Being Cussed Out In Multiple Languages....

That happened yesterday during the day in Everett. I was told to go fuck myself by this extremely drunk 57 year-old male of Portuguese origin. What was especially funny was his telling me this in not just Portuguese but in English and Spanish, as well. Even funnier was that I understood him. The best part, however, was when I told him to shut up and watch his language (in English), his response, every time I told him (probably 4 of 5 time on the way to the hospital) was, "okay, Papi....."

All I could think of was the Cheech and Chong movie "Nice Dreams" when Cheech Marin found himself in the padded room with the strait jacket on and Tommy Chong was in with him telling him he was in charge of all the medications. Then Timothy Leary entered the room and gave them both "the key", which caused Cheech to hallucinate Jimi Hendrix (Michael Winslow, the sound effects guy from the "Police Academy" movies). For whatever reason, that caught in my head during this whole transport, and I have no idea why.....

The ride shifts were all extremely different and not as educational as I would have thought that they would be. After all, sick people are sick people everywhere you go, drunks are drunks - the only difference is the blood alcohol content, and psychs are psychs. I guess the big difference is the locations of where all of these people are as well as the locations of the hospitals and whether or not they provide decent medical care. I've made some observations about this already as well. For better or worse, here they are:

• The Whidden Hospital in Everett is not someplace I would want to find myself in as a patient. I am totally unimpressed by the level of care in their Emergency Department, just from what I have seen so far as well as from what I've heard.
• The Melrose-Wakefield Hospital (otherwise known as the "Mel-Wack") is better, but they have a couple of nurses in the Emergency Department that I wouldn't want to take care of my dog. Some of them, on the other hand, are really good, and those would be the ones I'd want to take care of me.
• I haven't been to the Lawrence Memorial Hospital yet - I'll hold judgement on that one.
• Winchester Hospital is okay, on par with the Mel-Wack, I think, in terms of care. Staff seemed good with the couple of patients I've been with.
  
• I'll always be a fan of the Massachusetts General Hospital. I think I've been there probably 12 times this past week and I know it's a busy place. But they do a really good job and they have great docs.
• I'm familiar with the Brigham and Women's, the Beth Israel, and the New England Medical Center from bringing transports in with RRA. All really good hospitals with top-notch care. All also dealing with ethnic and inner-city populations. That goes just as well for the MGH and the community hospitals.

I've written a lot of run reports over the past few days. I think I've written somewhere between 15 and 18 over two shifts that I've actually been doing the writing and the care for. Cataldo still is using paper as opposed to electronic PCR's, and their forms are a pain in the ass to work on. They want a lot of information on a small space - even more than when Rockingham was still doing paper, I've found. My personal feeling is that they will be able to trim out a lot of stuff when they do go to electronic; they're supposed to go sometime soon, but I'll believe it when I see it.

With any good luck I'll be cleared at the end of this coming week and released to the scheduler. I'm looking forward to that, and my understanding is that I'll be working the dedicated Beth Israel truck - I think I've mentioned that before. From what others are telling me, it's a bit of a horror show, which is a surprise, but I'm hoping it can't be as bad as they are saying. I will talk about it when it happens and I've had a chance to experience it.

For now, however, I'm going to enjoy the rest of my night. Corona, anyone?