Well, I survived another week.
Let me tell you a story about how my weekend went.
This weekend was originally my first call weekend, but, things changed.
We have a new traveler tech who was also assigned the same weekend as me. This department has a “rule” about not putting 2 travelers on the same weekend rotation. That way, there is always an experienced staff member to help handle any issues that arise. Clearly, they broke this rule due to being severely short staffed. The good news, a PRN nurse who has been MIA for over 3 months was contacted by the manager and was told he needed to take call. Thank goodness that one of those call weekends that he picked was this weekend! I was off the hook for my first call weekend and the problem with two newby travelers was solved… or so I thought!
The new travel tech was suppose to have a preceptor for her first call weekend, but this person called out… with the other two staff techs not being available to step in, she was left with the weekend by herself.
Now, in previous weeks, someone has volunteered to come in and help reprocess scopes and run the scope room if the day was looking crazy busy. If this person isn’t present, the on-call tech would have to take a 30ish minute hiatus between procedures to reprocess the scopes. This extends the length of the working day tremendously, and makes for a very long and frustrating day for the tech. Because there was no one else available, and this was originally my call weekend anyways, I volunteer to come in to fill the void and run the scope room.
Running the scope room is a busy job, but that is all it is… busy… It’s mindless work that is easy and stress free. This is why I volunteered to come in in the first place! Easy work, great pay.
Once I got to the hospital, our 4 patient schedule had exploded into an all day affair with 8 patients/ 10 procedures. Once the PRN nurse got wind that I was there and that I was a nurse, he quickly took advantage of the situation for his own benefit. He came down to the scope room and was quick to tell me that “I needed to relieve him for lunch and that after he was finished, he would take over the scope room”. Now, granted, the next case was a specialty scope and I wasn’t checked off on reprocessing it and he was. So, his presence in the scope room was needed … but that only takes about 20 minutes. I ended up working the OR room for 5 hours before he showed his face again!!
I was able to reclaim the scope room near the end of the day, but this volunteer day was pretty much me just working my previously scheduled call day.
So, needless to say, there was no hike or epic adventure to be had this weekend… Just a little more learning about how things work here in Reno.
On a positive note, I am ready for my July call day after all the experience I got on Saturday.
Oh, and we found this Latino owned and operated Milkshake shop! Not what we expected but a fun unique find in our host city!
Keep following along as I have learned my lesson and will resume my regularly scheduled hikes and adventures next week!
