Night nurse, AM report

[emilysmom,RN]

I am working on a Med Surg floor. I do 4 eight hour shifts a week. This past week was my first night shift week. It was going fine until this AM. I had 5pt and one with a trach. Everything went fine until morning report. The day nurses kept asking me things I did not have answers to. For example does the pt feed himself. And does he transfer by himself. ANd why is he on an afternoon abx. Any advise.

[Mahage, LPN]

As a new nurse myself, I simply learn from the questions that are asked when I don't know the answer. For instance, The first dialysis patient I have had (school or professionally) the night nurse asked me where they were accessing him for dialysis... I did not know and I told her so and asked why she was asking. After a little bit of attitude (that happens alot) she explained why she needed to know... well now I know. What I have learned is to not be afraid to ask questions or say I don't know... just make sure you know next time! :nuke:

That is a good point. I try to anticipate what even the most specific questions could be and be able to answer when I can. We have a lot of very professional nurses who have taught me a lot through the report process. They are the ones who will go into the patients room and answer questions or demostrate things for you. Unfortunately some nurses agenda is not to get neccesary information but to play one up. The other morning I told the nurse who is notorious for nitpicking that I could not tell her the specific lab results but would be glad to go over the lab report with her. She did not like that, she wanted me to be able to name of each test that was ordered and the results. I told her I didn't know the specific tests that it was my practice to draw the labs that were printed off and then review the lab results on computer and note and deal with any abnormalities and then include a rounds report in the chart. She was not happy with this but there wasn't a whole lot said about it. She seizes every opportunity to lecture and I try to learn from her, but I do have some limits. I may someday know what info each specific lab test yields but today I am limited to reviewing orders, depending on labels and reviewing results. I don't have this stuff down to memory!

This gal will pick till she finds something you don't know. I am considering just signing the chart and walking away rather than continuing to interact with her when she pulls this crap! She signed off on a pt on days Sunday and went home. The day shift nurse who picked him up from her only had him a few hours and I came in. She gave me the report that she was given essentially. Said he had a foley....NOPE, no foley! Now sure she should have picked up on that but SUPER NITPICKER nurse wrongly passed on to her that the pt had a foley. There was also loads of confusion about his chest tube level. Wow, wish I had been the one SUPER NURSE had given that report to, oh gosh, I would have loved letting her know that, but unfortunately I wasn't the one who got that lousy report.

I have also learned to be a stereotypical Southern Belle, in that I can so nicely (drawling here) state "Why you know, last night when I relieved you, he didn't have his nexium drip hanging but I went ahead and hung it" or "you know your antibiotic had been stopped, I figured maybe you had to disconnect him for a while and then somethin' interrupted you!" They get it! Now these things are things that can happen to anybody but I just have to OH SO SWEETLY, rub it in on the ones who are jerks.

Mahage