Things Overheard

I heart the overhead paging at my hospital. At least twice a week I hear something hilarious. A night last week was no exception...
Page: "Mr. Daddy, please return to your area. Mr. Daddy, please return to your area."

5 minutes later...
Page: "Mr. [the patient's real name, incidently not Daddy] return to your area. Mr. [the patient's real name, incidently not Daddy] return to your area. Thank you."

The nurses and I looked at each other and cracked up.

I know what you're asking yourself..."why would you have to page a patient to return to their "area" aka room?" I'll tell you. Our patients struggle with a little thing called compliance. You know, doing what one is supposed to do to take care of one's health. And the hospital I work at is not a police state. So, patient's wander around, go outside to smoke, go eat at the McDonald's that is in the hospital, (Yes, you read that correctly. There is a McDonald's in the hospital.), and occasionally pick up a little "somthin, somthin" at the bus stop outside the main entrance. (By "somthin, somthin" I mean an illegal substance. Yes, that also happens while a patient is admitted around here.)

The hospital I work at has 5 different policies detailing what to do if a patient leaves or you can't find a patient to administer treatment. They are things like:

• Elopement and Patient Absence Without Therapeutic Reason
• AMA (Against Medical Advice)
• Patients who may not leave AMA
• An entire color coded system to indicate a patient may not leave AMA
• Sitters
• Security to convince a patient they may not leave AMA

Oh, and patients may leave their rooms for 3 hours before these policies can be implemented. My favorite is when they leave their rooms to go down to the Emergency Room to try to get more medication. You know, cause the hospital gown and associated paraphanila doesn't give it away...

So, we hear pages like the one at the beginning of the post regularly. Sometimes they're even for my patients.