The current, no longer so new job (6 months) is one where we are essentially a prep-go-and-recover-you procedure unit, where we close at 11pm, and any patient left over, spends the night somewhere else. We don't typically cater to ICU patients, because that's what an ICU is designed for; places full of experts and equipment to support all that fancy stuff. But we do occasionally have a patient designated "like ICU" (by MD orders as "critical) and then technically, I need to be around, or Ms. LL. Currently, we are the only available "certified ICU" players in our arena. Use your imagination and you can see that this might cause some staffing problems, right?

God Knows What

At work
Time passes so quickly,
But things are a bit different now
The patients I encounter, are not so sickly,
Although occasionally, there is that ICU type
Multi-system problems that are getting sort of ripe,
And for same strange reason
Dr. X, at such-and-such facility,
Decides that just when BillyBob is drifting
This is the time for us to exercise our ability,
To fix, some god-knows-what rhythm trouble
Do it now, and on the double,
Despite the fact, that BillyBob is slipping
Towards Nirvana, he's definitely tripping,
On a low blood pressure, with no Septic restraint,
Doing his best to become
Somebody's patron saint..............

Well, that's one thing
And then here is another,
We're not really an ICU
Even if it's for your best-friends mother,
Two of us, have the designation
ICU nurses, ready and willing to jump,
Just please don't tell me
You need a frickin' Aortic Balloon pump.

Fibril_late;
3/14/12