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Sometimes hospitals just make me mad
So.... yesterday at work we had to call an ambulance. One of my coworkers managed to cut 2 of her fingers down to the bone. We prepped her the best we could before the ambulance got there and then sent her on her way. We all knew that she had to have severed tendons.
Once she got a little fixed up at the hospital they said they were going to transfer her to another hospital about 1.5 hours away for the orthopedic surgery. She took another ambulance ride to that hospital yesterday evening where they proceded to send her home......are you freakin kidding me? I'm not a doctor, but it seems to me that the quicker they sew her together, the better recovery she'll have. They told her they'll do her surgery on Tuesday. So.......you going to wait a whole week? I'm sorry that Thanksgiving is almost here, but do your damn job! By the time you do the surgery her flesh will be half healed just in time for you to cut her open again! I can't believe that shyt.
Some of the higher ups here at work are aware of the situation and I'm really hoping they're trying to help her get in somewhere sooner. She has no family here, she's originally from Nepal so she has a bf and some friends, but that's it. I feel bad.
Re: Sometimes hospitals just make me mad
I wonder how blase you would be if it wasn't the OPs coworker but your wittle stinkywinky that they had sent home like that. I really doubt that you'd shrug your shoulders and wait til Tuesday.
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For one, she's all assumptions. Most people think they've cut to the bone and really haven't. It's the tendons they're seeing. Secondly, I seriously doubt a surgeon would put off a serious injury till Tuesday. So yes, if my son hurt himself and they tell me it's ok to deal with till surgery in a couple days, that's fine.
Unless you know the OP personally, you don't know if she's assuming the condition of the fingers. How do you know she doesn't have medical background of some sort?
See, you're assuming she doesn't know what she's talking about... just like you're accusing her of assuming the worst about the situation.
Currently Reading: Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes
Okay, so let's say she did cut down to the tendon. Do you think it's wise to leave that shiit open all weekend or get it taken care of asap?
Alexis, are there any 24-hr emergency clinics in her area that she could go to?
Well we've all been told that it's ok to wait to reattach tendons up to a month (which I still think is a terrible idea). So the plan is for her to return to the doctor on Monday with surgery scheduled for Tuesday.
I am hoping they at least stitched her up before they sent her home, but I really have no idea. I just think it's crazy to let her heal for a week and then have to debride all of the scar tissue when they do the surgery.
Lurker here....but I agree. I am an RN and we do not just discharge patients instead of doing surgery because a holiday is near. That is ridiculous. There may be a lot of swelling or the risk of infection is probably too high to do surgery now. Surgically repairing and closing a wound that might be infected is a really bad idea and will probably lead to a second surgery. Remember, the surgeon went to medical school and probably did 3-4 years of residency as training. A little respect for medical professionals would be nice, especially since a lot of us work on holidays.
ETA: some doctors do suck, but do some research or get a second opinion before making blanket statements.
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Thank you
Agreed.
So I'm guessing the three of you just blindly accept whatever a doctor tells you, huh? You don't ever second guess people with medical degrees? And you always get SUPER offended whenever someone vents about a recent happening that you don't think they should be upset about.
Very nice. I appreciate your concern over my coworkers fingers and any possible loss of dexterity she may experience. I will be sure to pass on your well wishes.
That really sucks for your co-worker. I would be a little leery of going home with my hand all messed up like that? If you don't mind me asking, what happened? Did she slip with a scapel or...? I am really sorry she has to deal with that over the long weekend. Please tell me they gave her some antibiotics & pain medicine?
I would get a second opinion from an emergency clinic somewhere in the area if I were her. Someone has got to be available to take care of the issue ASAP somewhere.
It would upset me to have my hand open to infection for the next 4 days. Even if I could "only see tendons" that is still pretty jacked.
I only wanted to make point and I wasn't offended earlier, but I am now. It sounds like you don't know much about what Registered Nurses do, among other healthcare professionals. What you said was very crappy. I am independently licensed and do not blindly accept whatever a doctor tells me. If a physician makes a treatment decision that I do not agree with, I make sure I advocate for my patient and question it. However, in this case, the treatment does not sound inappropriate at all. And by the way, it is no picnic for me at work--it can be very dangerous. I am exposed to hazardous waste, chemicals like chemotherapy, radiation, workplace violence, and infectious diseases on a regular basis and earlier this week my unit was on lock-down due to homicidal threats from a patient's SO. Oh yeah and yesterday I got one fifteen minute break (no lunch) and was only able to run to the bathroom once in a 9 hour shift.
It doesn't sound like you wrote this post to get sympathy for your friend, but to instead *** about her treatment even though it was perfectly appropriate. There is a general lack of respect for healthcare professionals in the this country and posts like this one don't help that. So again, some respect would be nice.
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She was putting a new blade on her microtome and the blades are ridiculously sharp. We use them to cut tissue sections at 4 micrometers thick. She must have made some dumb mistake to do what she did, but it can't be undone, so whatever. The only bright side is that the cut is super smooth and not jagged at all.
They gave her pain medication and a support for her hand and sent her home. Since getting new info this afternoon, we're not sure if they stitched the cuts or not. I didn't hear anything about antibiotics, but that's not to say she doesn't have them.
I'm glad our boss was at the first hospital with her. They were going to let an EMT in training clean her wound without giving her more pain medication (when she already said she was feeling pain again since the first dose). But our boss put a stop to that so she wouldn't have to suffer any more. She's very concerned about losing the use of her fingers, but the doctors reassured her that they were repairable (even though she didn't even get to talk to a surgeon).
I have loads of respect for medical professionals. I completely understand what you do as an RN and what doctors and all the other staff does on a daily basis. I've run across a lot of doctors who don't do what they say they're going to and who don't seem to care as much as they should about their patients' health. In these cases I don't sit by and let them do what they want, I speak up (as you said you do as a nurse).
The post isn't about me being upset with all medical professionals. It is about me thinking this particular hospital didn't treat my coworker accordingly (and I will not be convinced otherwise, this is my prerogative). As a nurse, had you severed 2 tendons at work would you go home and wait a week for a surgery to fix your hand so you could eventually return to work at the same level you left? Would you enjoy being left in limbo for a week wondering if the surgery would be a success or a failure? There are surgeons on call for this exact purpose, or at minimum, ones that could perform the surgery the following day. Without more explanation, I will continue to be annoyed at the situation while still hoping for a steady hand for my coworker's surgeon on Tuesday.
I agree with Kathy. I work in the medical field and I believe that doctors know what they are doing. if I do not agree with what the doctor says I get a second opinion.
For a patient to have surgery there is a lot of different things that you need to consider infection, use of affected part after it heals etc. I believe the doctor has thought through all this and made a medica decision on how to treat your friend.
All that aside I hope your friend heals from her surgery quickly and she has a good Thanksgiving weekend.
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Exactly, and if she needed emergent surgery, one of those on-call surgeons would be performing it. The fact that they are not likely means that it is not emergent. I am a physician; however, I am not an orthopedic surgeon. Might it be possible that, while unfortunate and painful, your coworker's injury was not emergent, and so is being scheduled as non-emergent surgery? Might all those medical personnel who are spending the holidays working rather than enjoying time with their families be taking care of emergent, life-or-death cases? Some months ago, I had a patient who severed tendons in an accident. The orthopod's recommendation was for surgery within a week. The wound was not closed in the meantime. Without knowing the details of your coworker's injury, her medical history, etc. (which neither I, nor probably you, know), it's unfair to judge the surgeon's treatment plan.
If I had severed my tendons, would I *enjoy* waiting several days for surgery? No, of course not. If I was dissatisfied with a medical opinion I'd received, I would get a second opinion; doctors are human beings who can make mistakes, too. But just because an opinion is frustrating, however, doesn't mean it's wrong.
Good lord. No, I don't. I'm not an idiot. I'm the child of a medical family and hold a rather high degree myself. I understand how to think critically.
But, I also understand that if the situation were emergent, your coworker would have gotten surgery immediately. I trust doctors to make a judgment call because that's their job. If I'm unhappy with their call, then I get a second opinion. You're spouting off that it's about the holidays and how no one is doing their job - this just makes you look ill-informed and rash.
I get that you're upset. You can follow up with your coworker and make sure that all the answers make sense to both of you. If it doesn't - go figure it out. But stop ranting irrational thoughts. Seriously.
Oh, and by irrational thoughts - I mean the second paragraph of your quoted post. To say that I think that means that you are stressed out and not thinking clearly. Just calm down and go rationally figure out the situation.
Those of you in the medical field who don't use proper spelling or follow basic grammatical rules cause me to doubt your qualifications to pass judgment. It makes you appear somewhat uneducated.
That said, I don't see the point of someone sharing what's sh!tty about their job/work environment within the medical field. I could share what's sh!tty about mine and it would mean just as much (I sort of fall in the grey area where I'm not a healthcare professional, since I suppose mental health doesn't count as health).
Alexis, I hope that your coworker's surgery goes smoothly and that she heals quickly.
I work in an outpatient OT clinic; we see post-surgical hand patients all.the.time. A lag time of 5-9 days is pretty standard for most ortho surgeries. Physician preference, letting inflamation go down, decreasing chance of infection (as she should be on antibiotics currently), etc, etc, etc. It's not uncommon at all. Is it the best practice? Who knows. I'm not an MD, just a lowly allied health professional. But having a tendon repair is not something that's typically done the same day as the injury, at least in hands. It might be frustrating and scary, but it's SOP for the s/p patients we get.
Thank you for sharing that with me. It's good to know that's the standard somewhere. And I appreciate you letting me know without judging my reaction to the situation.
There sure are a lot of fukking martyrs in this post.
Get a grip, people. She never said that nurses don't work hard or don't deserve all the breaks they take. She questioned a decision made by a doctor. There is nothing wrong with that. In fact, it is generally considered to be a good thing to ask questions. It allows us to protect ourselves by learning more about the situation.
You threw a lot of judgment at entire institution that you are now admitting you didn't know too much about. Get over yourself.
I believe it was she who implied that they weren't going to do the surgery because the holiday was near... "So.......you going to wait a whole week? I'm sorry that Thanksgiving is almost here, but do your damn job! "