Well, there is a first for everything

I have a tough patient at work today. To make a very long story short, she is refusing to have a c-section based on her faith. It is not for sure that a c-section will be necessary, but her baby is
very high risk, so it is a possibility. This is the first time in my hospital social work career that an order has been written in the chart stating that there cannot be a social worker in her room until after delivery. I guess I really made her angry (or she is a bit crazy), (I think it is the latter), so she asked the doctor to not let a social worker talk to her until after the baby is born. :) How crazy is that? anyway, since i am not here over the weekend, i am going to have to pass this case along to the ER social worker. I am not happy about this because I would really like to finish talking with her to ensure the safety of that baby. Anyway, that is life. No one ever told me being a social worker would be easy or fun all the time.

Well, Halloween came and went. We had a few trick or treaters at our house, but not that many. we have a ton of candy left over for our party this weekend. we did carve a very cute pumpkin. it is ghost and beneath the ghost it says, Boo!. it is very cute. well, i have mixed feelings about this weekend. I am really excited about our housewarming party on saturday, but i am definitely not looking forward to all the class work i have to do. I have a research proposal paper due in my monday class. This is turning out to be much more challenging than i thought it would be. I have never really written this kind of paper, so i am having to start from scratch and learn how to do it. In my tuesday class, we have a panel presentation on a theory of our choice that applies to our area. I have chosen social cognitive theory because it is very applicable for prevention programming. well, we have to put together a powerpoint and a nice, detailed presentation. I also have a meeting with my professor on monday before class to go over an outline (that i have not written yet) for my paper that is due in a couple of weeks. Oh my goodness. even typing this all out makes me feel overwhelmed. anyway, i have started on the powerpoint and the research proposal, but i definitely have a lot of work that still needs to be done. I plan on working on it tonight, saturday during the day (before the party) and then all day sunday. wish me luck. I think the middle of the semester is always the toughest time.

there are also tons of changes happening at work right now. It has been decided by our new president that the social workers and case managers are going to integrate. we are not merging departments, but we are integrating. it is still to be decided exactly what that means, but i am certain it cannot be good. case managers are nurses that do chart reviews and such to determine if a patient should be in the hospital. we have meetings from 8-5 tuesday through friday of next week to learn all the new stuff we will be doing. i am not sure how we are going to get all our work done, while we are meetings all day, but i have been told that the hospital staff on our floors are supposed to take care of it. we will see how all that goes. another big change is that the pediatric floor is being closed. so, i am also not sure what that means as far as my job duties. I might be asked to take on an adult floor which i really don't want to do. anyway, all this to say, there are some major changes going on at work. I plan to wait and see how it all goes and make a decision about whether to stay or go when everything is all said and done. the benefits here are just so great in so many ways. i will just wait and see.

anyway, i hope you are all well. have a great weekend.