U.K. Hospitals Issue Doctors' Dress Code
Okay, I love it. Stop medics from having to wear stupid penis/ leash symbols and no more "Fake nails, jewelry and watches". Excellent. Goodness only knows why medics have taken so long to take up dress considerations that the rest of the healthcare professions have done.
But this is not enough, as far as I'm concerned. My main concern, as a nurse, is why I have to carry my uniforms to and from work, in a bag that I use for pretty much everything else (inside a Sainsbury's carrier bag). And then wash in my personal-use washing machine. That does not hit 100 degrees celcius, the temp I'd want to sterilise potentially colonised pieces of clothing.
There are so many points in the journey of my uniforms that could contaminate other clothes or places in my home and the like. I have a solution, though. Why not just give us scrubs to wear (you can even colour code them for rank, if you want) and then provide us with a clean set for every shift. Then at the end of the shift, we can just dump them in a laundry bin in the staff room, so they can be industrially cleaned. Job done and one more infection pathway eliminated.
Of course, the reason this isn't in place is cost. Or at least it's the only one I could see.
Most hospitals have recently outlawed nurses coming to and going home from work in their uniforms as this was a perceived infection pathway. But stopping this doesn't seem especially effective if the nurses can then just dump their uniforms in a pile in their bedrooms and leave them there until they have enough for a load of laundry.
So hooray for common sense prevailing in medic's clothing, but can we have a little more common-sense and less penny-pinching when it comes to nurse's uniforms?
Wednesday, 19 September 2007
Real tech advances
You can keep your "iPhones" and you "Quad-Cores", people. I couldn't give a fig. These are technologies beyond the means of the man on the street. And even more, they do not solve any current question other than possibly "How I can show that I have more money than I do common sense?"
No, what we need is technology that deals with the tribulations of modern living in a useful way. And I have found just such an invention. In much the same way that James Dyson answered the question "What is the coolest fucking way I can extract dirt from my carpet?" he and his boffins turned their attention to the question "What is the coolest fucking way that I can dry my hands after going to the bathroom?"
And this is their answer.
The Dyson Airblade
Hell, even the name is cool. It impies extreme hand drying. And it holds up its side of the bargin. They have just installed them in the gents at uni and once you use one, your life will be changed for the better. You dip your hands in and just raise and lower them a couple of times and *taa daa* your hands are bone dry. No more rubbing your damp mits on you t-shirt or in your trouser pockets.
It's probably worth noting that you will be cooler for using one as I have seen people wuss out and leave the toilet with wet hands, fearing that the experience of using an Airblade would be just too intense.
No, what we need is technology that deals with the tribulations of modern living in a useful way. And I have found just such an invention. In much the same way that James Dyson answered the question "What is the coolest fucking way I can extract dirt from my carpet?" he and his boffins turned their attention to the question "What is the coolest fucking way that I can dry my hands after going to the bathroom?"
And this is their answer.
The Dyson Airblade
Hell, even the name is cool. It impies extreme hand drying. And it holds up its side of the bargin. They have just installed them in the gents at uni and once you use one, your life will be changed for the better. You dip your hands in and just raise and lower them a couple of times and *taa daa* your hands are bone dry. No more rubbing your damp mits on you t-shirt or in your trouser pockets.
It's probably worth noting that you will be cooler for using one as I have seen people wuss out and leave the toilet with wet hands, fearing that the experience of using an Airblade would be just too intense.
Saturday, 15 September 2007
Why I'm fucking off as soon as possible
Nurses 'reluctantly' accept pay
It is not reluctance, it is the fact that they accepted it. Just rolled over and took it. In an age where the average GP salary increased by 25%, where heads of NHS trusts are accepting £10,000 bonuses, nurses asking for 2.5% is considered an extravagance.
This could only happen to nurses, a body of people who are traditionally female, often mothers, generally apolitical. This is the only group that would be considered fair game for such a disgusting abuse, because they won't kick up a stink. You can bet your life that if they pulled this with the medics, they'd strike. Or with the porters, or the kitchen staff, or any of the dozens of jobs integral for a functioning health service.
But because nurses can't strike, are generally people who desire a quiet life and (most annoyingly from my point of view) people who will bitch and moan in the privacy of the staff room, but give them the chance to do something about their problems and they will do shit.
When I qualify I will start knocking heads together. I am sick of this apathy and weakness inherent in the nursing sisterhood. Failing that, I'll fuck off to the states, train as a nursing specialist and pull in $100,000 a year and never darken these shores again.
It is not reluctance, it is the fact that they accepted it. Just rolled over and took it. In an age where the average GP salary increased by 25%, where heads of NHS trusts are accepting £10,000 bonuses, nurses asking for 2.5% is considered an extravagance.
This could only happen to nurses, a body of people who are traditionally female, often mothers, generally apolitical. This is the only group that would be considered fair game for such a disgusting abuse, because they won't kick up a stink. You can bet your life that if they pulled this with the medics, they'd strike. Or with the porters, or the kitchen staff, or any of the dozens of jobs integral for a functioning health service.
But because nurses can't strike, are generally people who desire a quiet life and (most annoyingly from my point of view) people who will bitch and moan in the privacy of the staff room, but give them the chance to do something about their problems and they will do shit.
When I qualify I will start knocking heads together. I am sick of this apathy and weakness inherent in the nursing sisterhood. Failing that, I'll fuck off to the states, train as a nursing specialist and pull in $100,000 a year and never darken these shores again.
Tuesday, 11 September 2007
Sunday, 9 September 2007
Sometimes it pays to be Gutsy
So a fortnight ago I was channeling my re-invention urge, something that happens every 6 months or so, into rediscovering my love of Linux. I've been using Ubuntu for several years now and it suits me down to the ground, but I am driven by this urge to fiddle and try new things every now and then. I tried several different flavours of Linux (including Sabayon, Gentoo and Fedora) and even FreeBSD to see if anything bit. But no, after several days of fighting and things not working, I went back to Ubuntu. But not the version I left. I crossed my fingers and installed 7.10: Gutsy Gibbon. And I was pleasantly surprised that things worked. I got Envy to install my nivida driver with little fuss, Compiz-Fusion worked, Rhythmbox now handles podcasts and MTP-driven PMP's properly, Gutsy uses Pidgin rather than Gaim, has Deluge (possibly the finest 'torrent program for Linux) and Desktop Drapes (elegant wallpaper switcher) in the repo's and Open Office TNG. What was especially nice about all this is that these are all programs I use and with Feisty were ones I dl'd .debs from places like getdeb.net, but would have to keep checking for updated .debs to make sure I had the latest version. With everthing being in the repo's I don't have to worry about that anymore.But there was one last surprise for me, one that I discovered today. I've been trying various web-browsers today, trying to find something that renders pages well, handles RSS feeds (my on-and-off affair with Google Reader) and doesn't treat my physical memory as it's own personal playground. It was in this period of fiddling I discovered Gran Paradiso in the Gutsy repo's. Gran Paradiso is the release title for Firefox 3, the browser that fulfills my needs. I've gone back to Google Reader (there really isn't a better on or offline RSS feed reader I've found) and was delighted when I directed Gran Paradiso to the "acid test"; a page designed to test your browser's ability to render pages to W3C standards. It passed and I made a squeally noise of joy. I was so pleased that they had rejigged page rendering so well.
So, I know that both Gutsy and Gran Paradiso come with warnings that one shouldn't use them as operating systems and web-browsers until the actual release of the final versions, but I am enjoying my dabble with alpha releases and backing up regularly ;)
Photo from KeithMokris' photostream
Tuesday, 4 September 2007
Now this is just frightening
BBC NEWS | Northern Ireland | Doctor gives fatal insulin dose
There is so much wrong with this story, I fear for anyone in hospital right now. August is known in the trade as "The Killing Fields", as thousands of new junior doctors come onto the wards and flex their respective medical knowledge. Mostly this involves asking the senior nurses "What would you do?" and "Is this the correct protocol?" As annoying to the nursing staff as this is, it is better than what happened in the case of Dr Nuzaimin Ahmad and the unfortunate patient. Dr Ahmad claimed "[he had] not received any previous instruction in the handling of insulin," which given the state of current medical training doesn't seem entirely unbelievable. Though using a "normal" syringe to dose out insulin is just crazy. For a start, insulin isn't kept in big bottles, it is kept in tiny ampoules, not more than maybe 20 mls in each (if that). I apologise for the hypothesis I am about to put forward, because I do not know the exact facts of this case, but if for instance the patient, Walter Kenneth Johnston had been written up for 30 units of insulin (no idea what a "unit" is, other than it is a lot smaller than a milliliter), our erstwhile doctor would have had to crap open more than one vial of insulin.
That would be a warning in my mind.
But, being the industrious induhvidual he was, he soldiered on and broke a cardinal rule of dispensing medication. Especially if you've never done it before. You get someone else to check your dosage and drug. It's part of ensuring the 5 "rights" of drug administration:
1. Right patient
2. Right drug
3. Right dose
4. Right time
5. Right route
I see experienced nurses (20+ years on the wards) getting a colleague to check any injection they are giving. Including insulin. I can't believe that the junior doctor would have not thought to just wave it in front of the eyes of one of the nursing staff sat at the nurses station (it was a night shift, so there is a good chance someone was sat there) and just asked "Is this right?"
It is a terrible crime when a doctor's arrogance, or lack of self-confidence prevents them from asking for guidance from someone else, even if their only option is to get a good ribbing or a sneer from the nursing staff. I can only hope that our Dr Ahmad gets booted out of his medical career, because his failing is not something that should be considered acceptable. I think most people know that every now and then doctors get it wrong and people die, it is a fact of life. This is unfortunate but inevitable. However the error of judgment that Dr Ahmad made was not a medical one, so much as displaying a dangerous character flaw. One that could lead to further accidents, though hopefully not future deaths.
However, I know how these things go and don't expect that anything more than a slap on the wrists and a "we'll be watching you" will come from these proceedings. Especially as the relatives seem to be so good about it all.
Suffice to say, if a nurse made a similar error, they would strung up and beaten with sticks for being such a bad sort. Go figure.
There is so much wrong with this story, I fear for anyone in hospital right now. August is known in the trade as "The Killing Fields", as thousands of new junior doctors come onto the wards and flex their respective medical knowledge. Mostly this involves asking the senior nurses "What would you do?" and "Is this the correct protocol?" As annoying to the nursing staff as this is, it is better than what happened in the case of Dr Nuzaimin Ahmad and the unfortunate patient. Dr Ahmad claimed "[he had] not received any previous instruction in the handling of insulin," which given the state of current medical training doesn't seem entirely unbelievable. Though using a "normal" syringe to dose out insulin is just crazy. For a start, insulin isn't kept in big bottles, it is kept in tiny ampoules, not more than maybe 20 mls in each (if that). I apologise for the hypothesis I am about to put forward, because I do not know the exact facts of this case, but if for instance the patient, Walter Kenneth Johnston had been written up for 30 units of insulin (no idea what a "unit" is, other than it is a lot smaller than a milliliter), our erstwhile doctor would have had to crap open more than one vial of insulin.
That would be a warning in my mind.
But, being the industrious induhvidual he was, he soldiered on and broke a cardinal rule of dispensing medication. Especially if you've never done it before. You get someone else to check your dosage and drug. It's part of ensuring the 5 "rights" of drug administration:
1. Right patient
2. Right drug
3. Right dose
4. Right time
5. Right route
I see experienced nurses (20+ years on the wards) getting a colleague to check any injection they are giving. Including insulin. I can't believe that the junior doctor would have not thought to just wave it in front of the eyes of one of the nursing staff sat at the nurses station (it was a night shift, so there is a good chance someone was sat there) and just asked "Is this right?"
It is a terrible crime when a doctor's arrogance, or lack of self-confidence prevents them from asking for guidance from someone else, even if their only option is to get a good ribbing or a sneer from the nursing staff. I can only hope that our Dr Ahmad gets booted out of his medical career, because his failing is not something that should be considered acceptable. I think most people know that every now and then doctors get it wrong and people die, it is a fact of life. This is unfortunate but inevitable. However the error of judgment that Dr Ahmad made was not a medical one, so much as displaying a dangerous character flaw. One that could lead to further accidents, though hopefully not future deaths.
However, I know how these things go and don't expect that anything more than a slap on the wrists and a "we'll be watching you" will come from these proceedings. Especially as the relatives seem to be so good about it all.
Suffice to say, if a nurse made a similar error, they would strung up and beaten with sticks for being such a bad sort. Go figure.
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Sunday, 2 September 2007
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