need some nurse to nurse medical advice

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in Med Surg, Parish Nurse, Hospice.

i need some advice, been sick since friday. did go to work- am a hospice nurse doing home calls. spoke with my md and got an antibiotic for white patches on my throat. temp over the weekend up to 100.6. been in bed most of the time. when will i feel well enough to go back to work. supposed to work monday and be on call monday night. we all know how calling in is frowned upon. it seems to me that health care providers are supposed to be all healthy, all the time. any help or advice. thanks

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Specializes in Med-Surg, Trauma, Ortho, Neuro, Cardiac.

You're sick. Do not work and expose your patients and perhaps make yourself sicker by not getting the proper rest. If you're still feeling bad and have a fever this evening, call in for Monday and your on-call time.

We all know how hard it it is when peers call in, so we know what we're doing to them when we ourselves call in. But you have to get beyond that and take care of yourself.

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Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

at the end of the day you have to look after number 1-yourself. If you are sick how can you look after your patients properly. It is hard ringing in sick but you do have to look after yourself

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Specializes in nursery, L and D.

I'm with the call in crowd. Don't expose your pts to your cooties! And take care of you. Hope you feel better soon!

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I agree with everyone else: get some rest! Don't work yourself better and expose your patients to your "cooties". Get plenty of rest and follow up with your MD if you start to feel worse.

For some reason (like you said in your post) people find it so weird when a health care provider (like an RN) gets sick! They seem to think that just because we are capable of providing aide to getting people back together with themselves, that we should see the symptoms early on and start giving ourselves medication before we're even sick to prevent it all together! I find that annoying sometimes.

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Specializes in ER/Trauma.
at the end of the day you have to look after number 1-yourself. If you are sick how can you look after your patients properly. It is hard ringing in sick but you do have to look after yourself
Ditto that.

We are Nurses.

We are human ... despite what our jobs and perceptions demand us to be.

Please rest and recuperate. Taking care of yourself is as important as taking care of your patients.

Advocate for yourself!

cheers,

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Have you been checked for strep? The "white patches" would have me concerned. And, please, by all means, stay home. You don't need to "spread the joy".

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Specializes in cardiac med-surg.

CALL IN NOW ! take care too

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look after yourself

probably better not to go in to work if you are not well

hope you're feeling better

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When I started at my new LTC facility: during orientation the infection control nurse did a presentation and said if you are sick then stay home she leaves and HR comes in presents and says you are only allowed 3 sick days per year and you may need to bring in a Dr's slip and blah blah blah.....

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Specializes in Hospice, Med Surg, Long Term.

You're a Hospice nurse! Those white patches could do in every patient you see! It doesn't take much when they're already on thier deathbed. Is your Hospice 'for profit' or 'not for profit'? If your Hospice Medical Director lets you work with white patches, I would question them. You need to be on antibiotics, and free of fever for at least 24 hours before considering going back to work.

a21chdchic in AZ

I work for a 'not for profit' hospice in Yuma

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Specializes in Med Surg, Parish Nurse, Hospice.

thanks for all the advice. i have already called in for monday. am on antibiotics and am starting to feel better. have slept 90% of the weekend.

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