RE: working in ER

["Paul M. Wright, Jr." <pmwright@home.com>]

I think Rollie has hit the nail on the head with his comment about the Holy
Grail for transport staffing.  I would phrase it as the search for
"efficient cost shifting by finding meaningful work capable of being
instantly interrupted".

However difficult that quest for the Grail appears, I am impressed by the
number of times that I have heard of  programs that have similar job
profiles with respect to non-transport
duties but the perceptions of how it's working differ dramatically.

Two of the factors that might be involved in this difference are the nature
of the underlying relationship between the transport program and the
sponsoring hospital and the attitudes of the transport team members
themselves.

I am aware of one hospital-based transport program that was a significant
drain on the resources of the sponsoring hospital so the hospital
administration's idea of getting everyone on board was to tie the lack of
raises for hospital staff that year to the flight program's need for
funding.  Kind of along the lines of "you can help save our flight program
by being good-natured about the lack of a raise".  Needless to say, this did
not make for warm and fuzzy relations between the hospital core staff and
the flight program staff.

And I could write many chapters of a very long book about the damage done by
arrogance and pride on the part of transport team members and I could write
passionately and at length on the profound embarassment I have felt when
being professionally associated with some of my colleagues who routinely
left anger and ill-will in every situation they touched.  Even in this forum
quite recently, statements have been made suggesting that cockiness and
arrogance are a good thing for a flight nurse.  I disagree and I wonder how
often it is that otherwise workable solutions fail solely due to the
personality and/or attitudes of the transport members.

There are policies and practices that fail because they are bad policies and
practices but there are also good policies and practices that fail because
the underlying relationships are terminally flawed.  So part of the search
for the Holy Grail of staffing must also include a search for useful
relationships between institutions as well a search for useful values at the
individual level.


regards!

paul





_______________________________________________
Flightmed mailing list