Acute COVID, What We're Seeing

guest1143956 · Apr 2, 2020

It's the bedside NURSES on the front line doing the hard work. It is the bedside nurses who spend the most time with these patients by a long shot. Bedside nurses by far have the highest risk of exposure to high viral loads because they spend far more time with these patients than all of the other medical positions combined. Any ED or ICU bedside nurse will tell you that ED physicians are in these rooms 5 minutes tops, and in the ICU the physicians ONLY enter the room for intubations and then never return to the room for the duration of the patient stay or life, even if the patient CODES. Both ED and ICU doctors never enter these rooms again. Some of them don't even touch the patient to assess them. Some doctors stand at the patient door entrance as far away from the patient as possible, putting in 20-40 nursing orders on the computer. Some doctors will even put in an order for the nurse to assess patient lung and abdominal sounds so they can chart the nurses assessment as their own when they didn't even actually touch the patient. ED bedside nurses are working 12 hrs w/o so much as a fifteen minute break. Lunch? Forget about it. Some ED's are having nurses and patient care techs getting exposed to CT scanner radiation 2-3 times a shift without film badges, OSL detectors or dosimeters to measure how much radiation they are getting exposed to. I know many other ER and ICU nurses who are reporting identical experiences. The bedside nurse in the ED is planted alone at the bedside for an extended length of time carrying out 20-40 orders on these patients because the patient techs, doctors, charge nurses, lab techs are NOT helping the nurse with any of these tedious tasks. Leadership gives you the stank face popping off attitudes when you ask for googles, a face shield or a mask. They will place a two year nurse as the ED manager who wouldn't know real work if it hit her in her spoiled entitled face. Just sits safely in her office, snubbing her nose.These same young managers later become House Supervisors. Much of nurse leadership, administration and House Supervisor were awful bedside nurses, have poor skill set, no critical thinking skills and poor medical knowledge yet they want to criticize, report and terminate employment of the real work horses, the"bedside nurse". Patients and family members need to know the truth. Bedside nurses are abused and studies show that the majority of nurses working either ED or ICU have PTSD. When the bedside nurse asks them to bring supplies for various tasks to the door, they are resistant, pretend they don't hear, have attitudes, etc. which places the bedside nurses at greater risk bc they are having to risk exposing themselves to this virus from taking off protective equipment several times and them putting it back on just to exit the patient room to get supplies which the 8-10 people just outside the patient room could have gotten and placed outside the patient room for the bedside nurse to grab. Several doctors, doctor scribes, unit clerk, patient techs, charge nurse, and House Supervisor sometimes are sitting their orifices down doing nothing while they all hear the primary nurse asking for supplies. Everyone knows that the risk of exposing yourself to this virus increases the more times you take off protective equipment. Many doctors are inconsiderate to these nurses who are actually the ones on the front line. These doctors will order things which they could have ordered much earlier with the initial orders right after the primary nurse exits the room. They will trickle in these orders non-stop so there is never an end to the primary nurse risking exposure on the front line in close proximity to these suspected COVID patients, many of which test positive. While the primary nurse is struggling alone in these rooms with COVID patients who also need diaper changes, bedpan, bedside commode, etc. the charge nurses have zero problem giving that same nurse 3 back to back EMS patients, fresh off the ambulance, all of which have 20-30 tedious labor intensive orders being placed via physicians per patient so when the primary nurse finally thinks they are done in the COVID room, here goes the COVID patient asking for the bedpan. It's not their fault, they are innocent so I'm going to respect them and give them the best care and treatment possible. YES I'm going right back into that COVID room to care for that patient and keep them as comfortable and relaxed as possible after putting several pieces of protective equipment back on because no one else is going to go in that room to help my patient. Certainly not the physician, even though he knows I have 2 chest pains and an abdominal pain that just came in back to back via EMS who are ALSO my patients. I love my patients and most of them appreciate the work nurses do.The doctor has also placed 4 new orders on that same COVID patient right after the nurse has exited the room. Never even gives the nurse the respect or courtesy to send a message via the computer or call via the nurses phone while the nurse is in the room to let them know he will be entering these new additional orders. So here it is again, the nurse has to get dressed in protective equipment again, but not before the nurse ensures that all critical orders are carried out on the 3 new patients first like, placing them on the telemetry monitor to continuously monitor their blood pressures, heart rate, oxygen saturation, respiratory rate, getting an EKG, standard chest pain meds administered, new IV starts, blood draw, etc, etc, etc; the list goes on and no it never ends because now the other physician assigned to another one of my patients is now complaining to the charge nurse that I'm taking too long to carry out the 4 new non-critical orders placed on the COVID. How dare you? SIR! I am NOT omnipresent nor can I replicate myself. Who is helping me with these patients? NO ONE! That's who. So far as I can tell, nurses are doing OUTSTANDING jobs carrying out what most can't do, won't do, refuse to do or can't even comprehend is possible. Unrealistic expectations are insulting and abusive. How about you ask the charge nurse or the other 8 people warming seats at the nurses station to carry out your 4 new non-critical orders while the primary nurse is attending to critical orders on possible HEART ATTACK patients. No, but you won't do that. Doctor and charge nurse will sit and warm seats and wait for nurse to be done with many orders far more critical than the ones he is whining about. They both will wait, so the nurse can do the work when they both were able bodied and certified to do it themselves but choose instead to sit and warm seats eating snacks conversing about the Coronavirus. The hypocrisy is cheeto flaming hot. Physicians, NP's and PA's are all warming seats at the nurses station, talking among themselves, eating snacks, eating meals, playing on their iphones, dictating to their scribes what to type for them, etc. The nurses do all the got darn work. I've only met a handful of providers in the last 2 decades who actually help nurses who are drowning. These are the few I respect and admire. The majority of these providers MD's, DO's, NP's and PA's are entitled, arrogant, selfish, inconsiderate narcissists and sociopaths who get paid top dollar to do what nurses can do all while running circles around them splitting their arrogant lettuces, cabbages and olives. Artificial Intelligence will be replacing these useless parasites in less than a decade. AI is being developed with algorithms which think far better than any physician. This software is smart, exact, and precise leaving no stone un-turned. Any experienced ED or ICU nurse, is far superior in life saving capabilites than most physicians. FACTS. You have these baby doctors fresh out of school talking down to nurses, humiliating nurses, bullying nurses and getting them fired simply because they are threatened by nurses who are superior in skill set, knowledge base and critical thinking skills. You can be the most respectful, hard working and great nurse but some of these millennial doctors will sabotage your career and employment in a heartbeat. There is a ton of narcissism and sociopathy going on in the ED. Physicians are untouchable. Upper administration treat nurses like crap. Many in leadership positions are evil, plain and simple. If a leader is actually empathetic and has integrity they are terminated in no time. You only advance in healthcare if you are a narcissist or a sociopath, plan and simply. It's extremely irritating how many of these physicians are out here acting like they are the victims, pretending they are on the front lines. I call BS! So these providers need to stop acting like they are the archangels of COVID because they are not, it's the nurses. If I went into graphic detail all of the tasks, interventions, charting, etc that the primary nurse ALONE is responsible for, the public would not be able to even to conceive how it is even possible that nurses are doing ALL of this. A few months ago I read an article in the New York Times written by an ED physician who went on and on about what a 12 hour shift looks like for them. This physician straight up told lie after lie after lie claiming that she did this and she did that. Excuse me heifer, sorry to burst your lying bubble but NO YOU DID NOT. You did NOT do all of those things that you claimed in your disgusting article, the NURSES did ALL of that. You simply sat there warming a chair most of the shift and clicked on the 20-40 interventions that you wanted the nurse to actually do. So stop lying you malignant attention seeking liar. The nurses do the REAL work, don't you ever get that confused. Most hospitals are not compensating bedside nurses for risking their LIVES yet will continue to give bonuses and outrageous salaries to the upper administrative ranks, medical director, CEO, CNO and CFO who are NOT on the front lines.

Anonymous666 · Apr 2, 2020

11 hours ago, Patrice said:
***snip***

I’ve worked all over, and this does not surprise me at all.

As a side note, I have worked in a training hospital, and those young docs were extremely hands on and respectful. Nurses were seen as colleagues.

Most places, though, are as described by Patrice.

“Follow the chain of command” is all well and good, but without starting a ******* revolution, she’s just gonna find herself without a job and more than likely reprimanded by the board for any act of strike, etc. during this pandemic