The Lost Coast

I not suggesting that after last week's rant that you have a lack of common sense Land. Maybe you just suffered a brief lapse. When it happened to me, I was like, put my money in, see it rejected, sign says "insufficient change sale canceled", recheck display, see "exact fare only", take money and move to counter. Altogether maybe 20 seconds? Not over a minute of putting money in again and again. But that probably sounds a bit arrogant. I happened to notice the sign and all the other people didn't. The morning after the post I did point out it was exact change only to someone, but they snapped at me that they noticed, like a minute after first putting money in. Maybe they were having a bad day.

Anyway, the end of the week signifies the end of another aspect of clinical.

In this case it was General X-rays and Mobiles. Basically mobiles is taking a mobile x-ray machine and taking x-rays of patients who are too sick to come down to General X-rays (which is termed Work Area 1). 90% of mobile x-rays will be chest x-rays, with occasional other bits of body anatomy thrown in. When it's quiet, it's a nice little bludge. When it's busy, it's hell. And it's usually busy. Every 15 minutes the pager will go off with a request for x-rays, it could in ICU, neonates or halfway across and up the hospital. So while it does involve a lot of walking, it's the never ending request for x-rays and no rest whatsoever during the hours that drags you down. I don't like mobiles. You are constantly pulled in one direction then another, with difficult patients and sometimes difficult doctors.

Here's a little story. There was a call for a chest x-ray on the 5th level. When we got there, it turned out that the patient had just suffered a cardiac arrest and was only beginning to come out of it. One of the doctors turned us away, saying no x-ray was necessary. As we turn to leave, another doctor asks us if we're going to do a chest x-ray and is quite surprised when we told him told that there was going to be no x-ray. In the end, the doctor returns saying they want a x-ray but they will page us again when the patient is more stable. Time passes and finally the request comes down and we go back up there again. However, a doctor in the room (probably a different doctor, I'm not sure) turns us away saying that they don't need an x-ray. And we had to walk down and away again. I'm not blaming any individual doctors, but no one seems in charge and even the doctors didn't not what was going. One says yes, another says no. Make up your damn minds and come to a group consensus, x-ray or not?

And on the weekends, what do I do? Besides reading books and manga? Well, I've been playing through Half Life 2 and its sequel Half Life 2: Episode 1. It's an awesome game and great story as well. It just pulls you in so deeply. I'll probably buy Episode 2 later tonight, over Steam. Here is the intro to the original to take a look see.