COWman's Corner of the Web

It is funny what makes you actually feel like you've finally achieved a goal. For me, it is the fact that I can access the Pyxis (the medication station pictured above for you non-medical folks out there) on my own.

For those of you not in the know, the machine shown above is what holds the medications for a unit. The screen above is a touch screen that you use to look up patients and medications. There is also a keyboard and a fingerprint reader. You sign in with your ID and then scan your fingerprint. After that, you look up your patient and medication, and it opens the drawer and/or door and tells you where in that drawer the medication you requested is. All in all, a kind of cool process.

Of course, as a student, we are not allowed into the system since there are narcotics and other fun drugs in there. So we always had to find our instructor or a nurse to get stuff out of it for us. Now that I am a real life nurse, I can get my own medications from the system. It is a little weird that I can just walk up and get things out. Of all the things that come with getting a new job as a nurse (the big RN embroidered on our scrub tops, the letters on my ID badge, the 2 weeks of nurse orientation, etc), this is what actually makes it feel real. Like I said, it's the little things that matter sometimes.

Of course, I would LOVE it if our Pyxis was all out in the open like this one. Our medstation is crammed in the corner with a set of shelves right behind it so that you can barely get the drawers open all the way. And our supply station is out in the hallway so that you're in danger of getting run over when you are standing there getting supplies out.