Wednesday, December 3, 2008

OFF TODAY AND THANK HEAVENS

 

Yesterday was exhausting....I spent all day doing orthopedics.....We had five cases, which was not bad but we also had five "add on's"  that means that sometime during the previous day, night, for the present morning people broke something.  Or got into some other dire straits...

Well, there were five of them added.   The whole operating room schedule was jammed pack and nothing could be moved.  Moving cases is very common.   In order to utilize the time, and staff some cases will be moved to another room.   We have twelve OR's, to have them empty is a loss of money  not only for the staff salary but loss of operating room time as well.

I started at 6 AM and did not get finished till 6:22 PM.   Everyone was totally wiped out.   I would have been there long but the last case got moved.   If I were a beer drinking person I would have gone home and had a beer or two......

There is not really a good way of predicting how many people you will need.   The cases are scheduled in advance but there is no accurate was of predicting the "add on's".  What is commonly done if the schedule is light is to "staff level"  They will tell the personal that tomorrows schedule is light and do not come to work, you can either take a days vacation or go without pay. 

In the meantime, 10 emergencies can be added and the skeleton crew left just has to deal with it.  This makes for an unhappy day because you do not know when you will get relieved and be able to go home.  Yesterday every one was working and no one relieved me so I just had to stay.    I have decided at 62 I am just to tired to deal with this frenetic pace much longer.......

 

3 comments:

  1. Hope you can have a restful day today!
    Jen

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  2. I have to agree that is a grueling day and with the complexity of what you all do, its stressful to keep it all going especially after that much time! too bad they can't come up with a more efficient way of managing staff (or productive way) that benefits all and doesn't stress out those there to work an over 12-hour day!

    betty

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  3. sounds to me that a beer would be good! I can't imaging doing your job, I am stressed after a 4 hour retail shift.

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