We've all been there. Imagine your unit suddenly turning into a battlefield. Many bad things are happening at once. There is a crashing patient coming out of the OR or ED. An acute bed crunch is taking place and nurses are being pressured to transfer patients elsewhere in order to make room for sicker ones. Patients are climbing out of bed everywhere. The tele alarms won't stop going off. Phones are ringing off the hook and the secretary, as usual, is nowhere to be seen. It's 5pm and all the managers have left for the day. Now someone falls, then maybe a rapid response or code occurs. The entire pace of the unit has shifted dramatically. The small talk has stopped and people are shouting commands across the unit. Everything is amped up for the next two hours, and the environment is no longer therapeutic for you or for the patients.
For some of us, depending on where we work, this sort of shift in the pace of the unit happens seldom. For others, it happens every other day. It all depends on what type of unit we work in and the shift. However, regardless of those factors, most of us have experienced it on at least a few occasions and by the end of the day, we feel pretty run down.
The purpose of this thread is to discuss how you deal with these situations. What do you do when people are shouting at you and pressuring you to move patients. Do you tune those people out and keep doing what you're doing in order to maintain focus? Do you inadvertently start rushing tasks that require deft hands, patience, and focus? Does it cause you to make mistakes?
One of the things I will do when the unit picks up and people start going crazy, people are shouting, and tele alarms and bed alarms are going off non stop is to take my break, if I didn't do it already. I'll find the least busy person I can and tell them I have to go do something and will be off the floor for fifteen minutes, and can they please watch my patients. Then I use that time to sit down and gather myself and prepare for the rest of the day. I find that that kind of "pause" helps me function enormously better for the rest of the shift and makes me far more productive and able to contribute to my coworkers better. In really acute situations, like a code, I'll go to the bathroom and wait there for a bit so that the initial dust can settle. In those situations, people are shoving each other around the bedside, carts and furniture are being flung, linens are flying, and people are charging down the hall to do compressions and that kind of situation is just not therapeutic for me. So during those times I tend to go to the bathroom until the situation has calmed down a bit. Then after things are under better control I'll help with compressions, transferring, and so forth.
Use this thread to discuss the challenges you personally have faced in these scenarios and your strategies for making the situation more therapeutic for you.
Now when your co-coworkers are running around, do they look beautiful with loose, flowing hair or do they look all slovenly with their ponytails and Sketchers shoes? That's what I need to know!
I work in a CTICU and there is always a literal swarm of people at every code. It is so bloody packed that people can barely navigate in the coding patient's room and we actually have to tell people to go away because of how ridiculously crowded it is, between surgeons, midlevels, nurses who are just trying to "make an appearance." The number of people in the room is a hinderance, not a help. It isn't good when people can't bring over meds from the code cart to the actual patient because the room is chock full of rubberneckers who are just diddling around. People are way too overzealous and I think part of it is due to ICU staff loving to grandstand and needing to be the center of attention. STAND BACK..!!Look at ME! I'm skilled..!! So...yeah, I'm usually not needed if it isn't my patient coding. However, if I were asked to do compressions or push meds, I always do.
The daily stuff you get paid to do isn't supposed to be "therapeutic" for you. That's why it's called work.
I think it should be therapeutic for everyone.
I am a proponent of nurse-centered care over patient-centered care. Nurse-centered care utilizes a nurse's unique set of skills to maximize patient outcomes by integrating their individual preferences and goals to make them as productive and helpful to patients as possible.
Yeah, sounds like this guy needs to be a yoga instructor or something, so he can feel "therapeutic ". Wonder what he does if it's his patient crumping?������������
Yeah, sounds like this guy needs to be a yoga instructor or something, so he can feel "therapeutic ". Wonder what he does if it's his patient crimping?[emoji33][emoji33]
Specializes in MCH,NICU,NNsy,Educ,Village Nursing.
"One of the things I will do when the unit picks up and people start going crazy, people are shouting, and tele alarms and bed alarms are going off non stop is to take my break, if I didn't do it already. I'll find the least busy person I can and tell them I have to go do something and will be off the floor for fifteen minutes, and can they please watch my patients. Then I use that time to sit down and gather myself and prepare for the rest of the day. I find that that kind of "pause" helps me function enormously better for the rest of the shift and makes me far more productive and able to contribute to my coworkers better. In really acute situations, like a code, I'll go to the bathroom and wait there for a bit so that the initial dust can settle. In those situations, people are shoving each other around the bedside, carts and furniture are being flung, linens are flying, and people are charging down the hall to do compressions and that kind of situation is just not therapeutic for me. So during those times I tend to go to the bathroom until the situation has calmed down a bit. Then after things are under better control I'll help with compressions, transferring, and so forth."
This is troublesome to me. Maybe you need to be in a less stressful environment instead of adding more stress to your coworkers during these times. When I've faced these types of challenges, I've fought the "flight" of the "fight or flight" impulse and hung around, making myself useful however I can. I'm not the most important person in that moment--the patient and my coworkers are. I don't think I would want to work with you as I don't feel like you would have my back when I needed you.
I hope you find a better place for you, both for your sake and for the sake of your coworkers, and perhaps even your patients.
We've all been there. Imagine your unit suddenly turning into a battlefield. Many bad things are happening at once. There is a crashing patient coming out of the OR or ED. An acute bed crunch is taking place and nurses are being pressured to transfer patients elsewhere in order to make room for sicker ones. Patients are climbing out of bed everywhere. The tele alarms won't stop going off. Phones are ringing off the hook and the secretary, as usual, is nowhere to be seen. It's 5pm and all the managers have left for the day. Now someone falls, then maybe a rapid response or code occurs. The entire pace of the unit has shifted dramatically. The small talk has stopped and people are shouting commands across the unit. Everything is amped up for the next two hours, and the environment is no longer therapeutic for you or for the patients.
For some of us, depending on where we work, this sort of shift in the pace of the unit happens seldom. For others, it happens every other day. It all depends on what type of unit we work in and the shift. However, regardless of those factors, most of us have experienced it on at least a few occasions and by the end of the day, we feel pretty run down.
The purpose of this thread is to discuss how you deal with these situations. What do you do when people are shouting at you and pressuring you to move patients. Do you tune those people out and keep doing what you're doing in order to maintain focus? Do you inadvertently start rushing tasks that require deft hands, patience, and focus? Does it cause you to make mistakes?
One of the things I will do when the unit picks up and people start going crazy, people are shouting, and tele alarms and bed alarms are going off non stop is to take my break, if I didn't do it already. I'll find the least busy person I can and tell them I have to go do something and will be off the floor for fifteen minutes, and can they please watch my patients. Then I use that time to sit down and gather myself and prepare for the rest of the day. I find that that kind of "pause" helps me function enormously better for the rest of the shift and makes me far more productive and able to contribute to my coworkers better. In really acute situations, like a code, I'll go to the bathroom and wait there for a bit so that the initial dust can settle. In those situations, people are shoving each other around the bedside, carts and furniture are being flung, linens are flying, and people are charging down the hall to do compressions and that kind of situation is just not therapeutic for me. So during those times I tend to go to the bathroom until the situation has calmed down a bit. Then after things are under better control I'll help with compressions, transferring, and so forth.
Use this thread to discuss the challenges you personally have faced in these scenarios and your strategies for making the situation more therapeutic for you.
I read about the first two paragraphs and said, "oh good! This is gonna be a good post! I'll learn a lot!" And then, no. That didn't happen.
You really need to stop psyching me out like this.
macawake, MSN
2,141 Posts