I can't tell ... (Tales from the CCU)
my right from my left. See, I don't think I really internalized the exact meaning of "left" and "right" until college. By then, I was learning how to be a nurse. When nurses assess and chart on patients, they are facing the patient across from them. So when I'm checking out an IV site on the patient's right arm, my perspective of their right arm is that it's on my left. But later, when I write it down, I have to remember it as being their right arm. Since I spend MUCH more time paying attention to the left/right thing at work, my mind almost immediately thinks "right" when I'm looking at something that's on my "left." It's a really difficult life. :-)
Posted by
geena
on Saturday, December 14, 2002 at 11:42 PM
Comments (5)
Comments
Posted by Bryce Downing on December 16, 2002 12:39 PM
You poor thing...must make you a terrible navigator. :)
Posted by Gma on December 16, 2002 01:49 PM
Poor Dave if you are giving him directions which he usually needs to keep from getting lost.
Posted by geena on December 17, 2002 12:10 AM
It does actually make me a terrible navigator. And Dave is indeed poor.
Posted by Donna on December 17, 2002 09:23 AM
Speaking as your pet plebe, I can honestly say that your left/right handicap has been transferred to me ... and now, I double check then triple check my charting, and by the time I have reviewed right from left THAT many times, I'm surprised I don't have my patient hanging upside down from the ceiling, slowly spinning from their tangled IV tubing, so that not only is right from left wrong, but left MAY be right if you look at things right!
Posted by K on December 17, 2002 03:12 PM
Here is the way I remember it. I think to myself, "goddamn, I really want to haul off and hit this asshole/bitch/kitten/small child/etc." And then I see which hand has curled into a fist. That's my right.
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