Arsington arsey McArse. Just got a call from Dawn, the new bossy fat cow Infection Control Modern Matron Nurse Consultant Practitioner Lecturer In The Healthcare Setting. She wants to spend the day with me. Yeah, in your dreams bitch. “Get in the queue,” I told her. But then she came out with a load of drivel about how I needed to have “ownership of the infection control process” and how she felt she needed to help me understand the importance of the care pathway, and how she felt that in so doing was being a patient advocate.
PATIENT ADVOCATE!? How I fucking hate that phrase. Why do you think I haul my weary arse out of bed every day (except Friday, non clinical) and come to work in this godforsaken dump (except Tuesday afternoon, golf day)? For a laugh? How did we ever let halfwitted overpaid cretins like this think they have the monopoly on caring about patients?!? And why is it that once they’ve decided they care more than anyone else, they think that anything they do is AUTOMATICALLY good for them?
So I went off on a bit of a rant, which I’m afraid only emboldened her, to the extent that she turns up on my ward round this morning, flanked by two shorter, uglier, clipboard-wielding Deputy Infection Control Modern Matron Nurse Consultant Practitioner Lecturer In The Healthcare Settings. And before I’d even opened my mouth, she said, in that voice that could melt steel, “we have a problem”.
I pointed out that she probably didn’t mean to use the first person plural, but being a compassionate man I offered her my deepest sympathies for her problems, and took the trouble to list a few of them. Next thing I know, one of the shorter ones, who looks like R2-D2 but without the charming conversation, stuffs a sheet of paper under my nose. “Dress Code,” she blurted. “Bare Below The Elbows Policy!”
Of course, I am dressed correctly - according to the Jerry Nelson dress code - three-piece pinstripe, Oxfords, double-cuffed shirt (with humourous yet slightly racy cufflinks) and golf club tie, Windsor knot. This is what the patients expect. They need to feel inferior, or else they don’t get better so quickly.
Apparently, the Witches of Eastwick (but a lot less hot) think that just because a few hundred patients got MRSA, I should turn up wearing a string vest.
So, I told them that I knew nothing of their Bare Between The Ears policy, and I cared even less. There followed a stony silence, then all three of them marched in formation off the ward. Wehey! Victory.
UPDATE:
Arse!
Arsey Arse!
Double, triple, and several higher orders of arse!
SUSPENDED!!!!
these “witches” seem to know little about infection control. We have recently been “told off” for drinking tea/coffee in anaesthetic room during cases several hours long. Seems water boiled to 100 degrees is an infection risk!