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!

TreeDelivery - not 100% sure to be honest what the difference would be between maternity triage and day assessmet?

Its a small ward attached to the inpatient ward where women can self refer for more or less anything. They're seen by a m/w first and if its something we can deal with ourselves like reduced FM which turn out to be ok after a ctg, or ?SROM the nthey're not seen by a doctor. But if we see someone and they've had an APH, or need a speculum and they're less than 38/40 or they're PIH then they have to be seen by a Dr. So we can get traffic jam fairly quickly as the Dr also covers labour ward. Stupid system, we need our own Dr. But hey, it all comes down to money.

OK Boo - your turn!

Good morning all! We're back home and jetlagged... gah... I loooooooove waking up at 5 am when my body thinks it's 8 am...

Must read back and see what I missed.
Back to work today after at week at my lovely mum's... and it's a busy one... so I may have some venting to do!

Mellors! Come back! Don't leave just because it's quiet in here!

hello, decent day at work for me today.
anyfucker, i trained at RGU.
getting nervous?

< phew > no, not in the slightest

a very long way from me

unless your name is Sue

I have had a CRAP day. One of my families is dealing with an ex-partner who is making threats to kill them all. Today we hear he has got himself a gun! Local police were just NOT interested as he has made all these threats before. My comment that he only needs to carry them out once appeared to fall on deaf ears.
AND he lives in another county so if he HAS got himself a weapon then it's the job of the neighbouring force to pick him up. Oh and Social services asked me if I thought the children were "at immediate risk" when I phoned them. Well no - their father only makes regular threats to kill them and is now somewhere (who knows where) possibly with a gun! YES I THINK THEY ARE AT IMMEDIATE RISK. F*ck - it's just crappy sometimes.

Have let off steam (phew) and am hopeful that the police at least made a note of my information that nutty boy may now be armed.

OMG Jolly, that sounds hideous.

My worst day would never be as bad as that.

Jolly - at that kind of stuff. Too depressing.
I hate the child protectionside of my job, How does filling in however many cause for concerns and putting them in a folder actually help a child?

Gah.

Jeez, JollyPirate, that sounds awful. I have nothing bad to say about my day... yet... - had several patients in a row tell me they missed me (in a professional way, of course).

Nice!

Is it w(h)ine-o'clock yet?

always, JM! mine's a merlot, if you're sharing

I had a nice client in today who I hadn't seen for a year - and then she wondered why her neck and shoulders had developed rock-garden tendencies! Seeing her again next week...

I haven't been backk to chiro for 2 weeks - was meant to be 1. Very very naughty but poor and no childcare.

Told hv of the poo miracle cure chiro gave my daughter and got the . But I was there and lived through it! AND we took her off movicol a week before and she got instantly constipated, then took her off one week later after chiro and poo every since.

Bloody miracle. Am also loving abdominal releases although mine aren't as good as chiros.

Yay for your chiro and yar boo sucks to HV with no sense.

Am totally sick of conventional medical people rolling eyes and raising eyebrows when they are told by patients of something complementary that they have tried and it has worked - drives me up the wall!

Me too. Especially as her knowledge of anatomy and physiology is jaw dropping whereas hv and gp didn't seem to know difference between an allergy and an intolerance. You wouldn't mind so much if they themselves kicked ass!

We had a couple of 'fool intolerant' consultants who were short and snapy. But so dammed good, I couldn't begrudge them iyswim.

Tree, I can email you pretty much exactly what I do for abdominal releases, if you want.

There are too many people who think we're just bloody back-crackers. I hate when people say that. Or when someone says "I don't like having my neck snapped". Yeah, me neither. But luckily that's The Transporter's job (or some other macho dude's in the movies), not mine.
Grrr.

JM - you'll love this - a few years back some tosser who calls himself Dr. Copperfield wrote this "thing" in the Saturday Times Body & Soul section. It was about chiros/osteos and was the biggest pile of ignorant drivel I've ever read - the upshot of his diatribe was that "the only thing these people manipulate is your brain, to get you to open your purse to them; they are only cracking their knuckles behind your back, not doing anything to you. And how can your bones be 'out of place'? Bones don't move that much."

Obviously never had a treatment then!

Tosser. Still makes me mad when I think about it being given pageroom in a supposedly sensible paper. Grrrr.

I defy anyone to make the noises my neck makes with their knuckles!

She really does wring our necks [me and dd]. In my utterly ignorant way of looking at things that is. It makes me a good few cms taller and makes dd1 poo. Marvellous stuff.

Jacksmama - ooo yes please! My chiro leant me her text book but I think unless you really know our anantomy it can be hard to hit the sweet spot. That said I can chase bubbles around both the dc's so am taking that as a good thing.

Come out of the corner FlappyBat, have yo had a pants day?

ditto down my back, tree! I surely know that my osteo is actually doing something to my back on the final crack-down, as it were - absolutely no chance of that being a hands-off knuckle-cracking thing!

bubble-moving is always a good thing - as yor chiro has things in hand, you probably don't need to try this as well, but reflexology works very well for shifting bowelly things as well as direct contact on the abdomen. Better, if her belly is sore.

Oh yes you told me about that, and put a link in. I was a bit unsure though - her foot was so tiny.

Do you apply constant pressure or move around the area or what? Like I say - my finger covered half her foot inthose early days - maybe I should try again.

Got to go - Hatts bonkers bless her.

will type up for you anyway:
gently but firmly rotate your fingertip in little tiny circles along the path of the reflex; so not really circles, more of a moving spiral, if that makes sense. you need to put some pressure on to make it work, but not too much - you will need to use both hands on her foot though, the other one to support it while you massage the reflex.

Using this chart, move from the appendix reflex on the bottom corner of the R foot, up along the bowel reflex, across the middle of the foot to the left foot, then across to the outer edge and down the outer left side.

I frequently felt 'bubbles' in the feet when doing this and have had some excellent results with clients, including immediate release of trapped wind! [blech]

Ok, just a wee rant - I just finished treating the people in my practice who annoy me the most ... I really don't mind chitchat with my patients, but I resent when people are intrusive. And this is a family of three (father, mother, daughter) who honestly drive me up the wall and down the other side. The daughter, to be fair, is quite nice - just very young for her age. The parents are smug and self-righteous and, as I said, intrusive with their questions. The father in particular makes me want to scream - he's such a chauvinist pig. One day, I swear, I will tell him (instead of just thinking it) that, no, I am not interested in his opinions on, FFS, hair length in women (!!!!!!), the way I dress for work, and the fact that it's a shame my husband doesn't make enough money to support me so I have to work even though I'm a mother now...

OK, one more patient and then I'm done... quick, someone grab me a glass of something!!!

Haha thumbwitch - Dr Copperfield is my GP (not his real name obviously). He's actually okay - a really nice guy - not including his stance regarding chiros and anything not "regular" medicine obviously.