The four things

[ninevirtues]

Okay, there are four things I have to do at the end of every treatment, and it's super-embarrassing, as well as dangerous, to forget any of them. They are:

- Foley stowed where no one will step on it
- Nasal cannula for oxygen in place
- IV pole plugged in again (Otherwise it beeps and pisses off the nurses when it runs out of battery power)
- Bed rails up

Now, SURELY I can make this into an.... anagram? I used to know the word for that. Sigh.... what happened to the vocabulary I think I used to have.... is it hiding in terror in the back of my head, waiting for a signal that it's safe to come out? (possibly.)

In any case, I have the letters F....O...I...B to work with here. Nope, no word. Damn. Okay, on to option B: Repeat "Foley, Oxygen, IV, Bedrails" to myself about a gazillion times until I routinely remember it, even when faced with a patient who surprises me.

If that fails, there's option C, familiar to SCAdian members of my reading audience: Filk it. (Find a song that everyone knows. Make up lyrics to the said song that involve the foley catheter, oxygen, IV, bedrails. Sing it. Repeatedly. I guarantee you I will not forget it after that. Especially if Willie Nelson wrote the original song. ;-)

Comments

[finickynarcane.livejournal.com]

F....O...I...B shuffle, shuffle, shuffle... O! Fib!

or

[finickynarcane.livejournal.com]

Head, tail, arm and rail. (O2, Foley, IV, Bed rails)

Finding Out Is Better

[hilarypoet.livejournal.com]

Not a word, but at least a phrase

I could even hear the faint temptation of a VERY whiny country western chorus of that name...

Mnemonic Ideas

[(Anonymous)]

F: Fornicate
O: Only
I: In
B: Bed

(Fight Only In Bars? Floss Only In Bathroom?)

Silly, yes. Possibly bad taste, yep. But I bet it's memorable, which is the whole point of a mnemonic, after all.

My Biology 1 class in high school created our own mnemonic for zoological classification:
Kathy Picks Crud Out From Geritol Samples (Kingdom/Phylum/Class/Order/Family/Genus/Species)

Also silly, but I still remember it after 25 years. :-)

Paul TS Lee

Re: Mnemonic Ideas

[ninevirtues.livejournal.com]

Well, hello! I had no idea you lurked here, Paul. It's good to hear from you!

Now, SURELY I can make this into an.... anagram?

[(Anonymous)]

acronym
One entry found for acronym.

Main Entry: ac·ro·nym
Pronunciation: 'a-kr&-"nim
Function: noun
Etymology: acr- + -onym
: a word (as NATO, radar, or laser) formed from the initial letter or letters of each of the successive parts or major parts of a compound term; also : an abbreviation (as FBI) formed from initial letters : INITIALISM

Re: Now, SURELY I can make this into an.... anagram?

[ninevirtues.livejournal.com]

Ladies and gentlemen, I'm gratified by the attention my verbal floundering has received.... now I've got it...

FOIB is the acronym for (foley, oxygen, iv, bedrail).

Paul Lee, in a surprising and highly welcome drive-by posting, gave me a mnemonic... as did Hilarypoet.

I asked for an anagram (which is a word formed from the same letters as the starter word... for example, STAIN is an anagram of SATIN. Finickynarcane's "O! Fib!" comes closest.)

At the end of the day, though, despite all the excellent suggestions, I look at the patient and mentally say "FOIB!" (However, some of these suggestions will come in handy for an entirely unexpected reason: Everyone who works in PT at the hospital takes a weekend rotation, oh, every six or seven weeks. Two of the highly competent male PTs, who have never worked anything but outpatient in their lives, are more than a little nervous about their weekend in acute care. Because both of them seem like the type to have a passing acquaintance with the bar scene, I can smile and tell them to Fight Only In Bars. :-)