ERNursey wants to know: What do you people do with the christmas trees off the flo-meters anyway? Why do you take them off?

Not a comprehensive list by any means:

1. Take them off the flow meter, add some beads, and you can make a kick-ass ID Badge lanyard.

2. A naughty little addition to that voodoo doll you made.

3. As, well, Christmas/fir trees for your kid’s miniature doll house yard.

4. They go for about a buck apiece. They’re always in demand. I think patients steal them and sell them on the black market.

5. Respiratory Therapy hoards them.

6. Add a little ball on top, some wings on the back, a little halo: instant green angel finger puppet.

Okay, so the real reason we take them off the oxygen flow meters is so that we can put them on the portable oxygen tanks when the patient goes off the unit. Why don’t all the portable oxygen tanks have them? I don’t know. See above.

The other reason we take them off is because when someone is on a high rate of oxygen (my own personal threshold is about 4L/min) we like to add humidity so the flow doesn’t dry the patient’s nose so much. Adding the humidifier requires us to take the adapter off the flow meter so that we can screw the water bottle directly on to it. The little green tree gets set down and the next RT that goes into the room scoops it up.

It’s like a compulsion for them. Kind of like RN’s and pens.

I hope that answered your question! Anyone else??