Last week was brutal. For some reason, the day shift medicine team consisting of one Intensivist in charge and something like 2 to 8 interns & residents (baby docs, as I call them) did NOT make a very good “plan of care” to guide our decision making. And so midnight rounds was like the blind leading the blind, except most of the blind had left the hospital and there were no instructions for the other blind— and so the baby docs just stood there like frightened drunk toddlers while I (the charge nurse who had no time for coddling) barraged them with questions. Is the patient negative? Would you like them to be? Are they NPO because you plan to extubate tomorrow? On 80% Fi02??? Well, maybe we should at least give some LASIX and improve their chances? At first, the night time intensivist tried to defend them, he being another doctor and all— but by the end of rounds, he was furrowing his brow and calling for LASIX too. So, when I couldn’t sleep later that day (the same day, for those of you following night shift calendars and my run-on sentences are home), I made a meme…
And by my third night in a row, this little meme was pinned on every nurse and taped sarcastically to every WOW. Point made? Not at all… the baby docs are oblivious to this. But we found it funny.