1. All together now: If you have to jack with it, it's wrong.
2. The amount of time it takes a patient to announce "I'm not a junkie!" is inversely proportional to the probability that the patient is indeed a junkie.
3. The amount of irritation a particular order, procedure, patient, or request will produce is directly proportional to the number of sleepless nights the ordering resident has had.
4. The messiness of handwriting is directly proportional to the difficulty in getting hold of the person who wrote the order.
5. The amount of feces a patient produces during a shift is inversely proportional to his level of consciousness.
6. The difficulty level of a drug calculation is directly proportional to the drug's dangerousness.
7. Benzoin never washes out.
8. Bile will always land on whatever is white.
9. The patient on several different interacting medications will always have a general practitioner who does not do blood levels of those medications.
10. Everything happens after 0400/1600.
11. The probability that a patient will survive a code is inversely proportional to the likelihood that they will be declared DNR.
12. Any attempt at efficiency will, sooner rather than later, be met with Three-Stooges-like complications.
13. The lift is never on the floor when you need it.
14. The high-risk profile for terminal illness includes a happy family, a good job helping others, and a cadre of devoted friends and relatives.
15. Elevators fail to work during codes.
Saturday, April 28, 2007
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9 comments:
Love 'em! The Laws of the Dinosaur would make a fitting companion piece.
A modification to #10 -- your patient goes south 15 minutes (or less) before the end of shift
these are great. here's one more for you- the tooth to tattoo ratio: the amount of teeth one has is inversely proportional to the number of tattoes one has.
Related to #2 - Multiply by three or four the amount of alcohol a patient admits drinking regularly.
And an addition from public health nursing - The more vehemently a patient insists he/she is taking medication, will always take medication, wants to take medication; plus the more infectious the patient; the less likely the patient will actually take the medicine.
Nice list!
azrn, you clearly do not live in the Pacific NW of the U.S. -- I think they turn you back at the border if you don't have a tattoo and/or piercing. Lot's of young folks with good teeth, much ink and holes. (Makes me wonder sometimes about tissue integrity, esp when it's multiple piercings of delicate tissue, but we're going way off topic here).
marachne, you're right, i live in the southwest where the socioeconomic status is low, medical care is at times paternalistic, and the mighty hmo rules.
actually, the tooth to tattoo ratio is something we find frequently with our liver transplant patients (usually the ones that are HCV + and have a hx of substance abuse).
I especially like #6. After a tour in the ICU I realized that the more obtunded people are -sedated, intubated and comatose- the more they poop! why is that?
brilliant
Awesome! I personally think that patients will code when either there is another person coding somewhere else in the hospital or at shift change.
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