Obama does 'work day' with nurse

Barack Obama returned to a campaign staple today to show he is in touch with average Americans -- he walked nearly 90 minutes in one's shoes.

On the second day of his economy-focused tour of battleground states, he shadowed a nurse on her rounds at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis.

According to a press pool report, filed by Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post:

Obama showed up at 7 a.m. at the hospital's cardiac unit, dressed in gray slacks and a white dress shirt, sleeves rolled up.

He peppered cardiac nurse Kate Marzluf, 26, with questions. When she showed him the medical charts of the five patients she was working with, he asked, “This is all in code, huh?”

When they looked at computerized monitors displaying vital signs, Obama stared intently at one patient’s squiggly lines. “How come it’s so messy?” he asked. “How old is she?”

When Obama watched Marzluf put cups and needles into a plastic tray, he asked, “I know this is a stupid question, but how do you make sure you’re not mixing stuff up?”

As the nurse talked about the morning’s procedures, Obama said some of it “makes me faint just to think about it. You’re not drawing any blood, are you?”

Obama also inquired about nurses working three 12-hour shifts and asked, “Is hospital food not as bad as it used to be?”

Then the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee went into the first patient's room,

Shelby Davis, 17, of Mineral Point, Mo. Obama gave her a tray of milk, a banana, and something under a metal cover.

Obama saw Charles Long, 39, of Belleville, Ill., get a shot and be examined with a stethoscope, then talked to Raymond Bisher, 52, a former police officer from St. John, Mo., who noted that his blood pressure on the monitor next to him appeared high.

“When reporters are around me, my blood pressure goes up too,” Obama said.

Bisher described how his wife, who has rheumatoid arthritis, is working two jobs, how one of his four sons is serving in Iraq, and how his wife's weekly shots cost $1,500 each.

“That’s $6,000 a month. Wow,” Obama said. He assured Bisher that he would make healthcare “a big priority.”

The final patient was Judy Ladage, 62, of St. Louis, a disaster response coordinator for the Lutheran Church. Obama seemed impressed by her work and the fact that she was in the hospital for a preventive procedure, to “close a little hole in my heart,” as she put it.

Obama said the healthcare system “ends up being a lot cheaper” when patients get preventive procedures ahead of time.

Afterwards, he talked to reporters about his healthcare plans to make insurance more affordable for the 47 million uninsured Americans.

Last August, Obama was among the Democratic hopefuls who took part in a Service Employees International Union workday event. He spent time with a home healthcare nurse in Alameda, Calif.

Besides adding smaller town hall meetings with voters to his huge rallies, the "work day" is Obama's latest effort to bring his campaign down to earth and connect with real people by talking about specific policies.