Accountability; that's what management gets all chest-thumpy about. And really, at the end of the day, when I write my final, "John Dough, RN", I am acknowledging that everything I've said and done, is true and legal, to the best of my ability. Including all of those blood samples, that I sent to the lab, from yonder sick man. He is under my care, I am accountable.
So,when the powers above, want me to attach a piece of my Social Security number, and load that into a glucose monitoring device, completing a chain of evidence (so to speak), on one itty-bitty drop of blood, I rose in protest. I cried out, "This proves nothing!" Afterall, it has nothing to do with the identity of the blood, but rather, allows me to be blamed for a multitude of potential errors that are completely out of my control. What if the batteries are failing; what if the blood is turnip juice; what if yonder sick man, is about to croak, and I don't have the flippin' time, to enter all this extraneous data, into this stupid machine, because if I leave his bedside, he'll have a cardiac arrest? And management, wants to reprimand me, because I found a way to bypass the data entry, so I could get a blood sugar value, stat! Oh, the angst of it all.

Each Drop Of Blood

Like many folks, I work a week
Of forty hours duration,
I sign my name at the end of each day
As my legal obligation,
Because life and death decisions
Are within my jurisdiction,
And I practice my profession
With a passion and conviction.

But apparently my efforts
Stand short in hospital law,
Because now I must encode
Each drop of blood I draw,
With four digits of identification
From my social security card,
The instructors may glare, frown or snicker
But buddy , I’m taking it hard.

So once again, I am an advocate
To break this entire new system,
I will enter inaccurate numbers
And claim, “Boss, I’m sorry I missed ‘em”,
And I plead with the rest of my comrades
To stand by me on this accord,
To accept anymore of this bullshit
Is something we can not afford.

Fibril_late; 5/94