The Wooden Penguin

I have never come from a three day stretch this angry and exhausted. I love my unit, but our trauma service is, quite possibly, the worst bunch of assholes this side of the Mississippi. I have never been so scared for my patients safety in the hands of physicians before, and also, so helpless. I involved anyone and everyone I could, from nursing, management, respiratory, and another consulting service to stand up to trauma. And they just refuse to listen. Don't ever look at one small aspect of a patient and make your clinical decisions based on it. I know, you're thinking, "why would anyone ever do that?" But our trauma service is like that. And it's terrifying. The first thing that a coworker said to me (five days ago) was this: "Don't let them kill her." Do you really want to work with a team with that reputation? She's still alive as of tonight, by the grace of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But there's a long road ahead of unsafe choices about to be made.