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A word on the bailout September 30, 2008

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So, the 700 Billion dollar bailout plan was rejected in a vote in the house of representatives yesterday (Monday). That suits me fine: the federal government should not be appropriating 700,000,000,000 dollars that it does not have with legislation it has not read using money confiscated from our paychecks. And really, when was the last time that a federal government action led to a positive result? Sure, some small agencies do good work now and then, but the truly spectacular projects usually end up as truly spectacular failures. See: FEMA, the war in Iraq, the laughably ineffective War on Drugs, medicare/medicaid, and the levees built around New Orleans after Katrina which failed during Ike. 

Now, lawmakers are trying to rewrite and pass the bailout again! This time they’ve added in some tax cuts for good measure. That’s solid money management: spending 700,000,000,000 dollars that we don’t have and simultaneously reducing revenue by cutting taxes. If you ran a business like that, well….you’d need an equally incompetent government to come bail you out, I guess.
I’m going to call my reps tomorrow and tell them that I’ll hate them forever if they vote yes.

Blood Gases: September 30, 2008

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Too angry?

A New Poster September 30, 2008

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Reader Daniel sent in a new poster:

So true, so true. I’ve seen pain-in-the-ass overdoses, out of control sociopaths, and other undesirables tubed mainly to shut them up. There’s an extremely inappropriate joke at work that maybe what these people really need is a healthy dose of 9MM therapy; but joking about killing pain-in-the-ass patients who hate us all is tasteless so I won’t do it any more will probably be doing it rather a lot.

Just the other day my orientee got screamed at by a guy in the ER who thought he knew more than she did because he “spent a lot of time in hospitals and watched us do stuff a lot,” and I wanted to punch him in the face. I settled for snarling back that maybe he should try going to college and working in the ER before he told us how to do our jobs, which probably lowered our Press-Ganey scores but which made me feel a lot better. I guess intubation would have worked for him too; then he could have watched us tube him under a diprivan haze and bitched to nobody that we were doing it all wrong. 

Anyway! Ambulance Driver has recently written a post about punitive ALS as well, which you should check out. And the other RT posters can be found under the RT Motivational Posters tab at the top of the screen. Keep ‘em coming, dear readers; I’ve enjoyed the submissions I’ve gotten so far!

Curse of the Rider September 29, 2008

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In EMS, they call it the Curse of the Rider.

Today I was assigned to our emergency department. I was also assigned the duty of orienting one of our newly hired therapists. Now, orientation can either be a good teaching experience or a living hell, depending on the orientee and the events of the day, but today was a good day. I was given an intelligent, eager, and good-humored orientee with whom I got along just fine. She was ready to go, and excited to see some action; and based on the busy weekend we’d had, I was looking forward to showing her the ropes in our busy ED.

The day came and went, but nothing happened. We got some blood gases, checked some equipment, and passed a few nebs, but nothing exciting happened. I spent about eight of twelve hours today on my ass, feet in the air, hands behind my head in a posture of total surrender. 

You and I both know that if the orientee had been clueless, or if I hadn’t had her there, the day would have been insane.

The curse of the rider, ladies and gentlemen.

Dumbest Patient Ever: September 27, 2008

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In between gasping for air using her accessory muscles, my patient told me:

“Yeah, I was havin… one of those… asthma attacks so I took… some of my abutatrol, and then I felt… better so I smoked me a few cigarettes… to unwind some.”

All I could do was stare in disbelief and try hard not to roll my eyes. She was nice, but man, she was dumb as toast.

The Elections: A Summary September 26, 2008

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A sentence about the elections that sums up my feelings: 

The whole mess is a gigantic pack of filthy lies perpetrated by power-hungry egomaniacs and the sheep in the media who adore them, and no matter who wins in the end, I think you and I are going to lose.
That is all. I’ll shut my trap until the election comes.  And instead of voting, I think on November 4 I’m going to go home and get drunk and pretend there’s a candidate who doesn’t make me want to puke.

Signs, signs: September 26, 2008

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Funny ER signs we’d like to see, over at ImpactED Nurse. 

My favorite?

“Do not let your kids punch doctors in the balls.”

You know you’re curious. Clicky click.

More Posters September 26, 2008

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Remember when I made those RT motivational posters? EMS Haiku has come up with several pages of excellent EMS motivational posters that are well worth a look. Click here, here, and here to go see, and then laugh because it’s damn funny.

Like a bug… September 24, 2008

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…it’s been going around the internet. So I may as well pitch in my results:

You are a
Social Liberal
(66% permissive)

and an…
Economic Conservative
(63% permissive)

You are best described as a:

Libertarian


Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid.com: Free Online Dating
Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

…What? September 24, 2008

Posted by keepbreathing in Doctors, asinine, respiratory therapists, respiratory therapy, stupid people.
4 comments

I was reading a patient’s H&P the other day when I came across the following gem from one of our pulmonologists, who has a history of ordering thousands of dollars of useless therapy for no reason:

“There is no clinically significant bronchodilator response, which does not preclude the use of bronchodilator therapy.“

…Huh? Somebody explain this to me. I’d love to know why “no clinically significant bronchodilator response” does not preclude the use of said bronchodilators. If they don’t work, why are we giving them? Would you give someone Morphine for a staph infection? No, you wouldn’t, because it doesn’t work. So why would you give this patient, who has a repeatable PFT result showing zero response to bronchodilators, a bronchodilator?

This is why healthcare costs so much. Seriously.