Wednesday, April 1, 2009

Are You One of Those People?

http://portal.duf.hu/img/upload/200801/telephone.jpgSo I'm sitting at the nursing station, entering an assessment into the EMR, and I'm focused on my task.  (Just ask my wife - when I focus, everything else goes away.)  Apparently the telephone was ringing.  I don't really pay attention to the telephone ringing because the unit secretary answers the phones, but apparently the unit secretary was away from the desk.

I cam out of my haze of focusness to hear one of the nurses at the other end of the nursing station saying, "can someone get the phone, please?" and then, looking at me, saying "apparently only certain people can answer the phone here."

An acceptable chastisement... if she had not been standing around with two other nurses taking pictures with her cell phone at the time.

So apparently I should have stopped doing my job to answer the phone so that you could continue to get paid to stand around and do nothing?  Apparently only certain people can answer the phone... and apparently you aren't one of those people.

4 comments:

Prisca: said...

Oh man, if only our unit secs answered the phone. Instead they hang around at the front desk listening to high school musical garbage & playing their gameboys all whilst wearing those wierd seasonal alien headband things--like bunny ears for Easter, four leaf clovers, reindeer horns, etc. I'm serious. They are worthless.

Special Sauce said...

Jeez, if only I could get the nurses who sit around the station updating their facebook pages & shopping ebay to pick up the other ringing line when I've got one phone to my left ear, on hold with the medical bureau to call in a consult, and the portable phone up to my right to transfer a call to a patient's room. I'd be a happier secretary!

LivingDeadNurse said...

i would be happy to have CNA that weren't looking for recipes or checking their emails to answer the call light..because i am busy charting, answering the phone and listening to a family memember all at the same time...dag gone lazy butts

Dan said...

Unfortunately we have this problem in our ER too but we do have nurses that do think theyre too good to answer the phone and that only the unit clerks can and should do it. These are also the nurses who dump everything on the techs because they are too good to play with poop or check glucoses or temperatures. Everyone is responsible for answering phones. And seriously if you are so in tune to charting on a computer that you can't hear a phone ringing then perhaps you would be better suited for floor work. If you can't hear a phone ring will you hear a lethal alarm on the monitor? Or your patients call lights? ER nursing is all about multi tasking and being able to do 41 things at once. If you can only focus on one thing at a time by your own admission then ER nursing is not for you!