Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Wondering when the axe will fall

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I was just talking about how much I’d like to get back to work, but I’ve been on medical leave for 25 months now. It’s hard to imagine that I’ve been off for so long!

Almost every day I wonder when the phone will ring and on the other end it will be the oc health department at the hospital calling to tell me that they can’t extend my medical leave any longer. If that happens I’ll be very upset.

Since I’m officially on medical leave I still have my full time position. It’s being held for me. I also have health benefits. I do have to pay a certain amount each year – money that would normally be taken from my paychecks, but I’m still covered.

If I ever do get that call I’ll have to switch over to a private family or individual health insurance plan. Actually, Chris works at the hospital. He’s only part time (but works almost full time hours). I think he can apply for health coverage. I should get him to check on that and we could switch over. Then if the axe does fall we’ll at least still have continued health insurance coverage.

Do you have health insurance from your workplace?





I miss my nursing job

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I really miss working as a nurse. I know there’s no way I can go back to my job right now. I’ll have to get a lot better before I could even think of going back to those 12 hour days and shift work. However I do miss working with the patients.


I liked spending time with each one that was on my care. Now I worked in Emerg for almost half my nursing career and you can’t spend anywhere near as much time with patients there as you probably should, but I always tried to give my patients special attention.

Perhaps if I do go back to nursing I should work in a different department. One with a slower pace where I’d get to spend more time with each patient if I wanted to or if they needed the extra care. Perhaps I could even work in one of the therapy units … maybe doing cerebral palsy therapy or some other form of mobility rehabilitation.

As I said I’ve got to get me better before I can go back to work and try to make others better. I hope I start to feel better soon!

Expanding our ER

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I think I’ve mentioned before that the hospital where I work (well sort of work as I’ve been off sick for over two years!) has been undergoing a major renovation.

The remodeling or what they are calling a succession plan has been taking place all over the hospital, but it’s most evident in the ER where I work.

I think our ER is going to take up half the first floor when it’s done! It’s going to be huge!

It’s the second busiest ER in Canada so I guess it makes sense to expand. I just hope that they hire enough staff to cover all the areas!

I miss my job

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When Chris came home from work the other day he told me about all the changes to the ER.

I’m an ER nurse and I’ve been off sick from the department for close to two years. Obviously it’s been some time since I even went in to visit my old co-workers. When I was hospitalized two weeks ago it was in one of our downtown hospitals … maybe I should have gone to our ER instead.

They’ve been renovating the space and expanding! It looks like emerg is going to double in size and that’s a good thing. Our ER is said to be the second busiest in Canada. Hopefully they hire an adequate amount of staff to manage the new areas. Even though the ER probably always had the most staff on during a shift out of any other hospital department with the amount of patients coming through the doors it almost always felt like we were understaffed.

What they really need there is better time and employee management – starting with the admins! Maybe a business performance management system needs to be installed as well along with all the other upgrades.

I really missed being there as Chris told me about all the changes. I truly loved being an ER nurse and I miss my job. If this darn Crohn’s would just settle down I could go back.

Dragon Naturally Speaking Medical cuts transcription costs for medical professionals

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The next time I go to work I’m going to have to tell the doctors that I work with in the ER about Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking – Medical dictation software.

Many of the doctors that I work with in the ER, regular medical doctors and specialists, dictate their notes via a phone service after they’ve seen a patient. Now, if they installed Dragon Naturally Speaking Medical on their office computer they could simply dictate their patient notes at their own computer. This software could dramatically lower transcription costs for hospitals, doctors offices and medical centers.

This software is said to have 99% accuracy. Dragon naturally speaking can be used with any type of medical software application as well as the full Microsoft Office Suite. I’ve used Dragon Naturally Speaking in the past, but this special Medical version contains a complete library of 14 medical specialty vocabularies covering over 60 sub specialties. The software can of course be further customized for individual specialty practices.

If you are a medical professional think about how Dragon Naturally Speaking Medical might save time and money for your office or practice.

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