need some nurse to nurse medical advice

[jrbl77]

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

[ohmeowzer RN, RN]

your only human and you need to call off when your sick... if your employer dosen't understand thats their problem.. when i am sick i call off... you have to worry about your health and take care of yourself...

[MrChicagoRN, RN]

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.....

HR is concerned about policy, infection control is concerned with pat & caregiver disease transmission.

Maybe you could suggest they either coordinate their presentation, or that HR goes first.

Then the puzzled new employee can say...."Well, what about.....?"

[HeatherB,CST]

If any professional ought to call in when sick, it's a health care professional. What if your patient is immunosupressed? My brother is post-transplant, and a sick health care provider could cost him his kidney AND pancreas if he/they aren't careful. After all he's been through, and now that he's finally getting his life back, for him to die of a COLD would be the ultimate tragedy. It's not worth it.

I'm glad you made the choice to call in, even thought the pressure is on to be The Nurse Who Never Gets Sick EVER. I'm really happy to see that everyone here is in agreement. I say if some higher-up gives you a hard time about it, ask if you can have a sip from their coffee.

[maolin]

You know, I think that the recent flood of call in's on my unit and working short the last 2 weeks would have been avoided if that first RN would have simply called in sick instead of being a martyr and coming in.

But, alas, guilted into coming in and now we're all scrambling around 2 weeks later because everyone one else has caught it. If your infectious, stay home. I can't catch your headache, bad back or raging PMS (or PMDD), but I would rather not deal with your strep throat or stomach bug. KWIM?

[jrbl77, RN]

i have called the md again today and am waiting to hear back. i guess i knew all along what the right thing to do was but needed some support. in my last job and in this job,the policy has been do not call in. most jobs have started the call in 3 times in 6 mos for any reason and you get written up. call in again and face termination. i undersand why these rules were started- overuse and abuse of sick days.recently i was warned because i asked a family member if it was more important to stay home with their dying relative or go to work.

[Tait, MSN, RN]

When all else fails, get a docs excuse. I had viral gastroenteritis and he wrote me off for 4 days...I never thought I would actually need it. That was the worst weekend.