A robot in every room

I'm sure every patient will have one of their own if they only have to power it with urine.

Gives new meaning to drug testing and economical helpers at home.

Technology...who would have thought?

TGIF everyone! Enjoy every moment of this weekend. The fall leaves are still falling here in RehabLand.

Robots?

One of my patients recently asked me when we were going to get robots to hand out the meds like they did in another hospital he visited. They've been in the media a few times, so you just never know....

I can think of a few uses for a robot right now at the Hotel.

1. Monitoring one-to-one patients. If we equipped one with Taser turned on a low setting, maybe we could keep one particular character from ripping off his/her dressings all the time.

2. Entertainment. When someone wants to talk for ages, we'd send in our friend, the robot. "Gotta run, but BOB the robot will be glad to talk to you for a while." Or you could play a video game on BOB's screen.

3. Send the robot on emergency call lights runs for things like ice, water, and blankets. Now if we could add an ice maker to said robot...ooh!

But finally, I don't think we'll be doing this with our robot: marrying folks on the unit. I just don't think Giacomo and the other chaplains would go for it!

More later...stay tuned!

I want one!

If only I could get one of these:

Towel-folding robot (courtesy of www.bbc.com)

Look at all the time I could save! Amazing!

Got me thinking...

Another day at work and thankfully, not too many dilemmas.

Monday went by quickly and relatively painlessly for me and most of the unit. It wasn't so painless for some of our coworkers who were involved in an accident while parking their cars on our busy front thoroughfare. A lot of craziness ensued, and everyone's okay for now. We'll wait to see what happens.

Bubba feels sick, so I get to go into nurse mode at home. I see the oak trees in the yard are blooming. Makes me wonder if allergy season has finally claimed him as a victim this year.

I did some more certification studying and for a little break I ran into Kim at emergiblog's recent Don't tread on my conscience post. Oh, it made me think!

Yes, it is hard to blog about controversial subjects including this one. Did I think about it when I was looking at specialties in nursing school? You betcha. I would have serious issues if I were in anything remotely related to Kim's topic, and yes, I did turn down a position with a world-renowned surgeon just because it could potentially pose such problems. I have my own set of values, which I'd prefer to display in my work rather than to discuss directly with patients. Yes, Momma did tell me never to discuss politics and religion and I adhere to that with my patients and coworkers.

I often think about situations such as this recent one where a per diem nurse lost her job because she discussed one aspect of religion. Do I agree that she should have bounced that ball to the chaplain? Sure, but do we know if anyone was around to take the pass, let alone be present with the patient. Another incident in the UK got a nurse suspended in February.

Finally, I'm often disgusted that we can't agree to disagree and realize we live in a country of many faiths and traditions. Allowing a nurse to honor his/her faith does not mean he/she is shirking the work, it reminds us that nurses are people, not robots, with traditions, beliefs and feelings, just like the patients. If we denigrate the faith tradition (or lack thereof--if that's your choice) of a nurse, we, in turn, denigrate them, too.

Kim: keep lighting the fires and making us think.