Hospital Mental Teardown

[Terabyte2007]

Ok, not sure if this is normal behavior but I had spent the last few days in the hospital and the majority of my time spent there, I was trying to do mental and visual teardowns of their equipment. The brand new CT Scanner was very cool. Shouldn't a person be more concerned about themselves than the equipment? My wife even had a chuckle, at one point she saw me examining one of the devices and stated; "You really want to take that home and take it apart don't you?". 

Sigh...

[Neilm]

Not sure what you are saying - sounds perfectly normal to me

[Falcon69]

Not sure it is normal, but.....

After being a cabinet maker/furniture builder for years, I tend to notice a lot of mistakes in the craftsmanship of everything everywhere I go. I think it's just part of what makes you, well, YOU.

So, you're not the only one that does this.

 

[rollatorwieltje]

[SeanB]

You mean like noticing that the lights are not quite centred in the corridor, and that there are 5 tubes that are mercury starved in the long corridor to the ward, or that the cover on some of the socket outlets are cracked..........

Or that the battery on the patient monitor is past it's service date by a week, or that the door that holds it is not aligned correctly, with a trapped battery lead bulging it out in one section. That the call button has a loose cord grip, and a cracked housing.

I did find one of the maintenance guys there though going out one evening, and had a nice chat with him ( and you do not want to see what is behind those locked service doors either, hanging cables and horror bodge repairs deluxe) and the next day the lights were fixed.

[IanB]

There's a lot of interesting stuff in hospitals. You can have fun with the blood oxygen sensor (the one that clips on your finger and shines light through it). Put it on your finger and then hold your breath for as long as possible and see how low you can make the reading go. If you're good you should be able to get it below 30% and give the doctors a fright.

[Towger]

When I am brought shopping by the wife, I find looking at the lighting system, ventilating system, fire alarm system and general structure of the building much more interesting than the new pair of shoes she wants to buy.

Actually when #3 was born by CS, I thought it better to keep my mouth shut than to ask the surgeon about their new operating theater lights, which appeared consist of separate RGB LEDS behind the diffuser.

[Terabyte2007]

I found myself hacking the IV machine, it was in need of "IVL Maintenance", obviously over that scheduled maintenance period along with the charge cycle of the internal battery which was actually fairly quick compared to the runtime of 6 hours on a 1-1/2 hour charge. Found a maintenance menu and was able to check the status of various items. 

 I also found myself checking the equipment AC plugs to make sure that were hospital grade UL listed and which receptacles were hospital grade.   

The touchscreen controls on the X-Ray machine had all kinds of goodies but I had no time to explore them, I think the tech would have gotten a bit upset if I had done that.

[Terabyte2007]

When I am brought shopping by the wife, I find looking at the lighting system, ventilating system, fire alarm system and general structure of the building much more interesting than the new pair of shoes she wants to buy.

Actually when #3 was born by CS, I thought it better to keep my mouth shut than to ask the surgeon about their new operating theater lights, which appeared consist of separate RGB LEDS behind the diffuser.

Oh no doubt! I find myself drawn to all of that and more when clothes or shoe shopping with the wife.

[Vgkid]

I read the title as "Mental Hospital teardown", and was intrigued.

[Terabyte2007]

I read the title as "Mental Hospital teardown", and was intrigued.

That's funny! 

 Although that could be quite intriguing...

[electr_peter]

I read the title as "Mental Hospital teardown", and was intrigued.

I read it as "Mental (i. e. mind) teardown/breakdown in hospital".

[mtdoc]

There's a lot of interesting stuff in hospitals. You can have fun with the blood oxygen sensor (the one that clips on your finger and shines light through it). Put it on your finger and then hold your breath for as long as possible and see how low you can make the reading go. If you're good you should be able to get it below 30% and give the doctors a fright.

30% and you're dead. Even 70% (unless acclimated) and you're likely dead. A healthy ( non acclimated) person will not be able to get it below 90% (and probably not below 95%). If you're seeing lower it's artifactual

[mtdoc]

I have this problem from the other side. Every time I round on a patient in the ICU and I spot a new piece of monitoring equipment, I find myself looking at it. Patients don't like that. 

[SeanB]

Not really, there they tend to have bars.......... Depending on the hospital you might even have chains as well. But as a plus there you do have **very** motivated nursing staff, they are very quick to bring out the sedatives or the cloth restraints.

[SeanB]

I have this problem from the other side. Every time I round on a patient in the ICU and I spot a new piece of monitoring equipment, I find myself looking at it. Patients don't like that. 

At least you can read the manual......... Helps to know what that beeping is for.

[Zeyneb]

Ok, not sure if this is normal behavior but I had spent the last few days in the hospital and the majority of my time spent there, I was trying to do mental and visual teardowns of their equipment. The brand new CT Scanner was very cool. Shouldn't a person be more concerned about themselves than the equipment? My wife even had a chuckle, at one point she saw me examining one of the devices and stated; "You really want to take that home and take it apart don't you?". 

Sigh...

Well I just think you diagnosed yourself being an engineer.

Nothing close to me however; apart from being engineer I'm also enlightened with autism.

[steve30]

Lighting is a very good thing to observe when out and about. So many different types, different uses, different faults etc. Recently I've seen several LED retrofit lamps flickering in commercial settings (probably they failed).

I had an MRI scan a few years ago and couldn't help but wonder how the machine worked.

[IanB]

There's a lot of interesting stuff in hospitals. You can have fun with the blood oxygen sensor (the one that clips on your finger and shines light through it). Put it on your finger and then hold your breath for as long as possible and see how low you can make the reading go. If you're good you should be able to get it below 30% and give the doctors a fright.

30% and you're dead. Even 70% (unless acclimated) and you're likely dead. A healthy ( non acclimated) person will not be able to get it below 90% (and probably not below 95%). If you're seeing lower it's artifactual

OK, that was a bit of an exaggeration. But I believe people who have trained to hold their breath for several minutes, like free divers, really can see the saturation reading go low enough to raise eyebrows. A completely unpracticed person here can drop it down into the low 80's:

[Terabyte2007]

Lighting is a very good thing to observe when out and about. So many different types, different uses, different faults etc. Recently I've seen several LED retrofit lamps flickering in commercial settings (probably they failed).

I had an MRI scan a few years ago and couldn't help but wonder how the machine worked.

What I know is that an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) uses an extremely strong magnetic field which briefly alters the electrons in your atoms and when they fall back to their normal orbits or positions they release energy that can be detected and measured.

I'm sure there is more to than that, but that is a general idea as far as I know.

[timofonic]

Ok, not sure if this is normal behavior but I had spent the last few days in the hospital and the majority of my time spent there, I was trying to do mental and visual teardowns of their equipment. The brand new CT Scanner was very cool. Shouldn't a person be more concerned about themselves than the equipment? My wife even had a chuckle, at one point she saw me examining one of the devices and stated; "You really want to take that home and take it apart don't you?". 

Sigh...

Well I just think you diagnosed yourself being an engineer.

Noting close to me however; apart from being engineer I'm also enlightened with autism.

Autists,ADHD, engineers, scientists... aren't they the same? 

Fuck off neurotypical! Only mad people are able to change the world!


I know many very intelligent people that have not typical behaviours. Many of them have some autistic or ADHD traits, despite many of them develop advanced social skills.

My private tutor is a retired EE that worked at the telecommunications sector. He's very intelligent but disorganized, but he's able to read and understand new concepts at speed of light! He likes to talk and sometimes get out of topic (we may end up talking about transportation and other topics), but corrects himself fastly. He explains stuff in a very didactic way, better than all my teachers at the vocational training school. I wish I had a father like him, but I'm aware I pay him to teach me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60P1xG32Feo.

[TSL]

Yep I hear ya.

I had to have some Xrays done and they had new digital machines and I got engrossed in a conversation with the Xray tech about how it all worked while my wife was freaking out in the waiting room wondering why I was taking so long!

cheers

Tim

[mtdoc]

OK, that was a bit of an exaggeration. But I believe people who have trained to hold their breath for several minutes, like free divers, really can see the saturation reading go low enough to raise eyebrows.

The body can adapt (via a few different physiological mechanisms) to lower oxygen saturation levels. Chronic lung disease and altitude being the most common causes. I've seen someone at altitude with an O2 sat of 65% functioning fine.

A completely unpracticed person here can drop it down into the low 80's:

Unless they have lung disease or otherwise acclimated to hypoxia it is artifactual. Just because it displays a low number doesn't mean their SpO2 is actually that low. It happens all the time. For example peripheral vasoconstriction (which some people can learn to do on command) will cause artifactually low readings. But if they can drop it down reliably and hold it for more than a second or two, it's a neat party trick!

[lapm]

Lol, i do that all the time. Always curious enough to wonder how something might work...

[Stonent]

Last time I was at the hospital they gave me a shot of morphine.  I can tell you the ceiling tiles were EXTREMELY interesting to me for some reason.