Work and hospital addition

Work this weekend was pretty typical. Saturday, I took care of a mom laboring with her second baby. She was progressing nicely on her own, but not quick enough for her doctor. Even though she was 8 cm with bulging bag of water, he wanted me to start pitocin and said he'd be in to break her water. Okay, fine, I'll start pitocin. But it was needless, as she was completely dilated in 20 minutes. Doc arrives, breaks her water and we start pushing. Then the baby's heart rate took a dive and didn't come back up. So he had to use the vaccuum to get the kid out. Luckily the baby was low enough that a vaginal delivery was possible. If the baby hadn't been low in her pelvis, we would have had to go back for a c-section, and that would have added about 10 minutes that the baby's heart rate was low. He was blue and floppy when he was born, but with a little oxygen and stimulation, he came around. There was a tight cord around his neck and shoulder and when he came down the birth canal, it just was pulled too tight.

Today I decided that I should be a good employee and actually go to a staff meeting. I hadn't been to one for a long time. Plus it had been a couple months since we had one, so I went. And it lasted 3 freaking hours. All talk about stuff that could have been put in an email and sent to everyone, but instead I got paid to sit and listen to a bunch of BS. They did show us the new layout for the new unit. I'm starting to be more optimistic about the new unit. It will be a HUGE change once we get in there. We'll all have to change how we practice drastically. But, I think it will be good after we figure it out. The rooms are going to be large, and we'll have some LDRP rooms and some regular single patient rooms. It will only have one entry for the public and they have to be buzzed in at the reception desk. A few bad things: the unit will be huge, in the shape of a triangle, with 2 of the hallways being the length of a football field. The c-section rooms are at the base of the triangle and there will be LDRP rooms at the point of the triangle. What if we have an emergency in that room and have to run 100 meters to the OR, pushing a patient in a bed. Granted, that probably won't happen very often. But still. And the charge nurses will be running all over the unit during their shift. Even the manager said she is willing to place money on the idea that all the charge nurses will lose weight due to the increase walking. I guess a little exercise won't hurt any of us! So we'll see how long it actually takes to get it built and up and running. I think the timeline is by 2011? But they still have to finsih added decks onto on off the parking decks, tear the small one dow, and actually build the addition. Plus getting approval from the Health Dept., and all that. So maybe much later.