Bienvenidos!

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What time is it? Tooth hurty!

In a little over an hour, I will be half way through my week of nights. I thought that would make me feel better, but it doesn't really. It just means I have just as long as I've already done to do all over again. I think I'll feel better when this shift is over and I only have three left. It's still three more than I'd like, but it's better than still having seven.

They're pretty much what I expected. Random little jobs all over the place and the odd sick patient. I spent two hours with one yesterday from half six til half eight. Was a bit annoyed that the nurses hadn't called anyone. They'd written in the notes at 2:00am 'on call Doc informed'. I don't know which Doc they told but it certainly wasn't me. Also annoyed by an innapropriate call today. In this hospital they use a so-called 'early warning system' where the nurses document observations like pulse, blood pressure, temp, resp rate, and different values have different points attached. If the points total gets to a certain level (>4 or increase by 2) they have to tell the doctors. Well, at 20:45 they'd documented the MEWS score as being 6 but not informed anyone, then done them again about 2 hours later and still put them at six, but when I went to see the patient they'd assigned the scores completely wrong, the patient was actually only scoring 2 and was completely fine. I know that won't make a lot of sense to most people and doesn't really matter to most people anyway, but it really bugs me when people can't be bothered to just add up a few numbers properly. Then I was asked to do a neurological exam on someone who was talking in her sleep.

I think I'm being unfairly grumpy tonight. I didn't sleep too well today because the phone kept ringing and I had toothache. Still do have toothache. It's my wisdom tooth and it's really bugging me. I've been popping paracetamol and ibuprofen but it's not really going away. My dental student friend Stef told me it was probably pericoronitis but I haven't had it checked out at the dentist because it usually goes away after a few days, plus I'm not registered with a dentist here and I don't have the time to go and wait at the dental hospital. If it's still hurting on Friday I might go after I get out of work.

Right, I should go and concentrate on my chilli, make the most of my break.

2:11 a.m. - 2008-09-23

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