Saturday Fun at the Hospital

I worked at the hospital this past Saturday.

1. The fax system went down for a "4 hour outage" (that turned into a whopping 10 hours). While this may not seem like a big deal, that is our main form of communication. A physician writes an order which is faxed to pharmacy to verify correct doses, etc., and then the medication is sent to the patient. No fax = Kristen running around the hospital for orders = longer time for orders to be verified = mad nurses = lots of lovely phone calls wondering where meds are.

2. During this fiasco, I got an order for maggots. Yes, MAGGOTS... fly larvae. In this modern day of medicine, maggots are still used for wound care. Who knew?!?! Definitely not me - I was thinking it was an awful joke! Oh, and I got an e-mail today about re-ordering the maggots (since pharmacy handles these little critters) - I need to make sure I order the correct wound gauze to go with it since the one that the hospital has previously allowed maggots to get out onto the bed...

Wish me well in my maggot endeavours tomorrow! With Christmas coming up, we're shorthanded, so I'll be covering the position for my maggot patient. We may have to order extra to make it through the holidays. At least I don't have to deliver them or put them on the patient... that's got to be a job.