Need to transport a patient to another floor after report has been called? Here are some great tips to help facilitate a smooth and seamless transition to the new ward and new team
- Don’t empty the bulging ‘about to give birth’ Foley bag
- Leave the chart behind, tell them you will be right back with it, but have no intention of ever coming back
- Utilize every single patient sticker and just leave an empty stickerless plastic page with outlines of where stickers used to be as a tease
- Have all IV bags be completely dry with air in the lines
- Transport with soiled sheets, preferable an old accident
- Transport at 6:58 or 5 minutes before a plethora of medications are due
- Transport right before x-ray, CT, or an MRI is ordered
- Transport right before multiple lab orders are due. Hand over a collection of different colored blood tubes without paperwork, especially a T+C for 2 units
- State that your patient is stable on the phone and act surprised when the BP is 60/30 when you arrive
- Accidently pull out the (ET tube, Central line, NG tube, IV, Foley, JP Drain, Chest tube, or any combination) while in route. Shrug shoulders with slight grin upon arrival
- Place the patient’s head on the foot of the bed
- Bend the power cord prongs to the bed so much that it can’t fit into a socket
- Synchronize at least 6 IV pumps to alarm and beep upon arrival to the new room
- Steal as many cables and monitors as you can grab from the accepting ward on your way out
- Tangle monitor cables in slip knots and square knots as many times as you can. Try to get cables over and under patient. Bonus points for creating a barber pole look with the IVs up an extremity
- Show up with several new infusions that weren’t mentioned in report like levophed or vasopressin
- Alternatively bring an intubated patient when they were supposed to be extubated. Act surprised when a ventilator is not immediately available or ready to switch over from your Ambu bag and depleting oxygen E cylinder
