Tornado

We're all okay. One of the tornadoes touched down just two miles from our house, killing a guy who was in his RV. Rachel didn't even know there was a tornado watch/warning in effect when that one came. The big one that destroyed part of Windsor was just 10 miles from us. Pretty crazy. Rach and the boys spent most of the afternoon down in our basement (that's where you're supposed to go when there's a tornado, I didn't learn that until yesterday). I was in clinic when all of this happened and we had to go down to the basement of the clinic with out patients for about 20 minutes or so. But did we cancel clinic? Stop working? Nope. We didn't lose power at our house or anything, so we got off pretty good. Just makes you think about how truly unprepared we really are; we have 72 hr kits, but that's about it -- no supplies of batteries, extra flashlights, supply of water... makes good sense to get some more food storage, I think I'll do that.
So I'm on call today at the hospital and we have another tornado watch, but don't be afraid. We have trained tornado spotters that go up on the roof and watch if we move to full tornado warning status. Sheesh.
Check out some photos from it here: http://www.greeleytribune.com/article/20080523/SPECIAL_MEDIA/4697714 On photo 16, I'm glad the goat was okay.

- Adam

Heads up Adam

Check out the freak weather in Colorado. Hope you guys are fine.

Life Flashes

So, Steve and I have had a few shifts together in the ER this month--tonight was another. We were sitting there talking about my hyponatremic seizure pt when all of a sudden we hear, "GSW at the door--NOW!" There was a massive rush to the main entrance of the ER, where a car was waiting with a guy in the back seat. He had a bullet entrance wound in his anterior neck. As we all approached the car to help the guy out, out of nowhere, a second car whips around the corner and screeches to a halt right behind the first car. Out jump 5 very scary-looking guys. Steve backed up to where I was already standing (just inside the entrance to the ER), and we waited for the guns to be pulled and the shots to start out. Visions of the TV series "ER" came to mind as my life flashed before my eyes--no way this was going to turn out well. Luckily, they ended up being our guy's "brothers," there for moral support.
I ended up climbing into the back seat of the car to help carry the pt out and to help get him on a stretcher. Unfortunately, the pt was offering no help (all limbs completely lax) and complained of difficulty breathing (yes, he complained of paralysis and difficulty breathing before we started helping him out). C4 and C5 Fxs. Pretty sad life left for our guy.
Unfortunately, less than 2 minutes later we had another GSW arrive by ambulance and then about 5 minutes after that another GSW arrived by car. We had already had one. My shift was over, so I left right after number 4 got there. Who knows what else came in afterwards--maybe Steve got to see some more?

One of Steve's comments caught my attention

Steve (or is it katiemama?) mentioned how a couple of interns at his hospital get written up frequently by nurses. It made me wonder what the working conditions there are like. I can't imagine that it's a positive working environment if you are going to get "written up" all the time.

And what's with getting written up anyways? Is that supposed to scare me? It's not like the useless nurse managers have any authority over me anyways. (A note about nurse managers: they are not actual working nurses. They wear business clothes, wear a long white coat, eat in the doctor's lounge, park in the doctor's lot, and do nothing in terms of patient care as far as anyone can tell.)

The vast majority of the time, the nurses treat us okay, and we treat them okay. We all have to work together. It would be tough to do that if we were writing each other up all the time. So I was wondering, do you guys have this issue in your hospitals?