Law II: Gomers go to ground

The one thing that Roy (an intern, and the main character in the House of God) can predict is that all gomers will fall. For sure.
Therefore it is necessary to either minimise the damage - with restraints/sedatives/low beds; or maximise the damage - by elevating the bed (and all hospital beds do go up a fair way) in order to be able to TURF*.

We certainly do not maximise damage. Neither do we do much to minimise it: patients are not restrained; they are only sedated should they be a danger (that the nurses find difficult to handle) to themselves or other patients; and they all have low beds.

There are two categories of patients who tend to fall. The newly chair-bound (from being bed-bound) have yet to re-learn the art of sitting, so in the meantime slowly slide down the chair, until a passing nurse sits them back again, or they end up sprawled on the floor. Or the frail mobile patients, who are constantly lurching up and down (inspite of or ignoring the walking stick/frame), making the paranoid in you want to cover the ward in feather pillows. They tend to remain upright for a large part of their admission, but just before they are due to go back home or transferred to a hard-won bed at a psychiatric/rehabilitation ward start to fall.

That said, I can only recall a few falls** - mostly from the newly chair-bound - and none of them have come to much harm (touch wood!).

.... partially correct.

*TURF - ie to get rid of; in this case to TURF the patient to ther orthopods. A failed TURF (ie a fracture for which little can be done, like a pubic ramus#) is a BOUNCE. In order to ensure a sucessful TURF, it is necessary to BUFF a patient's record - ie make it more attractive. The Fat Man believes in the 'revolving door' as the main focus of medical care delivery - ie patients go round and round, from one specialty to the other, til they either die, or manage to leave.

**time for an amusing anecdote: there was a gentleman (can't remember why he was in hospital) who insisted that he was unable to walk, and only gave into physio three weeks into his admission. it was felt that he would benefit from a frame. however, instead of using the zimmer frame for support, he would carry it, firmly gripped in both hands, at shoulder level! And he was perfectly steady!!