SUCH PRETTY CONUNDRUMS THESE NURSING TERMS ARE


I don't talk about nursing often cause as of the moment, I am not a practicing nurse anyway. But I realize just now that among all the professions ever contrived by man, nursing has probably got the smartest, prettiest, most playful and therefore, most fun gobbledygook.

Now that's me playing.

Alright, already!

Jargon! Mumbo jumbo! Drivel! Language! Terminology!

There, you happy now?... you squaredy-nerdy-party-pooper you!

Stop, drop and roll. Sounds like a dance step or the mechanics of a game, huh? Well, it's actually what you have to do when your body catches fire. Part of a nurse's job is to teach people about such things. Putting concepts in this manner makes them easy enough to remember.

ABC. I'm sure nurses all over would wish their job was as easy as this, but it's not. ABC for nurses would mean airway, breathing and circulation. What's it for? It's the order with which we assess a client who, for instance, we find lying on the floor down on his face. We check if air has a way to get in (Has he choked on something? Has his tongue fallen back on his throat? Are his throat muscles spastic or swollen?). And then we try to see if he is breathing by himself (he probably won't take kindly to you blowing into his mouth as he tries to gasp for air on his own... you'll gag him more likely). And then we check if his heart is beating. We feel for pulses; the most accessible, and therefore most common, would be the carotid artery just below the jawline. And before we pump his chest, BEFORE we ever do anything at all, we have to be sure the guy is really, really out or the next thing we know, we'll have a lawsuit for battery specially delivered on our hands.

Up with the good, down with the bad. Profound, huh? Well, it could be a battle-cry for the salvation of mankind, but on more sober terms, this is how a patient using a cane would have to get up or down a staircase. He gets up with the good leg, then follows the step with the cane and the bad leg. Reversely, he steps down with the cane and the bad leg, then follows it with the good leg. Nothing to it.

Stat! Curt, concise, precise. This is what ASAP would be to the poor unlearned. HAHAHA! Kidding! I am just kidding, so don't pick up a fight with me now. Seriously though, the urgency of a STAT order means so, so much more than your regular ASAP. Sometimes, when you dither in carrying out the order, for whatever reason, or you're just not paying attention, it could mean the life of a patient, and it could happen in a matter of seconds. It could be something as humdrum as getting the lab results of a blood test or something as gripping as medications correctly anticipated, and prepared, in an emergency situation.

Blue bloaters and pink puffers. Pretty, pretty, pretty. Well, these terms actually refer to patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. Blue bloaters? They turn blue or pale, like gray, in their effort to breath. Maybe like those with chronic bronchitis? The pink puffers would still have the normal skin color but they're just like the blue bloaters... every breath they take is a struggle. Not a pretty sight at all, trust me on that.

I don't really know why we pretty-up the terms and I've got nothing against it. It isn't like doing that chips away at the seriousness of the job, or of diseases, or of life. It's how we get by with everything we have to know, and believe me, there's a lot of it! All in a day's work I guess. And if truth be told, I don't think it should bother anybody, as long as we deliver care that the patient needs, really needs.

Absolutely not like this...

I know of a nurse in the hospital I used to work for. She was stationed in the posh part of the hospital... up where the suites were. Now there was this patient she had to give a pill to but the patient was asleep. So she woke him up.

'Your pill's due, sir.'

'But I was already asleep. Can't that wait until morning?'

'Sorry about that, sir. But you have to take it at night.'

'Damn. What's this pill for anyway?'

'It will help you get to sleep, sir. Really good for you.'