Saturday, January 9, 2010

Nice Picture

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.

27 comments:

Anonymous said...

Medication Administration Record :)

Doris said...

Clearly the day she turned a corner

>:)

Anonymous said...

Mars= Medication Administration Records

Hope the rest of your call goes uneventfully!

Neil

Jo said...

MAR = Medication Administration Record.

And whatthehell were you doing, snooping at mine?

Anonymous said...

Well F.Y.I. MARS (at least at my hospital) is actually MARs (plural) and it stands for Medication Administration Record.

As 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...

The Good Cook said...

Wow. I wonder what her "bad" pictures look like. You know, the one's she's not proud of.

Chrysalis said...

That reminded me of a documentary I watched. It was about a surgeon that had been arrested 24 times before changing his life around.

It 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.

Anonymous said...

MAR=medication administration record.

Chrysalis said...

His name is Dr. Michael Maddaus. Here's the URL to the story:http://www.alumni.umn.edu/A_Surgeon_s_Saga.html

Anonymous said...

How very odd or interesting. Maybe, it's supposed to be inspirational? Or, motivational?

MAR = 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.

Julie said...

she's in AA and needs a constant reminder as to why she shouldn't drink?

instant student said...

Maybe 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.

Dr. Phil said...

MAR= medication administration record. Don't ask me why I have these worthless bits of knowledge stuck in my head...

ABC said...

Nurse K!

Christine said...

Lol. Hilarious! Musta been a good night.

MAR = Medication Administration Record

thegooddrlaura said...

Maybe it means, "keep your hands off my MARS or I'll pop a cap in your @$$."

Anonymous said...

MAR = medication administration record

The RPh said...

Well, I guess you won't ever say you don't know what something means! HA!!

I 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.

Ron said...

and if anyone asks she casually replies "Well, if I look bad, you should've seen the guy I put in the ambulance."

Sunflower RN said...

Or maybe it is a reminder of why not to date doctors?

Cap'n Cakez said...

Cops 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...

Pretty weird regardless.

S3XinthePantry said...

u did scan it 4 us?

Classof65 said...

It's a photo of her evil twin! Keeps this twin on the straight and narrow...

Grumpy, M.D. said...

SITP- Visually only.

Andy said...

SITP? Translation please.

Me? I'm innocent. My lawyer fucked me.

Grumpy, M.D. said...

Andy- shortened form for S3xInThePantry, answering her comment above.

Anonymous said...

I am a nurse of 19 years and noticed that this new batch of youguns are idiots.

 
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