from ICU to OR

Foreword: In order to commemorate the truly Zambian ability to speak in a language made up of abbreviations, this post will be littered to utter ridiculousness with abbreviations.

After spending two weeks at the UTH ICU, I decided to cancel the rest of my ICU CP (clinical practice) in order to concentrate on my final project DC (data collection), the ethical approval of which is still pending at the UNZA REC (university of Zambia Research Ethics Committee). 

To be honest, I was not really happy at the ICU, because first of all, it was crowded with nursing students, and there was a constant competition and elbowing around, which I detest. Secondly, the MICU, as it is called (Main ICU) is not even a proper ICU. At best it should be termed an acute med/surg unit, and it does not even pass as an obs (meaning obstetrics or observation, but in this case observation) unit because obs are only carried out  at an hourly basis. What really irritated me though was that the staff there expected me to understand  their Quack speak, and looked at me in amazement when I was unable to decipher that the patient in bed four needed to be reviewed because he was brought in with an HI (head injury), and was involved in an RTA (road traffic accident), and that X-pen (christa-pen..whatever that is) needed to be administered, because some other abbreviation led to his abbreviation, but because he was already in a state of abbreviation, we had to watch out that he would not lapse into another bluddy abbreviation….

So I decided to go back to the main operating theatre and work there just for fun, or part time, so that I won’t have to be running around like an HC (headless chicken) looking for people who in the end do nothing but WMT (waste my time) whilst I’m stressing about time.

Anyway, back in the OR (operating room), I’m as happy as an unabbreviated chappy =)

HT (health tip): If you want to let Zambians think you are smart, try using as many crazy lay terms (and don’t forget to abbreviate them!) as possible.