One of those days...

Why is it that some people can just never get organized? Started the day off with a discharge. While in the room asked if she needed any prescriptions filled. Nope, got everything I need.

Five minutes after I got back to the office the nurse trots in and says, "Mrs. NotTooTogether says she needs a refill for her pain meds."

Ok, not a problem.

Ten minutes later the nurse is back, "Mrs. NotTooTogether says she also needs nausea meds."

By then, I was deep in another patient's chart and had to close out and go to her chart to print the script. Since we have the slowest system in the known universe and the most complicated software imaginable, this is a giant pain in the butt.

Ten minutes later same scenario, different med. "Go back and ask her if this is all she needs, please."

Nurse, back after asking, "She says this is the last one."

Well, ok.

Two hours later I had written seven more prescriptions for the same patient. One at a time.


The next discharge was moving along smoothly until Mr. Uncouth announced that no one in his family could come pick him up. Charmer that he is, I find that unsurprising. When he found out that the hospital was not planning to pay for a taxi to take him the 150 miles home he became even more obnoxious than usual. Normally that would be a social work problem, but he insisted on seeing me. So I went in and explained in words of two syllables that I certainly wasn't going to pay for a taxi and he could either take the offered bus ticket or find his own way home. I then went back to whatever he had interrupted only to have his nurse come in a few minutes later to tell me that as a symbol of his displeasure he had crapped in the floor and pissed on the wall prior to leaving.

Some days I wish we could flag a chart for no return, just like employers can for no rehires.

The rest of the day would have been an improvement, except that I was working with a whiny resident who couldn't find his ass with both hands and a mirror as big as the moon even if he wasn't too lazy to look. By the end of the day I was ready to do pillow therapy on him.

And I can't even say TGIF, since I'm rounding this weekend and have to go in at 4:30 so I can get everything done before they take the computers down for an upgrade. It's only supposed to take 9 hours. What do you want to bet that I'm handwriting everything on Sunday?

Hope your day was better.