ckalston

Latest Activity

1. Patient nurse ratios for Med/Surg and Rehab

   ckalston posted a topic in General Nursing

   Hi, Couple of questions. First I am wanting to find out what a other facilities are doing in terms of nurse:patient ratios on their Acute Rehab units and their Med-Surg units. Second: What type of nursing models are most commonly being used: Prima...

2. Guys- what made you want to become a nurse?

   ckalston replied to glamgalRN's topic in Men

   I had several reasons that made me chose nursing. First I wanted something that within 2 years I could make a difference in my salary, get into a field where there would always be work and to be able to help people. After 7 years with my ADN, I pursu...

3. Charge Nurse Role

   ckalston replied to BGSRN's topic in General Nursing

   I recently became nurse manager of a med-surg unit that uses the primary nursing with a so called charge nurse. I say so-called because 21 patients will often have 3 nurses even with the charge taking patients which is simply not acceptable. We are i...

4. Desperately Seeking Info.

   ckalston replied to Christopher Sender's topic in General Nursing

   I would like to start a new thread for my question but can't seem to figure out how (call me duh). Anyhow, when we hire a new nurse at our facility we require a medication test to be done. This is all fine and good except that the test that we are us...

5. Male Nurses Gay!

   ckalston replied to tigress_8207's topic in Male Students

   I have been in nursing for 11 years, married and have two grown kids. Never have been gay, don't need to be gay (not that I am against those who are). I have to say that I may be dense, but most of the guys I know in nursing are very much into their ...

6. What age were you when you went to nursing school?

   ckalston replied to Imissthefall's topic in General Nursing

   I was 28 when I got my ADN, 35 when I got my BSN and will be 43 when I complete my MSN/MBA :)

7. just a question about Texas

   ckalston replied to prinzessdy's topic in Texas

   I live in the Hill Country (Kerrville). I use to live by Beaumont, then lived in West Texas (near Abilene) and I would have to say the Kerrville area is about the nicest area around. It does get hot, but we also have cool evenings, beautiful sunsets ...

8. Documenting post LMA removal

   ckalston replied to ckalston's topic in Operating Room

   I am working on getting something like that in our computer. We are paperless in terms of charting and most of our charting is canned text (of course we can type patient notes). Right now our choices for airway include: Extubated, Never intubated, ex...

9. Documenting post LMA removal

   ckalston posted a topic in Operating Room

   We are having a discussion about how to properly document a patient who had their airway managed by the LMA vs. the ET tube. Half the group feels that regardless of the LMA or ET tube, the airway was intubated and as such the documentation should ref...

10. Labeling equipment for floor use after disinfecting in SCS

    ckalston posted a topic in Operating Room

    We recently started labeling our IV pumps and other equipment used by the nursing units with large pieces of paper tied to a rubber band indicating that the equipment has been disinfected and ready to use. While the idea is sound, to take the time an...

11. Computer Charting in the OR, looking for users!

    ckalston replied to Charlie409's topic in Operating Room

    Our hospital has been utilizing computer charting for the past 3 years in the OR, PACU, Nursing units and now in the ER. In the PACU and OR setting, we utilize MSM documentation while the remainder of the hospital utilizes Meditech. After the short a...

12. Minimum staffing in recovery

    ckalston replied to JUDY RN CPAN's topic in Operating Room

    In our facility, our phase 1 and phase 2 and our preop staff are all the same. We have on average 4 nurses on duty per day and tend to 14-19 surgical patients from preoping, holding, recovering them and if necessary discharging them. This is a inpati...

13. Who staffs for C-Sections?

    ckalston replied to Jemma's topic in Ob/Gyn

    We are looking at the OB nurses doing the after hours recovery of C-Sections. They don't scrub in for the surgery and there are criteria. The biggest criteria is if a patient recieves general anesthesia, then the Recovery room nurse will come in and ...

14. Recovery of OR patients in CCU

    ckalston replied to gooser's topic in CRNA

    I have no problem when I see ICU nurse sitting outside patient's rooms doing whatever. My problem only occurs when I (as the house supervisor and on call recovery nurse) ask the 3 nurses sitting behind the nurses station playing games on the computer...

15. Cancelle surgeries

    ckalston replied to sharann's topic in Operating Room

    We had an incident where the patient was on the OR table and the MD happen to look at the CXR report which said patient had pneumonia. This was a patient that had been preoped as an outpatient, results had been called and faxed to the office, on admi...