Good/Bad Nurses,Respiratory Therapist and LVN

When I was a student doing my clinical rotation at an LTC subacute facility 7 months ago, one of the nurses was rude, crazy, unstable, and cut plenty of corners.

She basically pencil-whipped her flow sheets and documentation. For example, she'd document that the comatose patient's axillary temperature was 98.6 degrees; however, the students would obtain an axillary at 104 degrees on the same patient less than five minutes later. This nurse documented that she performed treatments for the day, though we knew they hadn't been done. This nurse was rude, lazy, and did not deserve to be issued a state license enabling her to practice vocational nursing.

I shall add that some of my clinical instructors were the worst. One of my instructors was getting ready to administer a patient's Albuterol treatment for 2.5 mg in normal saline (the order); however, she ended up giving 15 mg, which was five times the normal dose. The respiratory therapist stopped her before she ended up harming the comatose client.

Another instructor prepared meds without ensuring it was for the right client, and she was going to give them to the wrong client if a student had not stopped her.

Since most of my instructors had not worked in the hospital setting for quite a while, they allowed their skills to become rusty and somewhat lackluster. They were making honest mistakes and didn't realize they were harming anyone until a student or other nurse would intervene. These were honest errors and not something that was done on purpose.