Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Simple rules.

1. If you have to jack with it, it's wrong.

This goes for everything from IV tubing to new shoes to long-standing romantic relationships. If you have to jack with the tube-feeding tubing to get it to go into the IV port, you've got it wrong. If you have to walk like a kangaroo in Earth Shoes in your new shoes, return them. If you have to jack with your responses in a long-time relationship, it's time to rethink.

2. If in doubt, give oxygen.

Again, this goes for everything from nonresponsive patients to relationships. Space is a good thing.

3. Sternal rubs cause bruising out of proportion to their usefulness.

This does not mean you should necessarily stop using them. After all, bringing one patient back from the brink of grokdom is worth a few bruises, right? Right. The trick is knowing when, by looking at your patient's sternum, one more mofoing sternal rub is not going to do the trick.

4. Always set two alarms in case of power failure.

That one's self-explanatory.

5. Less than a quarter-tank of gas is just asking for trouble.

Even when gas is $3.40 a gallon.

6. If you love, love, love a place, you should either buy it (if it's a condo or a house) or move there (if it's a city) without thinking too hard about the alternatives.

Another alternative may be better to the logical thinker, but will it make you happier? I think not. (Joey, listen up.)

7. Pate de fois gras always tastes better when you have several months of anticipation invested in it.

I'm going travelling in July, yes I am.

8. Cocaine and methamphetamine are the only scary drugs.

9. When you're eating faux-Mexican, just go 'head and get a to-go box right at the start.

That way, when the waitstaff brings you a four-part symphony in pseudo-burrito, you can put it away rather than munching on it all evening.

10. Support hose, no matter how good they feel at 0900, will always twist in some heretofore-unimagined way and cut off your circulation during a code.

You have been warned.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good advice. Thanks a bunch.

Rachel said...

Those are excellent rules. I plan to follow them religiously.

Janet said...

I gave up support hose years ago. With me it was always the drawstring scrubpants that came undone during a code.

Anonymous said...

11) When you break a glass, wear shoes in the house for the next day. Even if you picked up all the pieces and damp-mopped.

Maybe this is a corollary of (1). I don't know.

Dr XX said...

"If you have to jack with your responses" .. what do you mean by jack here? hehe.. I love reading your blog..even thouhg i never comment. Keep it up.

shrimplate said...

Maybe I would add No-Doz to your little list of bad drugs. Meth is mother's milk compared to that stuff.

But definately worth that A+ I got on my paper "Root Position and First Inversion Fundamental Chord Harmonies in the Polyphony of Palestrina," back in college, completed at 0700 the day it was due, my brain burning in a No-Doz and ramen-noodle-fueled inferno.

I still suffer from flashbacks.

Anonymous said...

This is great! Thanks for posting it!

Anonymous said...

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Anonymous said...

rule 10a: No matter how good you get at being ladylike in a scrub dress and thigh-highs, always beware the stethoscope-as-hem-hook as you rise from a crouch during that trauma.