the buddy system

I wanted to wait an extra day before I blogged about something that's come to the wards. I wanted to make sure I wasn't living in some kind of crazy dream on Wednesday, but since today was pretty much the same, I think it's safe to announce.

Folks, we've got a Buddy System.

I'm fairly sure you're sitting there with eyebrows crinkled in confusion, so please, allow me to explain. When I stepped into my current position (assistant ward supervisor), I was stepping into some very large and very capable shoes. I'm still not sure how she did it, but Laura, the nurse in whose chair I now sit, managed A and B Wards every day shift, making sure the nurses were okay, running interference with surgeons, writing notes and making appointments and dousing the myriad fires that crop up every single day. And she managed it with this calm grace that I have never been able to duplicate. I've chosen a more just tell jokes and everyone will think it's okay style, which works on a lot of fronts, but often leaves me with one glaring problem; it's not always okay.

Because when there are forty patients and almost as many caregivers and new infections are cropping up every day and new nurses are coming up the gangway every night and there just aren't enough beds because the ceilings are too low to stack them and it turns out the translators don't really speak English? When that happens, sometimes a silly face just doesn't cut it. Sometimes I don't have enough time to pee, let alone come alongside a new nurse when she's struggling. Sometimes I eat peanut butter and jelly three days in a row because there's no way to get to the dining room while the food lines are still open. Sometimes I have to choose which charts I have time to write in.

Sometimes I'm not a very good charge nurse.

However, as of Wednesday, I'm a good charge nurse again, because now we have the Buddy System. In the Buddy System, I'm only in charge of twenty of those forty patients. Someone else is next door with her very own clipboard, watching over the other twenty. And my trusty other half, Hannah (the other assistant supervisor) is at the other end of the hall presiding over her twenty or so.

It's a measure of how well the system is working when I tell you that I have time during the day to stop and marvel just how well the system is working! The B Ward Buddy and I pass each other in the hall, smiles broad as we boast of our latest achievements.

You know, it's nine thirty and I've already made my post-op appointments.
Yeah? Well, I've made my appointments and written them in the book!
Nice, mine aren't in the book yet because I was writing all my orders.
All of them?
Yeah, I wrote in everyone's chart. Even the one we didn't do anything with!

And so it goes. With a Buddy always a phone call away in the next ward over, my days have become at least ten times more enjoyable.

For the nurse who thinks jokes fix everything, that's saying something.