Wong-Baker Faces Vs Pain In My Ass Rating Scale Reviewed.

Neither medicine nor nursing is practiced at the bedside anymore.  Charting has consumed our professions.  Charting is the act of writing and documenting patient care details. Do you want to know where your doctor or nurse is?  More than likely, they have their heads buried in a computer somewhere far away from your every need.

You're having pain, you say?  Your call light is going unanswered, you say?  Don't worry, your nurse is probably at the computer down the hall charting your Wong-Baker Faces Pain Rating Scale.  If you've ever been admitted to a hospital, I'm sure you've seen these cartoon-like facial images depicting pain and a number associated with that level of pain.  The scale offers a number from 0-10 with zero indicating no pain and ten meaning "hurts worst." For the general public, please note the scale ends at ten.  If you say you have 12/10 pain, your electronic charting will spit out a value of not acceptable (N/A).  Nurses have been instructed to treat N/A as 0/10 pain.

I'm sorry Mrs Wong and or whomever you are.  Your pain scale is irrelevant into today's excessive charting environment.  Nurses just don't have time to care about answering their patient's call light in a reasonable amount of time.  They don't have time to provide bedside pain scale evaluations that your organization is so proud of.  They are  too busy trying to figure out the newest change of the week in their EHR.  

So, what's important for nurses to know and to document these days?  Welcome to  Happy's Pain In My Ass Scale.  Nurses don't care if their patients are having pain.  During nursing checkout, they want to know from their colleagues if their patient is going to be a pain in the ass today.  So The Happy Hospitalist has created a proprietary new pain scale for use by nurses, for nurses, to help them summarize how their day is going to be.  By charting this 5th vital sign, nurses can emotionally prepare for their tough day in the trenches.  Go forth great nurses.  Help your fellow nurses prepare for their day by always charting your Pain In My Ass Scale!

"Pain in my ass rating scale."

Now, please enjoy some original crude medical humor, only from The Happy Hospitalist.

"I'll answer your call light as soon as I'm done charting your pain in my ass scale."

Please remember though, patient selection bias is an important variable when determining how to interpret the pain in my ass scale. For example, the pretest probability for successful use is high when patients are directly admitted from a primary care physician's office with 10/10 abdominal pain, but shows up 6 hours later from their 3 mile distance because they went home for a nap and some KFC, as this original Happy crude medical e-card helps to explain.

"If it takes you six hours to get to the hospital from clinic because you went home for a nap and some KFC, you're not going to get my A-game when you show up at my inconvenience."

"Sometimes the doctors are a bigger pain in my ass than the patient."

"ER universal pain scale."

"I have a very low pain in my ass threshold.  Just so you know."

To view this ecard product selection, turn off the “content filter” function on the left hand side of the Zazzle store linked above.



"No ma'am.  Your not being a pain in my ass.  My charting can wait while I tend to your lazy adult son's every need."

This post is for entertainment purposes only and likely contains humor only understood by those in a healthcare profession. Read at your own risk.

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