No Picnic? Really?

They say emergency medicine and critical care are no picnic, but I’ve been trying to change that. There’s something about sitting down on a blanket and sharing protected time for conversation that makes for good team building and effective communication. If you have snacks, it’s even better.
In the emergency department or intensive care unit one sometimes has to be opportunistic regarding finding time for teaching, debriefing a resuscitation case, or even eating. We end up doing these things (if at all) on the fly, in a rushed manner, and often standing up. Do we really have to? All you need for a picnic is a blanket, a floor, and some people. Hospitals have these. If you don’t want to be seen, pop outside or use a bed space with a curtain round it.

 

Picnic Debrief
Here’s an example of an impromptu picnic. It was late in the evening, early 2013. After two busy resus cases, my senior registrar and I debrief picnic-style, with potato chips from a vending machine and a nice pot of tea. We’re still in the ED and available to our team, but anyone can clearly see we’re in the ‘picnic zone’ and so we’re left alone for ten minutes to gather our thoughts and identify any learning points. The ED is usually a factory of interruption, but no-one wants to interrupt a picnic.

 

Picnic Teaching
Here’s resident teaching. We don’t have time to leave the ED, but there’s always time for a picnic, during which we cover a surprising number of critical care topics. People won’t fall asleep while picnicking.

 

Picnic Picnic
And here’s a picnic with the intensive care trainees outside the unit. This is actually lunch, but why shouldn’t lunch be a picnic once in a while?

We’re encouraged to practice mindfulness and take mental time out as a way to prevent or manage stress in the critical care environment. I think this is enhanced with an accompanying brief physical time out too. One person sitting on a blanket on the floor might be a weirdo. Get two or more people, and you have a picnic. Everyone loves a picnic.