Christmas Eve
You can say there’s no such thing as jinxes
But as for me and Cranquis, we believe
Now we’re all so proud of Cranquis
He stood and went right to work
He already saw four patients
And was nice even though the fifth one was a jerk
And the sixth one needed transport
Because he had some chest pain
But when Cranquis called the ambulance
The sixth patient signed himself out AMA
A nurse got ran over by Dr. Cranquis
When she left the UC Christmas Eve
You can say there’s no such thing as jinxes
But as for me and Cranquis, we believe
Then he saw the seventh patient
She said she had hurt her back
But upon examination
Dr. Cranquis knew she was a hypochondriac
That just left him three more patients
He thought he was in the clear
But they all had complications
Cranquis wondered if he would get home this year
A nurse got ran over by Dr. Cranquis
When she left the UC Christmas Eve
You can say there’s no such thing as jinxes
But as for me and Cranquis, we believe
The last three patients were transported
To the hospital by EMTs
It was five minutes until closing
And another patient came in to be seen.
That last patient was so easy
Cranquis got him out real fast
But that same nurse said the Q word
And that’s the moment when Dr. Cranquis attacked!
A nurse got ran over by Dr. Cranquis
When she left the UC Christmas Eve
You can say there’s no such thing as jinxes
But as for me and Cranquis, we believe
- Nurse Kathy: Have you seen the otoscope batteries anywhere?
- Nurse Cathy: Yes, but I don't remember where. They were someplace unusual.
- Cranquis: Cathy, you worked as an ER nurse for 30+ years before coming to work here. So I doubt there is ~ANY~ place a battery could be which you would consider to be 'unusual'.
Dr. Cranquis’ Guide to Stalking your Old Healthcare Provider (for non-nefarious purposes only) — reblogged just in time for the Thanksgiving season!
Wow! Sounds like you were a very fortunate toddler, Grateful Head! The surgeon (or more likely, the horde of surgeons and ER docs and pediatricians) who provided your emergent care must have worked very hard to leave you with such excellent results!
But I don’t think YOU’LL have to work too hard to find out which doctor(s) provided your care back then. I’ve briefly discussed contacting (resident) physicians before, but here’s Dr. Cranquis’ Guide to Stalking Your Old Healthcare Provider (for non-nefarious use only):
- If you don’t know where your healthcare took place, ask a family member (parent, older sibling) for the name of the hospital/ER visit, and for the date your injury occurred.
- Google the hospital, and look for a contact number for their medical records department and their house-staff/physician-personnel department.
- Contact the med records dept, and go through the process of requesting all of your medical records from that facility. (Note: You will need to fill out and fax/mail back a “Records Release permission form”, and you may need to pay a copy-fee for each page of your records that they send you. However, if your personal physician requests the copies as part of your continuing medical care, you may not have to pay any fees. Just an idea!)
- When you get your records, look at the Operative Report(s) for your procedures, and bingo — you’ve got the names of the doc(s) who worked on you.
- Now, contact the house-staff/physician-personnel department. Explain your situation, and ask whether those physicians still work in that hospital.
- If the doctors still work with that facility, ask for their office contact info (email, phone, address, fax, website), then contact their office directly with your request to meet the doctors (or to at least be able to send pictures of your healthy face to them). You should be able to handle it from there.
- However, if the doctors no longer work there, ask for any possible info on where they are practicing now, at least which state/country they moved to. Then, contact that state’s/country’s medical licensing board (more Googling) and ask for the doctor’s current practice address — this is a public record, so you shouldn’t have trouble getting it. (Some licensing boards even make those records available online, which could save you some time).
I certainly hope you’re able to track the doctor(s) down! I can guarantee you that he/she/they will be thrilled to get a “follow-up” picture or thank-you note after all these years. Let me know if it all works out, ok? :)
***Pending Cranquis-Mails: 6; Ask Box: Closed***
As we near the end of a long day in the Urgent Care, the staff begin to display subconscious mannerisms which are designed to magically prevent that most-hated of occurrences: the last-minute patient. Cuz ain’t nobody want to stay late.
Here’s just a few of the Forbidden Actions before closing time in the Urgent Care (and probably in many medical facilities around the world):
- Nobody ever says the Q word. EVER. “Gee, it sure has been Quiet for the past few minutes.”
