Productivity.

Productivity is such an ugly word.

Productivity is defined, by Merriam Webster, as the quality or state of being productive, or the rate per unit area or the unit volume at which consumables is made by producers.

To the OR bosses it means the units of hours worked per case volume.

If the case volume isn’t there, there should be less people working.

I understand this. If there are 6 cases in a 8 room OR department then the staffing needs would be minimal.

Unless they are all starting at the same time, such as first case starts.

But then what do the staff do in the rest of their 8/10/12 hours?

Do you send them home?

And hope they have PTO to cover the shortfall.

This is what the department does.

Often, there are people wanting to go home.

So day shift lets them.

But what if the people you are sending home are scheduled to work into the evening shift?

Do you strip the evening shift of the option of running more than 1 room at a time?

And what if the evening suddenly gets busier, as been known to happen, a lot?

And the evening shift could have used the extra room to great advantage.

Or does the day shift doom the evening shift into working WAY past their go home time?

Sometimes.

Would it not be more useful to cut people at the beginning of the shift?

To move their start time by a couple of hours, and have them come in at 1030.

I have posited this and the response is “What if there is an add on in the morning?”

My answer is “What if there is an add on after you’ve let my other 2 evening nurses and techs go home?”

Exactly.

Nearly done with vacation.

Still do not idle well.

I have reached great heights in my game.

I am enjoying it very much.

I was not very productive this week though.

But sometimes you have to give yourself a mental break.

Especially after this year.

The main thing got done, which is the “inspection” of the house.

And all the reading!

Must do this again sometime.

Tomorrow, I start call at 1900.

And if history is accurate.

I will be called in sometime after that.

I certainly am boring myself.

The outside of the house inspection was today.

I made it as cleaned up as I could.

And I put out my giant, bright pink “Hero Nurse Lives Here.”

Not for all day.

I’m not crazy.

Just from 0900-1700.

And then I brought it in.

This week has not be a bang up go on the tentative plans I had for the week.

I am doing something every day.

And then a great deal of reading.

I love to read.

I am also looking at the news A LOT.

No, I don’t know why.

My shared governance council meeting cancelled today.

So I read.

No, I do not idle well.

Why do you ask?

This evening I will continue to wade through all the given to me books, culling out the ones I do want to read.

I will continue to work on that.

I will also continue to work on the garage, maybe.

I don’t know.

I may just read.

Today at shared governance there was a strongly worded warning about social media.

The warning was be careful what you share on social media.

Do not bash the hospital.

Do not break HIPAA laws.

This reminded me that I need to share what I do periodically.

I am well aware of HIPAA.

When I speak about patients, or coworkers, things are changed to make them less identifiable.

I do use names.

I may not speak about people in he/her pronouns.

I try to use they.

I may not be accurate with diagnoses.

I may not accurate with surgeries.

This is all to protect myself and the HIPAA laws.

I feel that my stories are conveyed in a way that makes them relatable.

That the reader will nod their head in recognition.

There was a meme that I shared yesterday about Dick.

Dick doesn’t clean up his room after surgeries.

Dick doesn’t stock his room.

Don’t be a Dick.

Trust me, in the OR you know who the Dicks are.

This was a way to spotlight the issue without naming names.

I don’t even name myself.

I did the impossible for me today.

At my husband’s request.

There was a staff meeting in the morning.

He told me I was on vacation and I should not zoom in for the call.

So I didn’t.

And it was HARD.

Today I prettied up the front of the house for the “inspection”.

(insert eye roll here)

All day.

I mowed our lawn and the side lawn of the next door neighbor.

I put out 16 bags of mulch.

I couldn’t find the blower I JUST used this past weekend.

This means I put it somewhere safe.

It will turn up.

It just means that I had to manually sweep the porch and the stairs and the grass clippings I got on the driveway. And the neighbor’s driveway as well.

Tomorrow the only thing I have to do to “pretty” up the front is to clean the mailbox.

I will do that before my morning meeting.

This is shared governance and I will not be missing.

Not with nurses week next month.

Still not idling too well.

Chores for the day include the front and side yards.

I also picked up medication at Walgreens, or I tried to.

My husband’s insurance will only pay for 90 supply.

Walgreens doesn’t do that.

I have been going back and forth to Walgreens all weekend long.

Today, I transferred the script to CVS, which does 90 day.

Yay.

Tomorrow I will do the 3 hour SG meeting. I haven’t decided if I am going to be going to the hospital for it.

I will wash the mailbox.

I will do something else off my list.

Who knows what it will be.

Day 3 of my vacation has gone swimmingly.

Days 1 and 2 I participated in a Sherlock convention.

I also did all of my bedroom declutter.

Including 1/3 of my clothes.

Today, I weeded all the weeds in the front yard.

In preparation for the INSPECTION by the HOA.

Ugh.

Tomorrow I put out mulch.

And paint a bit around the garage where it was exposed after the new garage door was installed.

I will begin to declutter and thin the books in the library.

I have entire 6 shelf bookcase that are books that people have given me.

I do not envision myself reading ANY of these.

To the Habitat for Humanity they go.

Tomorrow I will also do my tall dresser.

None of these clothes have been looked at in a year.

But some of the clothes are my meeting clothes and I have to go through them.

Why, yes, I am bored.

Normal people would be doing fun things.

I have been reading.

Other than that I do not idle well.

I’m on vacation.

Me, nodding my head, looking around.

My to do list has gotten off to a good start.

I have re-potted some plants.

I have done six loads of laundry.

I have boxed up the winter clothes.

I have mostly done our bedroom.

Sorting the clothes, moving the books, cleaning the catch all drawer on my side of the bed.

Tomorrow I will be finishing the guest bathroom.

And taking a crack at our bathroom.

And garage for a couple of hours.

And putting out all the mulch I bought last week.

Must not get bored.

Am I a workaholic and boring myself?

You betcha.

I am on vacation.

I’ll say it again to convince myself.

I am on vacation.

For a week.

I have grand plans.

I am going to be dealing with my I am missing out crap that I did have time to do during this last week.

I have a master list.

I have no schedule.

I will be picking off the master list and working on that particular item.

Right this moment I am listening to a fandom break-out room.

About writing.

And imposter syndrome.

So that is first.

Next will be the guest bedroom.

#221bcon

The cookie for April 8, 2021 is key lime cookie.

The citrus month is continuing.

This is a sugar cookie, not using the toll house recipe as a base.

Instead of vanilla, there is a whopping amount of key lime juice.

For added zing I added white chocolate chips.

They baked up pale, to be expected, with an excellent crisp to their bite.

This is not my story.

It was told to me about another hospital, and another surgeon, by a CRNA.

A patient was going to be having surgery on a central body part. After the consent was signed the surgeon added another body part. This body part, well, there is more than 1.

It doesn’t matter what body part.

It matters that the surgeon mark the correct body part.

Because mistakes happen.

And marking the correct body part is a way to not make a mistake.

Because we make the surgeons mark a body part when there are more than 1 for reasons.

To recap, there is a surgery. Surgeon wants to add on a smaller biopsy on a body part that is not singular. Surgeon needs to mark the correct side.

CRNA tells the surgeon that they cannot bring the patient back because the non singular body part is not marked.

The surgeon suggests they bring the patient back anyway.

The CRNA refuses.

The surgeon puffs himself up and gets to within 2 inches of the CRNA’s face, screaming that he’s not going to mark the *expletive deleted, use your imagination* side.

I am sure there are veins sticking out and the surgeon is red in the face, maybe sweating.

Spittle is definitely flying.

The CRNA refuses, which is the appropriate thing to do.

The surgeon continues to attack the CRNA verbally, threatening his job.

The CRNA walks away, calmly, to get the head CRNA involved.

The head CRNA tells the surgeon that he will have to mark the side.

The surgeon completely loses his shit and threatens everyone within the sound of his voice.

I am sure there is an audience now.

This exchange has been going on, in front of the patient and the entire pre-op area for 10 minutes.

The CRNA refuses.

The surgeon is irate and threatening.

The CRNA asks, again calmly, what the chief of surgery may think of this display.

The surgeon grabs the marking pen and, muttering deprecations under his breath.

The CRNA apologizes to the patient for the delay.

The CRNA explains that it is for the patient’s own safety.

The patient remarks the surgeon must be having a bad day (!).

The CRNA is relieved at this point as it is change of shift and it is best to add another CRNA to the case because the surgeon is still making threats.

The CRNA goes to the office to talk to the head CRNA and says they want to press charges against the surgeon.

I wasn’t there but I would have applauded.