A viewer asked me to expound more on my time working on
the Maternity unit.
Some things to keep in mind when working on
that unit:
You will admit two
patients – the mother and the baby
The baby’s name in the system will be by their gender and last name (ex. Baby Girl Hernandez or Baby
Boy Smith)
You will place a name
alerts on the chart and in the system for babies with the same last name (it
doesn’t matter what their gender is, if the last name is the same place that
sticker on the chart)
The babies will have a
band on them that is connected to the alarm system, so that if a baby is near
is any door it will sound. This is to protect the baby from being kidnapped. Of
course it is turned off if the baby is scheduled to leave the floor for a
procedure or when being discharged
You will discharge both
mother and baby upon them leaving (unless the baby is not being discharge and
instead is being transferred to NICU)
You will be buzzing in a
lot of families, friends, and more onto the unit who want to see the mother and
the new baby
You will interact with outside
authorities because you will have some babies born addicted to drugs or HIV
positive or other reasons.
You will see women who
had a baby four hours ago and now they are outside smoking a cigarette
And more…..
Side note: I never worked on the
Mother /Baby unit full-time, I only floated there a few times.
A viewer wanted to know if there were a lot of men in the medical field. I break down the male/female ratio in the hospital (of course it varies from location to location) and let him know that he will not be alone when he starts working.
Violence in a hospital is nothing new. Patients attack (it could be the medication that they are on), visitors attack (emotions play a large part), co-workers attack (although very rare because most are licensed and are not willing to lose it over.....anybody).
So, watch the video and tell me if you've ever witnessed violence firsthand as a Unit Secretary.
