Scut

12 Lead Ekg Readout

The ER was boring. It was busy but boring.

We (my classmate and I) come in as the nurses were giving report. We stand about 2 feet back and listen (like we should). At the end of report, the nurses start arguing in front of us about who "gets stuck with us." They even joked about putting us with the aide.
One nurse volunteers to take both of us and this spares one of us from being stuck in Triage all day. (Triage means vital signs, no procedures... all day)
The bad part about that is there were only so many procedures to go around, so all in all I did one IV and one I &O Cath(A urine cath designed to get urine for testing, In and out...doesn't stay in) and that was it. Basically we were stuck "setting patients up" in rooms for the rest of the day. We hooked up monitors, changed patients into gowns, and emptied urinals. Scut work.
We made it clear to the nurses that we were about to graduate and was given permission to do anything but they still treated us like aides.
I can say one good thing though, I learned how to do a 12 lead EKG. I did about 4 of them yesterday.

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Update on 3/1/2006:
Ironically enough, this week my classmates who rotated in the ER today had a fantastic experience. They shadowed 1 to 1 nurse and had ample learning experiences including receiving a Med Flight in from the helicopter, an MI who was rushed to the cath lab and a woman going into anaphylatic shock in the waiting room.
So I guess we just went on a boring day.