Hospital nurses (at least where I work) carry around notebooks listing their patients' medications and dosings, called MARS (I have no idea what it stands for). After each shift the MARS sheets are scanned into the patient's chart, so the next shift can keep track of what was given and when.
Since each nurse has her own notebook, they tend to be personalized. Most have pictures of kids, family, friends, pets, maybe a cute saying, or a religious symbol, whatever.
Tonight I'm on call, and got dragged in. As I was dictating a note, I absently glanced over a few MARS notebooks lying near me. Some cute kids and pets looked back at me. One picture of a nurse at her graduation.
One of the books had only one picture on the cover. I recognized it as a blurry shot of the nurse who owned it. The odd part was that the picture showed her in street clothes, looking very upset, with a black eye, her wrists handcuffed behind her back, and getting put into the back seat of a police car.
Medication Administration Record :)
ReplyDeleteClearly the day she turned a corner
ReplyDelete>:)
Mars= Medication Administration Records
ReplyDeleteHope the rest of your call goes uneventfully!
Neil
MAR = Medication Administration Record.
ReplyDeleteAnd whatthehell were you doing, snooping at mine?
Well F.Y.I. MARS (at least at my hospital) is actually MARs (plural) and it stands for Medication Administration Record.
ReplyDeleteAs far as that picture, I have ABSOLUTELY no idea why she'd choose THAT picture to show the world unless is't some motivational reminder or there's a really funny (non-embarrassing) story to go with it...
Wow. I wonder what her "bad" pictures look like. You know, the one's she's not proud of.
ReplyDeleteThat reminded me of a documentary I watched. It was about a surgeon that had been arrested 24 times before changing his life around.
ReplyDeleteIt was an amazing story. (He was just a kid during these arrests.) Still, imagine telling someone you were arrested 24 times and now you are their doctor.
MAR=medication administration record.
ReplyDeleteHis name is Dr. Michael Maddaus. Here's the URL to the story:http://www.alumni.umn.edu/A_Surgeon_s_Saga.html
ReplyDeleteHow very odd or interesting. Maybe, it's supposed to be inspirational? Or, motivational?
ReplyDeleteMAR = Medication Administration Record
At most of the hospitals I work at the MAR is accessible to all disciplines (generated in pharmacy)to account as a record of most medications (as entered into pharmacy database--as what will be removed from automated dispensing cabinets (ADC) or administered by the nurse (or respiratory therapist, etc.) from orders in the patient's chart. So, there wouldn't be much allowance for 'personalization' of anything related to the patient.
Here (in this area of the country), what might be personally embellished, are what nurses fondly refer to as their 'brains', a handwritten sheet of paper on which they note things like, 'pt's boyfriend bringing in Snickers--hiding in shoebox', or 'watch out for so and so's mean right hook' (just joking--but, something to relay to nurses coming on tidbits that don't make it to official documents), like a MAR.
she's in AA and needs a constant reminder as to why she shouldn't drink?
ReplyDeleteMaybe she has a tough past and put this picture on her notebook to remind her where she comes from and to be thankful for where she is today in times when work is just too much.
ReplyDeleteMAR= medication administration record. Don't ask me why I have these worthless bits of knowledge stuck in my head...
ReplyDeleteNurse K!
ReplyDeleteLol. Hilarious! Musta been a good night.
ReplyDeleteMAR = Medication Administration Record
Maybe it means, "keep your hands off my MARS or I'll pop a cap in your @$$."
ReplyDeleteMAR = medication administration record
ReplyDeleteWell, I guess you won't ever say you don't know what something means! HA!!
ReplyDeleteI agree with those who said it is a reminder of a bad time in her life that she has overcome....or it's her twin sister and she laughs her ass off everytime she looks at it....motivation either way.
and if anyone asks she casually replies "Well, if I look bad, you should've seen the guy I put in the ambulance."
ReplyDeleteOr maybe it is a reminder of why not to date doctors?
ReplyDeleteCops don't usually let people snap pictures as they arrest people, especially good enough ones where you could see a black eye in the finished photo. So probably it was staged or something...
ReplyDeletePretty weird regardless.
u did scan it 4 us?
ReplyDeleteIt's a photo of her evil twin! Keeps this twin on the straight and narrow...
ReplyDeleteSITP- Visually only.
ReplyDeleteSITP? Translation please.
ReplyDeleteMe? I'm innocent. My lawyer fucked me.
Andy- shortened form for S3xInThePantry, answering her comment above.
ReplyDeleteI am a nurse of 19 years and noticed that this new batch of youguns are idiots.
ReplyDelete