From the Editor: Surviving the Holiday Weekends

  I’ve held up the printing of this issue because of the tardiness of my editorial piece, but kept vacillating as to what to write. It’s more than just writer’s block, but also an overwhelming sense of the enormity of what we all do as I read article after article with each issue of Today’s Wound Clinic. So I finally got it pretty much finished over a holiday weekend … or so I thought.

  I came to the office today, after the three day Memorial Day weekend, armed with my editorial almost finished, and begin my day. As our day begins, we face the issues that we all face after a long weekend resulting in a shortened week.
    • Patient’s calling needing to be seen in a day that is already booked past the max after being closed on Monday.
    • They ran out of their pain medication over the long weekend, or got their wrap/cast wet after a weekend of torrential rains.
    • Or that same cast/wrap is uncomfortable after increased walking so they just “arrive” wanting it changed.

  In the clinic, there are forms to fill out for short term disability, cultures and labs from the previous Friday to address, inpatients that need to be scheduled for clinic visits, a request for NPWT to be ordered for 3 patients, HBO patients to begin to screen, and the list goes on. And again, all of this with an overbooked clinic schedule. As the morning came to a close, we had completed all of those tasks, the whole team made it to lunch on time and I reflected back on the activities of the morning and realized again that we all have the greatest jobs in the world!

  We enter our clinics every morning not really knowing what to expect, but armed with the knowledge and resources to act on whatever comes our way. As Val Sullivan and I were pondering over our article about burnout, we tried hard to find a different term that made sense in our business. While our specialty, mixed in with life’s other difficulties, can lead to stress and feelings of being overwhelmed, all we need is one busy post-holiday morning where we do a lot of good and it makes it all worthwhile.

  But that’s not necessarily always the case. We still need each other to lean on; we need sounding boards and others in like situations to communicate with and to. To that end, we encourage you to go to todayswoundclinic.com and let us hear from you. What’s on your mind? How can we help you? How can Today’s Wound Clinic better meet your needs? What article do you “wish” would appear? Let us know, visit www.todayswoundclinic.com/discussion to discuss with our readers.