Work Stuffs

So apparently work has been CRAZY lately!!! Let me give you a few statistics:
I work at Mercy Gilbert Medical Center, in Labor&Deliver/Postpartum. I am both a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) and a Health Unit Coordinator (HUC--fancy name for a secretary). Our unit has:
6 Labor Rooms
14 Postpartum Rooms
2 Antepartum Rooms (almost always used for postpartum)

Well, over the last few months we've had ~200 deliveries every month. With the number of rooms we have, that is not easy (they're expanding our unit, but the new part won't upen until next summer)! Last Tuesday when I was CNA we had I think 13 patients on our postpartum floor, and had overflowed 8 more postpartum patients to another floor (with our nurses, of course). It was a crazy day!! And it hasn't stopped! Apparently yesterday was SO crazy that they had to call in another secretary to help out (usually we only have one). That is huge, because they NEVER do that. And this morning I got a call at 5:58am asking me if I wanted to come in and work an extra shift as CNA because they needed two of us (and they NEVER do that either!). I couldn't because I needed to study for my tests tomorrow, but I felt bad because I can only imagine how busy it must be if they were calling me to come in as the SECOND nursing assistant!! On average we do between 5-8 deliveries in 24 hrs, but recently I think we've been doing that many every SHIFT (every 12hrs) more often than not!! CRAZY!!! September is without fail the busiest month every year.....too many people having too much fun around Christmas and New Year's, lol!! ;-) Anyway, I hope it's not as crazy when I work as HUC on Sunday...

The good news to all this crazyness is that the staff I work with are AMAZING!!! They are all experienced and take excellent care of the patients and of each other. We have each other's backs, whatever our role is on the unit. Everyone is very concerned with patient safety and satisfaction, and even though we are super busy, safety is not comprimised. Our Charge Nurses are awesome, and do a GREAT job of ensuring adequate staffing (to the best of their ability) and of keeping everyone safely afloat in the proverbial "waters" of the maternity ward, where it is SO easy to sink without good leadership. Even when the tidal waves come (you know, the 10 triage patients who all arrive at once....one complete and screaming that she needs to push, another abrupting, three with their water broken, two mid-labor, and the rest convinced they're in labor but aren't...) we don't drown (usually, lol). I love the people I work with!! :-D

If you love babies like I do, you might enjoy looking at newborn photos...you can go here to see the newborns who are born at my hospital. This is by no means all of them, I'd say about 50% of parents decide to do the photos (it's free...they only have to pay if they want to order some).

::sigh:: once again, back to the textbook...

~Abigail~