Occam - 25 September 2008 06:39 PM

Well, they wouldn’t show this on TV, but there are times it’s nice to have the doctor perform the procedure.  During my last stay, they needed to insert a catheter.  The nurse jammed it in and it stopped.  She yanked it out and tried again.  I put up with this torture four times, then as she prepared for a fifth onslaught, I told her to stop and call a urologist.  She called the supervising nurse who agreed with me.  The urologist explained that I had a kink in my urethra, but nurses were not allowed to use the bent catheters (at least in that hospital).  He slipped it in very nicely, and I had no problem.  However, most of the nurses were quite professional and pleasant.  I made it a point of not bothering them, but always asking to explain what they were doing when they had to do something, and they were quite willing to do so. 
Occam

You were patient, the nurse was probably very new (or not very good), an experienced nurse would have called her charge nurse to assess the situation. Good/experienced nurses don’t perform what I call ‘search and destroy missions’ something I always emphasize when teaching new nurses. You are your primary advocate—good for you for insisting—bad for her that she did not think to ask for help herself.

Occam, please, please tell me that you’re female. As a male, the thought of such an experience happening with male plumbing makes me writhe around in my chair.

Chris Crawford - 25 September 2008 07:01 PM

Occam, please, please tell me that you’re female. As a male, the thought of such an experience happening with male plumbing makes me writhe around in my chair.

Poor Occam!

Chris Crawford - 25 September 2008 07:01 PM

Occam, please, please tell me that you’re female. As a male, the thought of such an experience happening with male plumbing makes me writhe around in my chair.

I’ve noticed that in my practice, women don’t seem to care as much—we don’t take it as a personal attack like men do!   However, I feel a lot of sympathy for him for having to go through that—-too bad his nurse wasn’t empathetic as well.

Occam - 24 September 2008 04:50 PM

Also, don’t forget the use of baro- meaning weather, e.g., barometer, baroscope.

Actually, a “barometer” has that name because it technically measures the “weight” of the atmosphere.

It could also have meant radiating or generating baryons, heavy atomic particles.

Yes, that’s true.

In my opinion Science in movie are always wrong, cause they twist is to entertain people. And don’t focus on the facts.

kevinator815 - 15 October 2008 05:49 PM

In my opinion Science in movie are always wrong, cause they twist is to entertain people. And don’t focus on the facts.

So maybe we need to focus on the opposite ... which SF movies & TV series get the science (at least in part) right?

Kyu

No, they’re not ALWAYS wrong.  But I think that sometimes you can learn a lot about science by looking at a fiction story that presents science incorrectly and trying to figure out WHY it’s incorrect.