The gown card reads “Sometimes I feel like running away to join the circus but, really, how much different would that be?”

Dat-dat-dadadaditda
dat da dah
dat-dat-dadadaditda.

You tried it in your head and recognized it immediately, right?

So starts the screamer theme song for many circuses. Because that is what they are called- screamers. These are the marches that the circus is most well-known for. That’s something I learned today.

But this post is about another kind of circus.

The shift circus or the unit circus. It’s all the same.

This person is new and says it was better at their old place and this new place should change so that they are not uncomfortable learning new things anymore.

That person wants to go home early. Again.

That person wants to ride the clock but does not want to actually do work.

This person is riding the clock, waiting to complain that they are being sent home early.

This person has too much education and will not be going home early but will also not do any additional work. Even when asked by the charge nurse.

That person disappears after being sent home and the charge nurse thinks they have left. Only for them to pop up after several hours to inform the charge nurse that it is time for them to go home.

This surgeon is three hours late and wonders why they got bumped. Doesn’t the OR know they are very important? The charge nurse points to the policy that states the next case can begin if a surgeon is more than 1 hour late.

This surgeon wants to add on a surgery, what do you mean there are several cases ahead of me, don’t you know who I am? And they have a tee time/flight/dinner with the family to get to. And they simply cannot be late.

This policy has been changed because the laws in your state are stripping the bodily autonomy away from women. But don’t worry, it isn’t as bad as those other states.

This patient is crashing because no one did a complete history and physical on them. They are crashing because there was no lab work. If a simple CBC or H&H was done, the low blood count would have been picked up on, or the extremely high white count indicating infection somewhere would have been caught and a new total joint would NOT have been put in.

Boy, do I have bad news for myself.

Every hospital/operating room is a circus.

Sometimes in running away from one circus you go from the frying pan into the fire with the next hospital circus.