The Health Care Professionals' Lounge: if you've had a bad day, are sick of your job and need to vent, the lounge is open!

[Jacksmama]

On another thread, a few of us who work as health care providers (of any sort) were talking about having days at work that make a career as a waitress or grocery cashier sound very appealing... so, patterned on the One-Child Tea Room (which, btw, is open to anyone regardless of how many children you may have), here is The Health Care Professionals' Lounge.

Being something of a Room of Requirement, The Lounge has squashy sofas, a bar stocked with booze of all kinds, an Aga for tea, coffee or hot choc, and a pantry/ fridge for nibblies or full meals. Calories don't count here, neither does trans-fat, or food allergies, and there are no hangovers the next day.

Come on in and relax. There is only one rule here: no fisticuffs. We are here to vent and talk about the assorted difficulties of our jobs. If you're a patient, please remember that we give large amounts of our time and of ourselves to health care, and work within the limitations and the frustrations of the health care system (wherever we may live). Our jobs are rewarding but also exhausting, and we frequently question not only the system but also ourselves. If you've received bad care, please speak to the person responsible, or start another thread - this is not the place for it. We're here with our hair down (or up in curlers, or slathered in a masque) and our feet up. If necessary, we will borrow Mellors from the Tea Room to have trouble-makers firmly and politely ejected.

Cheers!

Hope all the long day workers had decent shifts.

hello tree - just checked out your link and had to backtrack over a couple of pages to find the explanation of your consultant visit - and I couldn't help but notice the interesting ripples in the fluffiness of that thread! It seems to be a time for it at the moment - I am still trying to recover from the fight between the SN board and the tearoom, which is actually still going on behind their closed board doors. I must be fick or something - a few posters on there are accusing the tearoom of being bitchy and cliquey, and talking about other posters behind their backs - yet they are doing exactly the same thing! Hypocritical, or what! I want to go on there and tell them so but know that I will just be accused more of being part of the bitchy clique who Knows Nothing (I don't know anything about what it is like to have a SN child or be a SN adult but that doesn't mean I am an insensitive oik, and I resent the implication).

Anyway, felt like offloading, JM will know what I'm on about!

Have you started Hatt's dairy challenge yet?

thumb - I think there have been a few issues this last while do you?. Maybe tensions are running high around mn at the mo. I know what you are referring to a bit, cos I was around for the creation of the antenatal testing/choices topic. Things are a charged imo at the mo.

Such such such a shame.

Will challenge her nearer in 6 weeks or so, I have done 2 in a month and they are exhausting as the fall out goes on for a good week.
Plus if I leave it later maybe it will all just be ok, like magic. Hurrah!

Hope the tea room is holding up ok, as I do the sn forums. How has it come to this? Maybe mn is just too big - and yet the big bad issues seem to occur between regulars and people who know the score.

Maybe David or Mellors know the answer?

lol - does David look like he knows much? Perhaps I am being a bit too shallow, but he just looks like a himbo! Actually, I am being sneaky, I have a friend who met him and [apparently] shagged him - she is a tad disparaging of his general personality. But his bod, well now, you wouldn't kick him out of bed, would you?

I think maybe MN has created synchronised PMT in all its users, or sufficient of them at once to have created the charged atmosphere!

oooo like nuns [not huns]

rofl.

Do MWs tend to suffer from synchronised PMT? or does the general wash of pg hormones keep it at bay?

I think midwives are rather renowned for their ability to have pmt at any stage of the month, week, day or hour. We are generally considered a buch of grumps, it's fair to say [by the professionals around us]

hee hee - well, perhaps you could put it down to the ambient wash of female hormone that you are all constantly surrounded by, hey!

that would be very charitable.

Just posted a long rambling post on someones thread - poor woman!

It's so hard when people are in such distress over stuff I might know a bit about. I want to help. Bit I can't really, I don't know the story and I have a duty of care. But I can try and point them towards the info they may find useful,
But then that might be way beyond what they want - not everyone want a literature review. Just sound advice. Yet so often there isn't any aggreement on 'sound'

Argh, I sometimes wish I had a less complicated job.

Hence need for this tea room.

I do know what you mean - I think it's the drive to care about/for other people that bungs us into these professions in the first place; or it is in my case anyway.
My other drive is to be instructive, hence my alterego as a university-level lecturer.

When do you sleep thumb?

It is the drive to care, and I think here, people very clearly document their frustration with their hp's. In rl I don't think it is always that clear iyswim? I bet I have come away from many a meeting thinking 'good, sorted' and the woman has left utterly confused.

So actually it can be dead easy to throw light on difficulties, it's all there in bullet points waitng for insight.

Not tired at all tonight, disaster as busy day tomorrow. tut.

oh dear!
I do sleep, honest - this is a throwback to when DS was waking routinely at 2am for a feed. He's stopped it now (THANK YOU GOD!) for the last week but I haven't got used to the fact that I don't have to wait up for it any more. I found when I used to do on call that short sleeps of around 3 or 4 hours were the absolute worst thing in the world for me, so I'd rather not sleep until that mid-night feed was done, then I knew I'd be good for 5-6 hours, which is much better than 3-4.

Ooo I agree! Unless I get to sleep for 10 ish [yeah right], or am on my knees tired, then I am best just waiting up for the bubba to call for food.

Short sleeps make me feel sick when I wake up.

Wish I had an alterego - must be quite exciting!

I hope you don't mind the intrusion from a non-healthcarey person. I'm just over here to oogle at David, who I hear is as whoore -some as Mellors over in the tearoom.

I just saw that Thumbwitch seems still to be up! That's stamina for you.
Thumb If you want to off-load about the whole sorry mess of last week my email is on the other thread (the infamous bitchy one that is).

Sorry, forgot to shut the door behind me.

What more proof do you need that tearoomers are intrinsically rude and bad mannered, huh?

David is a beauty, but Thumb reckons he has no brain. I don't care think he has a deep inner soul.

Thanks for that Tree. I might just have a wee sit down here and see if Thumb reappears.
She's getting upset on another thread, which can't be good.

if you see her before I do, can you give her a big hug from me? (that's if you feel comfortable with such internet goiings on). If not just say hi from me

All right people, I am going over to the Tea Room to knock some sense into give MadBad a Talking To re David. Feel free to come jeer see

PS - don't know what Thumb is getting upset about but whatever it is she has my full support, as does anyone else in the Tea Room or the HCP Lounge...

morning all! I was definitely on a roll last night!

There are some very strange interesting people on MN at the moment, aren't there.

Thanks for the support and hugs, ladies - I had definitely given up and gone to sleep by the time you posted but appreciate them now!

So... true confession time... I almost committed a rather horrible faux pas yesterday. Was treating a patient who'd had a bilateral radical mastectomy, and had to ask her to turn face-down on my adjusting table. She's rather comfortably built, IFKWIM. And as per usual I raised the face cradle a little to accommodate larger breasts in the face-down position. And as per usual, I started asking if it felt all right for her chest - realized it wasn't an issue - and almost blurted out "good thing we don't have to worry about your girls!!" I swear I heard the thought in my head, just waiting to fall out of my mouth - gahh!!!!! Thank God she was face-down... I got a look at myself in the wall mirror and my face was beet red!!

Does anyone here have e-rostering? We're going to get it soon. I'm 22.5 hrs a week and currently if I want one or two specific days off (if I'm away for a certain weekend for instance), I currently just request it as Days Off. Obviously I don't do it a lot and do mroe than my fair share of weekends/nights. Infact so far this year I've only had 3 weekends off!

But according to my manager when e-rostering comes in I will have to put any weekends off I want as a/l. That can't be right can it.

StripeyKnickers, that sounds a bit ludicrous but I'm afraid I know nothing about it.

JM, the cheek of you! Accusing me of killing the thread..
Well done for not letting the thing spill out of your mouth - I made a real faux pas with a patient the other week .

Her family have some mental health issues and she has worried about her younger son for a couple of years - anyway, he is applying to Portsmouth Uni and when I was looking at universities to go to in the dim and distant, Portsmouth had quite a high suicide rate - so like a complete amateur, I said "Portsmouth, hey... hmmm. Bit tricky..."
And then of course realised that the last thing I could do was mention student suicide to a mother who already worries about her son's mental health state! It was bad enough, I toned it down to "students with depression" and that was STILL VERY WRONG. And then I started blathering to try and correct the evil impression I had just created - you know, the "well my info is of course 20 years out of date, things have changed blah blah." So with myself for not just keeping my big gob shut.

Well, I'm glad it's not just me who has "open mouth and insert foot" disease...

I want to add a good thing today.

I am supposed to be getting a chest x-ray for emigration purposes; I have booked my GP appt for June 2nd and need to get the x-ray done >5 working days prior. So really, I should have got it done today, it being BH Monday next week. But - we have been ttc and my period still hasn't come; so did a pg test yesterday - neg. did another this morning and the bloody thing didn't work! (getting to the point... )
I phoned the x-ray dept I have to go to and was lucky enough to speak to the Radiation Protection expert, who listened carefully, got the gist immediatelty (quite rare these days I find!) and then said that I should leave it until Tuesday, ask for him to do it and he personally would undertake to carry the x-rays across the road to the GP surgery that day, so they would have them in time.

Howzat for service? I plan to take in a box of Roses or something nice to say thank you for his going the extra mile for me.

God bless the NHS!

Yes to that - and keeping fingers crossed!!!!