Saturday, December 13, 2008

Who HelpedThe Medicine Nurse?


One nurse had help getting the medications for the patients in her care from a questionable source.

Now days the unit dose method of each patient's medication being packaged then put in a labeled drawer in a med cart by the pharmacy staff presents it's own set of myrid problems for the "Medication Nurse".
One nurse carries the keys and is responsible to see that everyone gets all that are ordered and any unexpectedly needed.

.Some meds are ordered to be given once a day(qd),twice a day(bid),three tines a day(tid),four times a day(qid),at bedtime(hs),before meals(ac),after meals(pc),some with specified hours between(q--h) and some when needed with hours specified between doses and for what purposes(prn q-h for--)Keeping up with this for 30 or 60 patients and the assigned staff member,recording and reordering those used is a daunting task.

In "the old days"( and in some Nursing Homes today,) the Medication room was stocked with commonly used medicines and a bottle of each one of the patient's medicines from which the doses were obtained and administered.
It often took hours to prepare and give just those scheduled for a particular time.

One nurse who was especially sensitive and highly professional in this role had a bit of unexpected help.Was it her psychic abilities or a friendly spirit ?Who knows.

Sometimes on a very busy day during a hectic shift on this State Hospital Admission Unit which housed at least 60 patients,MJ would be in a frenzy because she could not find a certain medication.Just then, the bottle would slide out to the front.It was not any one patient's, neither was it every time; it happened only when she needed it most

She helped me several times when I was at wits end giving the meds,so I know it was true.

Where do you think this came from? Did MJ have psychic powers to locate and move the bottles out or was it a friendly nudge from a spirit..perhaps one who had been there,done that and knew how difficult the job was?

1 comment:

Pam said...

Very interesting! My son ended up having a very interesting experience at school today. Saw something in a bathroom.