Reply #210: Oh yeah. I work nights -- 7p to 7a

[Heddi]

and I work on a critical care unit, so we take vitals MINIMUM every 4 hours around the clock. That means Midnight and 4am. I HATE waking people up for vitals. I mean, it's one thing if someone is critcally ill enough or whatever to warrant the 4am vital, but as a routine, I think it's bullshit.

And it would be one thing if that were the only thing they were being woken up for--no, they get respiratory treatments and blood draws and the dreaded middle of the night weight (which I refuse to allow to be done to my patients. You take it at midnight or 6am, not at 2:45. That's bullshit). Then most of them (at my hospital) are in double rooms so if they're not being waken up for their own stuff, they're getting woken up for their neighbor's shit as well.

Then they have to deal with the shit they do during the daytime---breakfast, baths, vitals, PT, OT, Dr's visit, Social Work, Lunch, Meds, Vitals, Family, Bath, Dinner, PT, OT, SOcial work, Xrays, blood draws, Respiratory treatemnt, the nurse coming in and asking you why you're *gasp* sleeping during the daytime.

I tell my patients flat out that whoever came up with the notion of hospitals being places of rest and relaxation has NEVER been at a hospital. The US model of hospital-based health care is so far away from rest and relaxation it's not even funny. It's fucking pathetic and I apologize profusely to patients when I have to do bullshit middle-of-the-night procedures that are unnecessary to their wellbeing. I think that more than 2 hours of uninterrupted SLEEP is much more important than a routine vital sign on a stable patient who's going to be discharged later that day.