Head Nurse

We had one of those Sundays that happens only on medical dramas: nurses chugging down the hall at a dead run, stethoscopes flying, scissors ...

Ali was making coffee, the thick black cardomom-scented stuff that Kuwatis drink by the gallon, when I mentioned to Mahmoud that I was readi...

Yesterday I met two people who'd never seen a single "Star Wars" movie. Tragic. Having just seen Ep.3, I hereby present my own...

Don't, when you're standing in a group of people including nurses, nurses' aides, transport people, flight nurses, unit secretar...

Listen up : If you're in nursing school or a new-new nurse, you're going to learn a lot of really, really cool stuff and have a lot ...

The Flailing Patient had just cold-cocked me in the kidney during a fit of frustration. I was getting a bit tired of a person who lashed out...

I spent a pleasant hour yesterday chatting with a very nice woman named Janet Wells, who's doing an article on nursing blogs for Nursewe...

I can bring home the bacon and fuckin' fry it up, man. Today, before one o'clock, I had made two chicken pot pies (the real sort, wi...

1. Michael Jackson. 2. Any of the celebrities who slept in Michael Jackson's bed. 3. Ultra-super-duper long-lived mice with healthier he...

Sonic Nurse (love that title) complains that scrubs for guys suck. Most scrubs for women suck, too, but I have a solution to that little pr...

It's crunch time at the hospital. Every patient in the ICU is on a vent--no kidding--so we're getting a lot of really...er...margina...

You know it's going to be bad when one of your patients is complaining about another patient he met in the emergency room. You know it...

Why is my job not like this?

Onions (red) and mustard seed (black), a handful of each. Cumin seeds, a lesser handful. Fried in olive oil until the mustard seed starts t...

Just saw that comment on another medical blog, one written by a doctor. It got me thinking: do I practice what I write? Most of the time, th...

I got home to find three books in my mailbox and a fourth waiting for me at the office. Hooray for Amazon's used book service! Hooray fo...

IV pumps beep when there's a problem. Sometimes that problem is a kink in the line, or air in the line, or you've run out of fluid. ...

Guess it's time I addressed the "nurses eat their young" thing, as I got three--count 'em--emails on the subject yesterday...

"Sweet creeping zombie Elvis" Karen said as I walked into the bar, "Don't you own any sandals?" I had put on a black...

We occasionally use the phrase "jacked up" at work. This is somewhere between "on vulture precautions" and "train w...