Quirks and Superstitions

As most of you who read this blog know, I am a pediatric nurse. Frequently my job is a sedation nurse. I administer medications to patients so they sleep through a painful procedure without pain and then wake up almost immediately without recollection of the procedure. Occasionally there are complications, but we anticipate them and attempt to prevent them.

I work with several different Docs and several different nurses. Lately we have been discussing different "quirks" we all have. One Dr. in paticular says he doesn't have quirks, he just does things "the right way". This of course made everyone laugh because each Dr. thinks he does things "the right way". So, I decided to look up quirk in Websters. There are many definitions but the one I like is....a peculair trait or idosyncrasy. One doc asked me yesterday what my quirks are. I told him it was hard to come up with any on the spot only because I try to keep up with all of theirs. He actually found that humerous. I did remind him that I only have two hands (they like to give us several things to do at once) and I don't like to miss meals (I get really crabby). :) Then I remember how it bugs me when trash is laying around. I like to have all the syringe wrappers, used alcohol wipes, empty medicine bottles,etc all in one place or I am constantly cleaning up when I have a spare moment.
We were also discussing superstitions. One of the nurses will not order the xray in the computer until she knows she is going to need it. I won't mark on the sedation record that the patient was returned to his room until we are returning him/her to their room. One of the Docs won't sign the sedation form until the sedation is over. We are all worried about "jinxing" something.
So, I looked up superstition in Websters. Again, there were several definitions but the one I liked or thought fit this blog is.....a false conception of causation. So when I get to work today I think I might put the definitions on our board.
I does make my job alot easier knowing everyones quirks and superstitions. Now it is just a matter of remembering them.