Wednesday 26 August 2009

Dear Doctor,

Dear GP and GP's receptionist,

When you (correctly) dial 999 for an ambulance to your surgery and the crew arrives please do not refer to the female member of the crew as an ambulanceMAN she gets a bit upset by these things and also wonders at the observation powers of receptionists. It would also be a good idea if when asking the patient to go with the crew not to say "Right then, lets get you on the bus." It is demeaning to professional people and when they tell us about it it makes you look a real dick!

GrumpRN

Friday 14 August 2009

Dear America

OK America, what are you doing? In the past 3 days I have become aware of some really serious nonsense and downright lies that are being said about the NHS. First Dr. Crippen pointed out an idiot Conservative MEP -that no-one here has ever heard of - who uses lies and out of date and distorted figures to tell you rubbish and now there is this from FOX news which I picked from Ben Goldacre's site which is a blog which only ever uses researched and verifiable information and is dedicated to pointing out the truth.
Please be aware, the NHS that is being promoted in these 'news' segments bears absolutely no resemblance to the NHS that I work in and that I access as a patient. Can I point you to this, this is more like the NHS that I love and use.

Always always remember, if someone is telling you something is rubbish, always check their motives -who is paying them and who stands to benefit from the status quo.

Sunday 9 August 2009

Parents!!!

This post is not work related in any way.

Can someone please tell me when parents stop being embarrassing? I ask as I was out with my dad the other night in our club, and he decided to compare nails with a group of twenty year old girls. These girls were not regulars, he had never seen them before and they had only come through to the room we were in to escape the bingo as they wanted to talk and talking during bingo is a big no-no. So these poor girls were exposed to my dad who is in his 70's. He is very touchy-feely as it was OK when he was younger - doesn't care that you are not allowed to touch women these days without their permission. So these girls were comparing their nails and he shoves in showing off his nails and criticising the girl beside him for biting her nails. What is worse is that his nails were better than any of the girls there. One of these days he is going to get us barred but at least they took it as good fun. But as he leaned over the girl I suddenly had a thought; now she knows what is meant when they say old age is creeping up on you!

Wednesday 5 August 2009

la fenetre

Today's word is "Fenestrate" from the French 'fenetre' for window.



I first came across the idea of someone being fenestrated over 30 years ago when I read a collection of short stories by Arthur C Clarke called "Tales from the White Hart", one of the stories was about a character being thrown out of a window.

Why is fenestrate the word of today? Well, I have just seen 3 patients who had window related accidents. One bumped his head on a window, one put his hand through a window and one fell out of a window. All were fine although the one who fell out of the window did require admission for observation. Isn't it lucky that kids bounce when they fall from heights, this one certainly was.