You know what you’re in for when the charge nurse tells you, “Get your roller-skates on.” For those unfamiliar with the phrase, you can likely infer that it is going to be a busy day, so much so that walking is not even fast enough. Nurses strolling down the hallway at a relaxed pace must be lazy or at least need another patient. If one nurse is speed-walking then so should every other nurse.

I hate roller-skate nursing, but it is all too often the pace nurses and other healthcare professionals work at as well as the pace many patients have come to expect. Bathroom? Now. Food? Now. Bed change? Now. Medicine? Now. Room? Now. Procedure? Now. Doctor? Now. More medicine? Now. Multiplied by oh, four to seven depending on the institution’s nurse-to-patient ratios.

Now. Now. Now.

Don’t get me wrong. I am a proponent of efficiency and customer service, but ever-increasing speeds often result in errors [read: deaths] from sheer speed and mental-exhaustion. Not to mention roller-skate nursing may result in nurse burnout and turnover. And the domino roller-skate nursing cycle continues.

Roller-skate nursing often caries over into roller-skate life. I work with several nurses in an office setting, and we can all down our lunches in about ten minutes – without even trying to eat fast.  I seriously asked a colleague during my first month on the job how to spend the other 50 minutes of my lunch break. Too many interrupted lunches and overlooked breaks, anyone?

Email is not fast enough. Instant gratification can’t come soon enough. Speed-reading doesn’t cut it anymore…Can someone please give me the summary in 140 characters or less? I need to unlace the roller-skates. Chances are, you do to. Take a deep breath. Enjoy life. Live in the moment. Slow down.

Carl Honore, author of In Praise of Slow, talks more about living and working the slow life in this TEDx video. Talk about slow down…the video is a whopping 20 minutes long. Enjoooy!