R.A.C.E.

I have been getting paid to sit on my ass for the last few weeks.  It might sound good to some of you.  It even might just sound like work as usual for a number of you guys, but for me--- not so much. 

Don’t get me wrong.  My job is not all crazy and exciting all the time, but I usually only got to sit around killing time for a few hours out of twelve every night. 

Now, however, I am in orientation for a new hospital.  That means sitting in class rooms and watching videos and reading policy books about every asinine subject that might come up in a hospital setting.  It is made worse by my extensive travel nurse history. 

As a travel nurse, I change hospitals a few times a year, and each hospital insists on teaching me their policies, but every hospital has the same policy.  I can recite, from memory, almost half of a standard hospital policy book, and these books can be larger than the average major metropolitan phone book.

The problem is that to not follow one of these policies can be a legitimate cause for dismissal or, worse yet, a law suit.  Even with that looming pressure there are a few that I really have a problem following. 

There is a specific policy that tells me exactly what to do in case of a fire.  It even has catchy initials and everything.  R.A.C.E.  Rescue Alarm Contain Extinguish.  In short I am supposed to rescue any patients in danger, alert my fellow staff to pull an alarm, close the fire proof doors to contain the fire, AND, if feasible, extinguish the fire. 

Are You Kidding Me!?!

I am no hero.  If I see fire I am going to running screaming out of there.  I guess the best you can really expect of me is to Alarm.  The rest of my fellow staff members will realize something is wrong when they see a 285 pound man running down the hall screaming about fire and impending doom. 

Our society is getting increasingly fatter and fatter.  That means the patients in the hospital are getting even fatter than the ones you see on the street.  If a fire alarm is pulled the elevators are immediately disabled and return to the first floor.  How do they expect me to carry some unconscious morbidly obese lady down five flights of stairs?  It is more likely that I would throw her out the window and then jump on top of the big squishy blob that she becomes when she hits the ground. 

There is nothing in the policy book that says I can’t do that, but I am sure it is frowned upon.  Mostly because there will probably be a large crowd of people gathered outside to watch the hospital burn, and if she doesn’t crush someone below the window, it will still look bad from a public relations stand point.

•   Comments(8)    Posted by killer on 10/08 at 12:42 AM
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