Things you learn in the ER

It's funny, the things you pick up out of necessity. For instance, I can say insurance card in Somali, Hmong, and Spanish. (Not surprisingly, it's "insurance card" in each language, because Americans invented the term.) I just learned the Delete key on this keyboard doesn't work. I've learned that somewhere, there's a drug dealer that knows sign language, and he's making a killing with the deaf addicts.

I've also learned how to repair a printer with two ink pens, a pair of scissors and two varieties of surgical clamps. This is because overnights the IT department is incompetant, and they have NOT learned that our hospital will not function without a label printer. Sure, it's possible for me to make labels by hand with our carbon copy machine called simply "The Stamper" or "The Blue Chip Machine" if your a nurse, but the doctor's don't like that.

And I've also learned the only two things worse than a mom with a sick kid are A) a doctor that's style has been cramped by slow/broken technology and B) a mom with a sick kid that "knows a great lawyer for this sort of thing."