Ever turned up for work and there on the desk, in a space all of its own is a ‘thing’?
It could be a piece of torn clothing, or a broken CD player, but it’s sitting there.. ready… intriguing…. just waiting… for a story to be told…
Am I the only one to notice this? Or is it something that only I have come across? I don’t think so. I’ve seen it in the UK and abroad.
You come into the handover room and sit down and sitting there on the desk is an item. It’s usually something innocuous that, by itself, serves no purpose other than to tell the story of how it came to be.
Most frequently it’s something like a piece of torn clothing that was used during the shift before by a patient to attempt to harm themselves. Or it might be a broken CD player that a patient destroyed in anger. What I am amused by, more than anything, is how it is kept and brought out to add some substance to the story like “show and tell” as if no-one has ever seen one or can’t imagine what one would look like. Or maybe it’s there for evidence to show the oncoming shift “Look what we found!”.
Some examples I’ve seen:
Torn hem of t-shirt.
Broken CD disk or CD walkman
Ripped headphone cables
Torn (shredded) magazines or pictures
Two small round stones (like garden pebbles – apparently the staff were concerned they might be used as a weapon?)
I only bring this strange nursing phenomenon to the forum as only last week I turned up for a hand over and someone had saved the torn hem of a t-shirt that a patient had in their possession. After the hand over I went to discard it in the bin and one of the staff flew across the office and retrieved it from the rubbish saying “You can’t throw it away” – When I asked “Why?” (plus a few other words) he said “You need to show the rest of the staff”.
What the bloody hell for???
I can’t help but think I must be missing the point somewhere….
Does anyone share this observation or have any idea why nurses do it?
I think we just do it for dramatic effect. Adds a bit of flair to the story telling with a little foreshadowing
It is also fun when going in for a handover and the nurse is wearing tracksuit bottoms and a bizarrely ugly t-shirt. You just know that is going to be a fund handover.
A clean pair of pants is also a classic object.
Given my experience of chinese whisper handovers, whence after a day off you return to find something you handed over handed back to you all arse about tit, at least the use of an object has some solidity. I have not encountered this show and tell stylee handover, sadly. I do enjoy adding in the odd meaningless “patient SJ did not go to the shops on Wednesday” sort of comment to handovers and see how long it continues to be handed back.
Classical Olanzapine
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I do similar sillinesses in handover tho I’ve been caught out by it! eg: Pt who does nothing all day, all night, just ‘receives’ care in the most passive of fashions… “..and XX went AWOL… “. After which I spent the next 10 minutes of handover trying to explain – i was kidding. “Oh… ok… so where is he?” FFS – he’s tucked up in bed….
The worst recently tho was handing over at clinical ward round… another passive recipient with recently diagnosed diabetes.. who was having a little trouble keeping his blood sugars below 20mmol/l and became a standing issue to encourage him to get his blood sugar down. Handing over to the team I just made flippant remark… ” ..and YY had a hypo, had to give him i/v glucogel.. ambulance called … oh it was touch and go..” … when I read the same thing transcribed in his clinical notes by the medico I decided it might be time to stop!
At least they were listening to you, Mr Ian
While on the subject of handovers, and as we are coming up to the festive season, probably time to dust off once again that favourite Dec 24th handover to the incoming night shift . . .
“Oh, and there is a new admission on the way, young female from out of this area, no fixed abode, religious delusions, heavily pregant with grandiose ideas about how special her baby will be . . .”
Have you got a manger specially prepared for her?
Alas, all the beds were taken… and the only thing they had spare was an old suitcase that she could lay the baby in..
..and henceforth it was to be known as a “Case Manger”.