I was assessing a teenager who had, a number of years ago, had all thier fingers/thumbs amputated at the knuckle. I knew this from looking at the patient notes, and also from looking at his hands and the scarring - he had no fingers.
Part way through the assessment, after taking the history, I went to take his physical observations, including his pulse. I went into autopilot, started unfolding my pulse-oximeter cable and said...
"Can I borrow a finger please"
I was mortified. The patient didn't have a sense of humour and didn't make a joke out of it to save me (Darn him! I thought later I should have said "Ah, it looks like we've already had them" but I don't think he was the laughing kind).
Instead I fumbled my way through with...
"Or, we could use a toe..." (I later read more of his notes and discovered he'd had a partial foot amputations too)
"Or I could just stop being so lazy and do a manual pulse. That's the problem with these machines, you get so used to using them that you become lazy and use them even when you don't have to"
Ramble. Ramble. Just keep on digging Angela.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
4 comments:
Oh no, how awful. I'm sorry Angela, but I had to laugh when I read it! That sounds like something I would do!
I bumped into someone I hadn't seen in a long time on a bus one day. I didn't know the person very well, but being a familiar face I sat beside her. As soon as I saw her I started laughing and said "Have you been to the dentist today?" "No, I have Bells Palsy" she said.
"Oh. Sorry."
Maybe one way of dealing with it would be to say "Do you have a shovel?" you never know, it may create a smile.
I'm so glad someone else can understand the horror of such a situation, though your story made me smile in work today. It's funny retrospectively, but oh so awful at the time!
I was talking to a charge nurse about it today, and he told me that just the other week he had been assessing a family and had said to the mother "When's it due?" only to realise she wasn't actually pregnant!
Ahhhhhhh.
Similar happened to me. Seeing an ambulance bod with his gloves tied in a knot at the back of his hands i assumed and commented on the nhs being tight fisted and only issuing extra large one size gloves. " Nah" he replied "I was born with no little fingers or thumbs"
He took it well but I felt absolutely terrible calling him out in an hour of need then making a remark like that.
Hehe! But Mitch, it's the natural assumption to make - the NHS being tight fisted - it's not like it's an unheard of concept!
Post a Comment