How many people does it take to run an emerg department?
Today, it felt like too many.
It was a busy shift. Staff wise. Patient wise. Not so much. There were always patients to be seen. There was a short (less than an hour) wait. But there wasn't a long, long line up.
If you had stumbled into our Emerg department today and did a head count of staff you would have found:
2 staff physicians
2 house staff
6 nurses
3 nursing students
1 ward clerk
1 unit aid
2 registration clerks
1 senior resident (admitting a patient)
1 junior resident (admitting a patient)
1-3 specialist residents (Ortho, Opthamology and Psych)
1 mental health crisis worker
Maybe, just maybe, we had some patients floating around. But with that many people, it's hard to know. But i guarantee you, at any given moment, there were more staff than patients.
Today, it felt like too many.
It was a busy shift. Staff wise. Patient wise. Not so much. There were always patients to be seen. There was a short (less than an hour) wait. But there wasn't a long, long line up.
If you had stumbled into our Emerg department today and did a head count of staff you would have found:
2 staff physicians
2 house staff
6 nurses
3 nursing students
1 ward clerk
1 unit aid
2 registration clerks
1 senior resident (admitting a patient)
1 junior resident (admitting a patient)
1-3 specialist residents (Ortho, Opthamology and Psych)
1 mental health crisis worker
Maybe, just maybe, we had some patients floating around. But with that many people, it's hard to know. But i guarantee you, at any given moment, there were more staff than patients.
Labels: Chaos
2 Comments:
Those are the days when I'm in charge and the noise level makes me want to rip out my hair and have a screaming spaz that would rival a two-year-old's temper tantrum!
At our hospital you can add a "scribe" (they do charting for the doctor) for each doctor to the mix. It gets to be a dull roar.
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