The Intensive Art

• Google Wave Gadget Emulator, if you want to get a hold of the code and contribute to it http://tinyurl.com/uQeBu #

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Sean Musings

• Two days on Code Blue team,two full blown codes, two lives saved. One was Torsades-Very cool!!! It reminds me of what I love about my job… #

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Sean Musings

• I’m just waking up…..love being on night shifts!!! #

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Sean Musings

• I have to say, I really enjoyed this years Oscars #

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Sean Musings

• I’ve had six fillings in two days…I’m so incredibly done with the dentist…for now. That’s what I get for ignoring my dental health! #
• Did I mention, in one month, three patients in my ICU died or almost died from tooth abscesses…I called my dentist the next day! #

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Sean Musings

• People shouldn’t be allowed to un-follow me!!! Don’t they realize just how super awesome I am? Mwahahaha! #
• This season of Big Love has been freakin’ awesome!!! #
• I’m totally over my homemade borscht…my love was good while it lasted. #

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Sean Musings

• There’s nothing so awesome as waking up at 4pm, knowing that you have the entire night ahead of you. What shall I fill the time with? #
• Another amazing episode of ER. I’m honestly devastated that this show is ending. #
• Sometimes, when somebody completely FUCKS up their life, you need to let them deal with the consequences on their own… #

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Sean Musings

• I’m studying…still and again and forever…when will it ever end?!? *sigh* #
• http://www.35owb.th8.us Health Care Privacy: Is It Worth Fighting For? Food for thought #
• Information is like a sweet addictive drug. Are we even capable of quiet alone time without any “devices” and just our thoughts? #
• Does anybody know the secret to slowing down time on my days off? #
• I saw on the news: four burn patients brought into the ICU in critical condition…there will be no lack of work tomorrow! #
• It always catches me as surreal that I’ll know how busy my day will be by watching the evening news #
• 100th post EVER!!!! Sorry, I’ll stop now #
• Soooooo hungry….must eat…. #
• Time for bed….I ate nothing but garbage today…and now I feel gross. I get to write an exam on ICU pharmacology tomorrow….ugh! #
• Oh! and I bought a Blue Ray DVD player today–freakin’ awesome! #
• I’m such a homebody that I’m one step from agoraphobia. I need to get out more on my days off. #
• I applied for two weeks of vacation…I got one day off! That’s actually quite miraculous! WOOT! #
• Saturdays would be better if there weren’t so many errands involved…..grrrr #
• So, is this google thing fixed, or is it just not happening in Canada? #googlemayharm #
• My party days are over…two beers while watching movies….hung over…*sigh* #

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Sean Musings

• Really? The weekend is over? Really!? GRRRRRR #
• I don’t wanna work tomorrow! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! #
• Happy Barack Obama day to all my American followers out there #
• I can’t believe I’m going to the dentist today. What a crappy way to spend a day off!!! #
• I am once again in love with 24 #
• Anyone know a place to get photos for blogs?Free to minimal charge.Quality not important-just not having to constantly ask for permission. #
• My teeth feel so darn clean! #
• Ugly Betty’s Dad in hosp.had only one IV-looked like NS.Had Massive MI?unconsious and aparently almost dead?Is a littly reality SO hard? #
• Seriously! How does Seattle Grace run without any nurses… #
• Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawn #

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Sean Musings

Dr. Wes: Once Again, the Airlines Have the Answer

I asked how many defibrillators (they) performed a year and asked who paid for them, and she said the government. “But we got authorization to do five more devices next year,” she said.

“Only five?” I asked in disbelief.

“Yep, and we were lucky. Other centers got fewer. They’re expensive, you know. We have to be very careful about who we select to get one of those. It’s not like America - people here are used to waiting.”

I live in Canada, and while I’m not an administrator who deals with budgets, supplies, and government bureaucracy, but I do have a healthy place within the chaos of reality. I feel that as an ICU nurse in one of the biggest and busiest ICUs in Canada, I at least have some perspective. 

Americans would love to have you believe that a Canadian ICU is merely a rickety shack with mud floors and a roof made out of twigs. They assume there’s no windows and the beds are made of straw. Our IV poles are made of cut down trees.

Americans would love to have you think that all our ICU patients (and surgical, cardiac, neuro patients etc.) are dying left and right because of our health care system. “Rationing” is the word used in Dr. Wes’s post. 

I have said it before, and I’ll said it again. In Canada, if you need surgery or any type of medical device, you get it. PERIOD. It is a decision between the doctor and the patient. The government doesn’t interfere in the decision making process. It has no say.

As for the defibrillators in the discussion, I have seen many patients sent for one. Usually it’s after some type of cardiac event that landed them in the ICU. A cardiology consult ensues and the decision is made to insert one. A date is selected.

Never once have they had to decide if a patient is “worthy.” Never have they had to choose if the patient should take up one of their precious rationed device. Never has the government called to say, “Sorry, we don’t want to pay for that.”  **

No! The patient needs it, the patient gets it.

And please, if my comments are wrong in any way, or if my beliefs about the Canadian healthcare system are inaccurate, please feel free to tell me, and I will gladly eat humble pie. I truly don’t consider myself an expert–simply a staunch defender.

However, please be someone who has experience working within the Canadian healthcare system, and NOT someone campaigning against universal healthcare in the US–because I have become well aware that these people will invent random inaccuracies about our system, simply to make us look bad.

And Dr. Wes, I adore you and your blog, and this has nothing to do with you–you are simply relaying a conversation that you had. I’m just trying to debunk a very common belief about our healthcare system.

**Although, I have heard of insurance companies pulling this in the US

Sean Nursing, Nursing Politics, Nursing Rants