2:12pm, pacific standard time, apartment in Chandler, Arizona, USA, Friday afternoon, October 7, 2022. It has been a busy day, even though I am working from home. We are trying to set up care for a complex patient. I need to be thorough and diplomatic to address multiple concerns. So far, things have gone smooth. I am excited. If we are able to pull this off it will expand our service capabilities and open up new referral sources to care for more patients in the future.
Tag: patient
Almost a chaplain again
4:58pm, in my apartment, Chandler, Arizona, Sunday afternoon, December 05, 2021. My phone pinged when I got back from an afternoon walk. The on-call nurse asked me to give her a call. A patient’s family requested a chaplain visit and she couldn’t get a hold of anyone. I told her to give the chaplains time to respond and if neither did I would see the patient. One of them called back just as I was heading out. I was almost a hospice chaplain again.
Monday morning
5:42am you went for a walk this morning. A little bit later than usual. You got a phone call on your work phone at 2:19am. It was the triage nurse. She went to see a patient who was complaining of discomfort. The nurse could not get a hold of the on call doctor to obtain orders for stronger pain medication. She had tried two other doctors. No one had called her back. It had only been twenty minutes. She wanted to leave the community. She explained there was not much she could do without a doctors order. I told her that was fine and to please explain the situation to the staff and to assure them a nurse would follow up later in the morning. I doubt she told them. She is not a very good nurse. She only does the bare minimum and complains the whole time. The doctor is a good doctor but only takes call to make the monthly paycheck. He has too many other interests to effectively take call. This whole site is filled with people just doing the bare minimum, getting by, here for the money. I am ashamed I am the director. Not because I created the situation but because I have failed to change it.
On call
10:52pm I’m in chandler. Sleeping in the couch. Girls are in my daughters bedroom. Wife and dog are in the master bedroom. I am administrator on call for work. We got a call around 8pm from a nurse practitioner for a STAT hospice admission. I spent the last two hours talking with my triage nurse and clinical director trying to get everything in place to take care of the patient. now the family wants to wait until morning. Frustrating from a care team perspective. Worrisome for the need of the patient. Luckily The patient appears to be comfortable and managed. We will do the admission in the morning. I appreciate the experience. I have to learn how to enter new referrals in the system and run eligibility. Skills I haven’t developed yet. This is a good life lesson. It is only when I am put in a moment of urgency do I realize what I don’t know but need to know. I will grow personally and professionally from this.