April 24, 2024

A note by a nurse on a pile of charts in the ED tonight:

3 thoughts on “Don’t Steal My Charts

  1. Ooooh yeah I went after a hospitalist today who I was SURE accidentally snatched my flowsheet for this one baby. (I wasn’t mean – but I was annoyed!) He even looked in his office, and I was actually furiously looking everywhere for this and getting agitated that I couldn’t find it – as I was the only nurse in my room and I had my paperwork in perfect order before I went to lunch. So then he came out to the room and started picking up the chart books – and there was my flowsheet…under one of the books. D’oh…I felt like an idiot. One of the parents even laughed. Ooops…..

    Sometimes the docs need the charts at the most inconvenient times – like right when we’re doing up our babies for the first time that morning. But worse is if they want to wake a baby who has either just eaten or isn’t due to eat for several hours – especially if this baby is withdrawing from drugs!! The majority are really good about asking us and waiting until the baby is due for care instead of just randomly doing an exam without checking first – but it always frustrates me when they wake up one that doesn’t sleep much and then finish the exam and leave the kid there, barely swaddled. By the time I can get to the baby, he or she has spit the pacifier back out and is screaming. But the doc will be long gone! haha

    As much as I was frustrated hunting for my flowsheet today – it is nothing like when a chart goes missing in the ER!!

    Take care,
    Carrie :)

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