Friday, April 25, 2008

Craig, you stole my post!

Lying awake this morning, I was thinking about writing the same thing as Craig....about the balance of power between nurses and doctors and how doctors can only write orders and are not allowed to touch the medications, while nurses are the only ones who can "push" the meds.

Moreover, nurses usually perform phlebotomies (blood draw from veins), but if the patient is a "hard stick," the butterfly needle may end up in the doctor's hands (MD's are also the least experienced phlebotomists!). What's even more interesting is that only doctors are allowed to draw blood from arteries...why is that?

1 comment:

Craig said...

haha i was so surprised to learn that though, i had no idea.