MGS RADAR

My nursing training is coming to an end, it’s almost unrealistic to me because I can remember the first day in nursing school, the first patient I washed, my first room I got for myself, the first patient that died in my care (though, very late in my whole career), my first CPR, my first emergency suction, my first intubation assisting, my first intravenous line, my first intramuscular injection.

In the first year I knew nothing, I thought I knew something but I didn’ knew shit

In the second year, I thought I knew everything but everything was “limited” to a small ammount of patients

In the third year, I have so much knowledge and doesn’t really know how to put it into action, frankly I feel like in my first year where I didn’t knew shit!
People are telling me, after you get your R.N. title the whole training starts from the beginning, limited to a one month frame.

People outside the hospital see me as a kind of medical expert, in the Fire Department they think of me as some kind of medical hero who knows everything. How many times I have been asked “Do you know what that could be?”and the only thing I could say was a list of probable diagnoses.

I’m applying for intensive care nursing jobs, and it’s quite unusual because the general public of nurses think you have spent some time on the regular floor to earn yourself some credibility then you can transfer to intensive care.

I want to take a shortcut, some people advice me not to do it , some of my mentors say do it, what do you have to lose?

If I think of myself a few months from now on and I see myself on the regular floor with 30-40 patients, I’m a little bit afraid. I’m not sure if I can handle this “good” which means according to my standards. I have high standards to myself, but I don’t tell anybody about them because I think development and skill starts in your own mindset, deep inside yourself you should be your worst and strictest critic, but you don’t have to tell anybody about it!

If I think of myself a few months from now on and I see myself on the Intensive Care Unit or in the Anaestesiology Nursing Department which is in some aspects more demanding, I KNOW that I can handle it.

It’s a little bit crazy, around monitors, suction tubes, intubated and sedated patients on a thin line between life and dead with thoausands of infusion pumps and solutions…I feel comfortable !

A CPR-Emergency is the worst nightmare for any nurse working on the floor, if a code blue is coming in they sweat blood and they have a natural tendency to “hate” it. Even though it sounds a little bit strange and weird, during a CPR or code blue I’m in my business. I’m still a little bit shaking during CPR’s BUT in fact everytime I take an act, I feel comfortable and “like” doing it. Sometimes it’s just crap, sometimes the humanity is fucked up but I like it.

I can watch a patient’s monitor for hours. I get hypnotized by watching the curves, the ECG , the blood pressure which raises everytime I touch the patient. I can watch the pressure - meters on the breathing - apparatus for hours, adjust the monitors, listen to the patients breathing. I like calculating the fluids, I like working with medications, drawing up syringes - Nursing the numbers and having a challenge.
I’m far away from knowing everything for working on the floor, but I won’t be good at it. On the floor I’m only average because the surroundings only allow me to do “average” work. And I don’t like average work, I want to give my best and I think from all the wards and all the patients I worked with that THIS is my place at least for the next 2 years!

I really don’t care about the money, beginners salary is so fucking bad, I could get more money at McDonalds (I think , don’t know) and my plan of reducing my hours is not worth the money. At an university clinic I’d get 1966,00 € which is around 1400 - 1300€ taxated salary. Around 15000 € per year left for me. There is a plus for nightshifts , weekends and public-holiday working, but in my paying level it’s ridiculous. Nursing is nothing that will get me rich…

I don’t know how I can bring this to a boss-friendly level and sell it to them, but this is my idea!

Stephan

["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]

Carnival is not fun, it is not the best time or the fourth season of the year. It’s a big fuck for me everytime it’s coming close and passing by…There is a multicasual approach to my hate and disgust collected over the time.

I was however a member of the fun club…years ago! I was one of the dickheads squirming around a spot, partly desorientated by cheap but tough booze. Yeah try to imagine the stories of your youth by taking part of carnival, beeing drunk one, maybe two times…okay maybe three times in this short 5 day time window. Guess what, in my best times with Padde and Mamerio around, we started drinking at school at 10am during the geography class, took part of the internal event (Which SUCKED, motherfuckers from THIS SCHOOL IT SUCKED because the fucking cunts from there started to make an educational sense of this shit…) and the rest was pure foolish will to PARTY HARD.
One time I was part of the STUDENT COUNCIL (one, maybe two cool people around this council, the rest was a bunch of stupid underfucked backstabbing cunts) I took part of the organization, fucked it all up by not playing the game because I don’t want this shit on my C.V….true thing is I sabotaged the event by letting “phrase-sheets” dissapear and let the bloke from the music technique play the wrong music (Nothing too obvious) , as the fun was over I dissapeared in the shadows)

But to get back here, you think you got a hard time carnival by getting drunk 3 times in 5 days? Don’t waste my time with this shit…again with Padde and Mamerio we started at Thursday 10am Nato Time and boozed our way till 3pm. Then we met again, partly drunk to join a stupid tent-party where I puked in two glasses and scared two pals down the hall by running after them with parts of a bench. I slept at Mamerios place I think and we tried to sanitize our morning-pain with nothing as plain as beer, to start hustlin’ over a private party at Friday 8pm. Again, we wasted ourselves, but started again at 10am on Saturday. We just put some fuel on the yesterday’s flames and we were right on the game. I remember drinking a mixture of whatsoever drinks from a fuel-canister…off to a private party at the same Saturday still wasted and got trewn out because I cracked an egg over the face of some asshole trying to impress me with his non-existend gangsta skills. On Sunday, the high - fest of the week in Brempt was present, we ran out of cash but organized ourselves some shit and got wasted, rather thrown out of the tent again. On monday we were broke, but nothing stopped us from walking 6km to Dülken fueled by pure fun,evil sin  and cheap whine. Again a day without much money left and cheap booze is nothing to be fond of.

We were young and we were REALLY stupid, but we tried to push ourselves out to the maximum. We hassled some guys and girls but only the ones that deserved true punishment for theirselves.

If you compare this to the generation of young drinkers today, they are all a bunch of whining suckers, trying to outbreak their parental over-control by DRINKING alcohol…just to set a statement or whatever.

We took responsibility for our own shit. We organized the alcohol, we organized a ride but mostly we were just fucking BROKE so we had to walk to the events of the day and we dealt with the shit in our own way. Every cent I spent during that days was my own money, in case something wrent wrong we just started to pull ourselves out of the shit. Parents offered us a ride, many times we just adjourned the offer (though sometimes we were too wasted to reject, hands down…still got enough credibility!) It was a small game, but we played a small game…I admit that.

Todays youn-guns are over-archievers. They just see drinking and alcohol as a part of their “educational” process. “Trying out things!” or “Just try to set the line” Something to write into your C.V. and something you need to discuss with your mother (maybe together with his son/daughter in HER/HIS favourite club-location dressed like a whore) so it doesn’t affect your overall process…and with that they just pull more idiots down, making something highly criminal out of youth…..Come on guys!

Todays drinking kids just drink to reach a balcony…a balcony from which they can see things too far away from their parental control psychosis. And the only chance to take a look on that is an outbreak, booze yourself to near-coma or make the smal Hulk out of you….”What are you looking at?” “You looked at my girlfriend?” Just raise impulses to proove you still got testosteron in your testicles. Because your psycho-parents try to numb you from anything. How ridiculous is THIS?

We drank because we liked it. We drank because we were young and we still know how to let the cages rattle. We were honourable enough to hide our self-destruction from our parents, because we know how to cover up our issues without bothering or hurting other people around them. And nothing, I repeat…NOTHING of the hundred of stupid acts including jumping from a fairly high tree down to a carport nearly destroying the whole thing (as you may notice…drunk as shit) or destroying numerous gardens of people because we wanted to take a short cut (An early form of PARCOURS…but not as “balletic” and “graceful” ….just pure violence) is something to be really proud of. Maybe you can impress some blokes who didn’t had a life but this is it. No matter how drunk you were, no matter how many times you puked…nothing to be proud off or nothing intelectual with educational factors. Just stupid shit drinking!

Also as a nurse, I see many victims of carnival…many young-motherfuckers who try to fuck the nurses and doctors over with violence, bragging, puking, spitting, biting and whining around. We are the sweepers of the fucked up…they lost the game, Alcohol again won. But not many of the young-guns can actually accept that they LOST the game…the game is over and this is the sweeper zone of the lost. While many of their buddies have good time, they lie around on the floors , bedded in their own excrements, their parents are coming over…the game is over. But they don’t accept the lost, they try to make their point, at the wrong place and wrong time and (now comes the worst part) take up ressources like ambulances, paramedics, nurses, doctors and even housekeeping staff. Many people need these RARE ressources (today, they are RARE!) but they are taking it because they want to win in the overtime.

I mean, these problems are not new…but the number and the “way” of the problems are new. The increasing number of violent young MOTHERFUCKERS with actually no medical problems at all is a problem, at least for me. Try to fuck me over during a nightshift on carnival…just try it out!
Everybody has a right to be stupid…everybody has a right to be sweeped…everybody has the right to be dragged up by the paramedics and sobered by the nurses. But let us stay to the actual medical problem, not the numbed-violence-parental-control-scheme or anything else twisted fuckover you bother the hospitals with.

Carnival just lost its bright and coloured fun, it’s not the same anymore !

Stephan

["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]

At my best-rotation the anaestesiology-nursing department I was late the first day because of high traffic levels….and it is not good to be late the first day….two minutes which means two hours by nurses time.

I scrubbed in, went to the AN-Nurse manager and gave her my apology…already in a rush and beeing nervous in a working place (Operation Rooms) not common to me she calmed me down and said “Go to Operation Room Number One, Doctor M. and Nurse Linda (both changed) are already awaiting you!
The anestesiologist was the best attending physician in the department, I intoduced myself to him and he assessed me from head to toe…..”So, I assume by your choice of words and language that you have a unusual-high education….would you be kind telling me some biographic aspects of yours?”

I told him I did the Abitur….”You did something fundamental like…….Biology or Chemistry as main exam subjects?” and I said “Biology!”

He paused…“What was your favourite topic in Biology?” and I answered “Neuro-Physiology!”

“Guess what…it was my FAVOURITE topic also……..so tell me something about neuro transmitters…..”

I thought, that this question-answer game is some kind of chance to fraternize with the attending….the patient was ready for going into the operation room and we drove him into it on the stretcher, the patient had to be turned sideways and the OR-nurses asked me to help them because the patient was heavy…

I was not concerned about the patient, I was still nervous and trying to “impress” the attending by telling him something he already knew so I did not concentrate on what I did.

Still shaking and talking, I stepped on the other side of the table…as I noticed two small hands grabbing me from behind and pulling me aside…

The leading OR-Nurse (a real doberman…for sure!) pulled me down to her level and shouted in my face “YOU IDIOT, YOU JUST TOUCHED THE STERILE NURSES AND CONTAMINATED THE WHOLE STERILE FIELD INCLUUUDING THE INSTRUMENTS…15 MINUTES OF WORK!”

I just ran into the sterile field…while still trying to “impress” the attending…I saw a smile through is OR-mask…he paused and said:

“Well young-gun…I’ll give you three advices for your career in this department….1)Don’t think that you can raise any level of excitement from the attending physician with 20+ years experience in intensive care medicine by telling him middle-school-basic-knowledge….2)Get away from the sterile field, it is NONE of our business and 3)This was VERY funny and ohhh yes…..potassium is not a neuro transmitter, it is an electrolyte!”

He pointed to the door and I took up the invitation of leaving the crimescene;)

Afterlife of this story:

• The leading OR Nurse wasn’t that mad at all, she thought I was some paramedic doing internship…
• I worked with this particular attending physician for a long time after this event, and I enjoyed every minute…never met such a brilliant and excellent physician and TRUE MEDICAL PRACTITIONER (a rare case today!)

Stephan

["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]

Today I had the pleasure of watching my bank account grew to an ammont, which I actually never had in my past career, in Germany it’s called Weihnachtsgeld and no matter how you call it, I think it is time for some good investments!

500 GB Seagate portable HDD 

50€ for 500GB is a very good deal, despite the fact that I fell in a little love with the smaller version (with a size as big as a bigger wallet) I thought that I need something to back up my data in case of something hazardous (Police raid, summer or winter storm) and also as always IM RUNNING OUT OF MEMORY on my HDD drives. But 500GB, still enough for backing up and also for decrypt the whole drive with a 25+ password and you have a save and valuable device.

Goodyear Vector 5+ All Seasons Tires

Winter Tires, Summer Tires, two times a year you have to change them in order to withstand the elements. I don’t like changing tires a lot so I decided to add the all seasons tires to my buying cart. My philosophy behind this is simple, we don’t have much snow here and our winters are very british, not this cold and very wet so the really need for winter tires is not present FOR ME. In case we have deep snow here my opportunity is to buckle up the chains so I can go forward but I don’t see this coming with global warming in these days. Haven’t bought them yet, but I’m looking forward to this next week!

Stephan

["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]

This show is so friggin’ awesome because I never encountered something more senseless (except Duke Nukem 3D) to laugh my way through the night

Here is a very graphic episode, title unknown

Stephan

["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]

www.winhistory.de

Do you remember the installation of Windows 95?

At first you need to pull out a briefcase out of 1,44 inch discs to install your drivers for the CD-Rom or harddrive….after 3 hours of tweaking and tricking out the system, you had a working system….

Three months later, the situation was completely different…your system needed 10minutes to boot and the final solution was:

format c: (y)

If you want to have this feeling again, visit this site!

www.winhistory.de

Stephan

["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]

Here I got some blogs and youtube channels which you might consider to subscribe in order to gain more knowledge:

Knowledge:

• http://blog.makezine.com/ - MAKE Magazine - The ultimate blog for the planner and maker, sometimes very far-fetched in order how to do it yourself but for the more advanced reader it is very interesting
• http://lifehacker.com/ - Lifehacker - How to hack and tune up your life and improve yourself, cool things to withstand the daily madness
• http://the-gadgeteer.com/ - The Gadgeteer - Reviews for fancy tools and gadgets especially for the modern office guy
• http://edcreviews.blogspot.com - Everyday carry item reviews, not only for the EDC freako
• http://www.youtube.com/user/wildernessoutfitters Want to learn something about wilderness, survival, camping and shelter-building..the channel to learn something from an ex-marine
• http://www.youtube.com/user/nutnfancy NutnFancy, reviews about knives, outdoor equipment, outdoor philosophy and a lot more to learn from this guy
• http://www.youtube.com/user/csknives Cold Steel Knife Videos and teaching DVD previews.
• http://www.youtube.com/user/cutlerylover Jeff’s channel, also about knife and tool/flashlight reviews, some very good videos
• http://cobuspotgieter.com/  - Drummer Cobus from South Africa, very good drumming covers and videos
• http://www.youtube.com/user/TeamWuJin  - Sifu Luke talks about martial arts, realistic self-defense and improvising in certain situations, very good videos and very practical.
• http://www.youtube.com/user/myBondiRescuechannel - Bondi Rescue, a documentary about the Lifeguards at Bondi Beach, Australia, way better than baywatch.

  Fun & Entertainment

• http://thisisphotobomb.com/ -  Photobombing and picture hijackers, very unite failblog spinoff.
• http://thereifixedit.com - A lot about do it yourself, and how not to do it!
• http://askaurinal.com/ - Ask a Urinal - An inside view to the world of toilet graphs!

Bookmark or RSS !

Stephan

["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]

- Finally I got vacation for 4 fucking weeks

- I did NOT manage to get to Friedrichshafen coz the tourist-group was not ready to leave the west german continent

- I did exactly write TWO pages of 12 necessary in my thesis paper about how patients were washed 20-50 years ago

- I saw, that my tendency of sleeping late is my natural, so I have to search for nightshift assignments during my next years

- I’m finally and surprisingly became a tutor in my Volonteer Fire Department for Emergency Medicine and First Aid…no not for the youth firefighters for the adult firefighters

- I went to IKEA….my best investment were BOXES and lots of BOXES and packs of batteries.

- I fucked off the clutch of my car again..200€ investment for new clutch and installment

- I called Fujitsu Siemens for Support of my new Notebook. The fucking EasyLaunch Buttons (okay, I know NOBODY uses these buttons, but I have them and I want them to run!) I was 20 minutes in a computer-voice-guided conversation and after I reached a human who was not able to help me until I have my Ident-Number (WTF is an ident number, I freakin’ don’t know what this is!) ready and the software for assingin these keys should be included in my notebook (I found it , to my surprise, NOWHERE!)

- I got budget coupons for KFC,Burger King and McDonalds which I intent to use often.

- Haven’t eaten much chinese food yet

Stephan

["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]

Da Deutsch in diesem Blog nun eine Randerscheinung geworden ist, haben wir den Spieß nun etwas umgedreht und eine Kategorie mit DEUSCHEN Einträgen geschaffen, viel Spaß dabei!

 http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/German/Level_I/Freizeit

Lektion 1:

Franz	Hallo, Greta! Wie spät ist es?
Greta	Es ist Viertel vor drei.
Franz	Wirklich? Ich spiele um drei Fußball. Machst du Sport, Greta?
Greta	Nein, ich bin faul. Ich gehe jetzt nach Hause.
Franz	Fußball macht aber Spaß!
Greta	Bis dann.
Franz	Wiedersehen!

Stephan

["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]

1. There is no comparable “weird” experience to assisting during an ERCP (with a very sick and unstable patient) and an experienced internal medicine attending physician gets very nervous and you don’t
2. It is allthough very funny to take a look at two medical students trying to move a patient from bed to bed ⁽¹⁾
3. Anybody who can draw up 30 syringes of midozolam without cutting yourself is a true master to me. These fucking sharp container edges.
4. I hate stepping on needles beside examination tables who are from doctors not knowing that these bloody, contaminated items belong to the SHARP ITEM DISPENSERS who are obviously in a shiny yellow colour.
5. Today I took a piss on two floor nurses. I discovered an ugly ring shining brightly on a swollen and red/blue middle finger and as I tried to move it the ring was stuck. All the tricks that I know from removing rings from fingers didn’t work so we had to get the ring cutter. The patient was lying in bed all the time and judging from the colour of the finger I placed a bet that this ring was on this finger right from the beginning of his admission. I charted everything and the floor nurses who where responsible for this patient asked me if I got something wrong with my brain. My only comment was “I don’t believe that the long an painful presence of this ring was an outcome of your good nursing work”
6. I felt a kind of “enlightened” as a junior resident physician asked me if I was from the Intensive Care Unit. I asked her why she thought that and she said “Well first of all you are wearing blue scrubs and second your work looks like you are an ICU nurse!”
7. I really like “my” attending for teaching me a lot about Morbus Crohn and Colitus ulcerosa. Also I like her willingness to teach student nurses.
8. Today the bitch nurse I had troube with tried to piss on my leg;) I transported a patient after a gastroscopy back from the exam room to her actual unit. The response “Thank you” is not known on this shithole of unit. “Student Nurses are not allowed to transport patients after diagnostic procedures with sedatives”. Despite the fact that this is not true I said: “Well, first it was me assisting this procedure, second tell me the worst option between the patient beeing unmonitored on the floor because you don’t manage to transport him OR the actual assisting student nurse brings him down monitoring him well and safe.” The response will be a call to my chief commander nursing-course-chef.
9. I’m really looking forward on driving Emergency Medical Service for one day again!

Stephan

["If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear!"]

1. Also the desperate look in their faces after me doing it all alone [↩]