Nurse's Call

Nurse’s Call

It was maybe 3 o’clock in the morning when I received a call from the psychiatric unit.  This was not an unusual event.  A patient had just been admitted via the E. R. and I had been assigned to his care.  After the nurse briefly summarized his current status she asked for orders to cover his needs until I would see him 4 hours later.  I apparently responded with a recitation of routine laboratory and PRN orders that would suffice and hung up the phone.  My wife immediately shook me until I was fully awake and asked me if I was sure I had been alert enough to give the nurse orders for this newly arrived patient.  I said I thought so and asked why she might be concerned.  She responded, “Because before you hung up you said good night, I love you.”

Fortunately, the nurse who had called was the oldest and most competent on our staff.  She no doubt knew I was not awake enough to be able to make good decisions and had she thought cogent thinking was required on my part would most certainly have called again.

2006