A word to the docs

Look. I know that we have people in the waiting room who have been waiting six hours to be seen. I know most of them are sick, and may in fact get admitted.

But the ambulances have not stopped. All of our beds are full, and many of our patients are admitted, but don't have beds upstairs yet.

We're working short. Each nurse has 9 to 12 beds in their area. That's 9 to 12 sick patients who all need attention, and multiple meds, and blood draws, and assessments, and vital signs, and extensive charting (not to mention pillows and ice and water and a sandwich and a bedpan and clean sheets after vomiting all over theirs and relatives who ask over and over "When is a doc going to see my mom/dad/sister/babymomma?").

I understand that you guys are working hard too. I understand that you don't like it when people come to the doctors' station and bitch at you about the wait and all the above-mentioned stuff. But you need to understand that you get a fraction of the bitching that the nurses do; we're first in the line of fire and we're the most visible.

I also understand that you're under fire from the administration about patients sitting in the waiting room a long time before being seen, but telling the charge nurse to "double up beds in all the rooms that have admitted patients in them" in order to bring more people back is NOT the way to handle this.

You see, once you've admitted a patient, your job is done. But that patient has no bed to go to upstairs yet, and now I'm responsible not only for all the new people who are coming in, but for an admitted patient--who comes with a whole NEW set of charting and med orders and blood draws and vital signs and a doc who isn't even readily available in the ED if something goes wrong--not to mention a set of angry relatives who are pissed off that their loved one isn't being rushed immediately upstairs to a private room with a hot meal and a TV that works.

I know we need to see more patients. But doubling up the rooms is not the way to handle it.