Please don't make the person who picks up the phone have find to you from the other end of the ward. This is called the 'zombie-bleep' and you have just inadvertently disengaged my brain.ġ9. Please don't start a sentence "Just to let you know." or "Just so you know." I hear this 50 times per shift. Tell me WHY the patient has scored it (e.g. The 'MEWS / EWS / EWSS / PARS' score is a trigger for you to call me and is useless after that. If you bleep me again for this patient it better be because they have miraculously come back to life. Chances are I can do a few other jobs on my way there. If a patient has died, he/she no longer cares how long it takes me to get to the ward. This is called the 'torpedo-bleep' because of its incessant battle with my morale. If I answer my bleep and the line is engaged because you are bleeping me from that phone again, I may well explode. If you do cannulae on the ward regularly you will be my favourite nurse and I will do anything you say.ġ5. Please don't ask me to see virtually every patient on your ward. This is called the 'fart-bleep' and gets on my nerves (See also point 1).ġ3. When I answer the bleep please don't say 'Oops, sorry I had a question but not any more". You will get your way far easier by making me smile.ġ2. I've just spent 12 hours running around the hospital doing mundane tasks, talking to angry relatives, putting my finger up bums, taking blood and ordering xrays. Please be cheery on the phone and perhaps even flirt a little. Well actually I'm on call and have never met this patient who has spent 5 weeks with you.ġ1. The following is not acceptable: "Well you're the doctor, you should know". We appreciate your opinion and pertinent information. You spend twenty times as much time with each patient than we do. This is called the 'déjà-bleep' and is distinctly un-funġ0. I really hate being bleeped from the same ward from two phones and two nurses for same patient. Please check with the other nurses that you aren't asking the same question as them. This is because I am jumping on top of someone's chest trying to save their life. Once in a while I will not respond to my bleep. The following is not acceptable: "Can you come to the ward afterwards, there are a few things to do". If I'm in theatre (surgery), leave a clear message. Don't bleep me until one is being done or there in front of you.ħ. All patients with chest pain need an ECG. The following is not acceptable: "Hello doctor, please see patient in 4, 6, she has chest pain". Please mention the name, age, and working diagnosis of the patient. This is called the 'relay-bleep' and is probably not fun for you.ĥ. Chances are I need to know what the obs were without waiting for you to run over to the bed and look, then run back over to the trolley to get the notes when I ask the next question. Have the notes, obs chart and drug chart in front of you. How can there be no-one picking up the phone at your end when I ring back?! This is called the 'bleep-and-run' and is exceptionally irritating.Ĥ. If you bleep someone, please wait by the phone. I don't have the whole hospital directory of numbers memorised. Half the time you may realise you didn't even need to pick up the phone.Ģ. Please take a few seconds to breathe, think and organise your thoughts, and stop flapping about. there are a few points of etiquette that are unwritten, unspoken, but you just wish every nurse read, understood and inwardly digested:ġ. They also gave the correct dose of drugs when you accidentally wrote milligrams instead of micrograms on your first day. We all love nurses, because they do the jobs we hate, and look out for us when we are just learning. At medical school you longed for the day when you could carry one, and be a REAL doctor, didn't you?! Now you think of a few places you would like to shove the irritating, noisy, crappy bleeping thing. This group is for everyone who has been on call, on ward cover, or carrying a bleep of any kind. When you work nights over Christmas and New Years you will be the lowest paid person in the whole hospital per hour (roughly minimum wage). "If you are a junior doctor, you now belong to the only profession in the developed world where you can be REQUIRED by contract to work a basic 91 hours in a week 'on-call'. A friend showed me this Facebook Group, it made me smile:
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