Pet peeve

[Up2nogood RN]

So I had to float to a resp/tele floor last night and another nurse was trying to be helpful by drawing an am lab from a central line on one of my pts. Without gloves. It was perfect timing as I had just came in to check a blood sugar so I made a big production of putting gloves on just to hold the strip for the drop of blood. Oh and this is one of our union reps in a magnet hospital. Yikes is all I can say. I've also seen a nurse changing caps on a PICC without gloves. Now isn't one of the points of changing caps infection control?!?!?!

Pet peeves?

[nurse2it]

How about this one--nurses and cnas who empty urine, stool, etc into the toilet and then don't flush the toilet or rinse the graduate container or bedside commode bucket. Disgusting, wonder if they flush at home?

[PostOpPrincess, BSN, RN]

It's disappointing to know your co-workers could potentially, and almost knowingly setting up the patient to die from infection.

So careless and unthinking. A big, giant pet peeve of mine.

[nicole109]

Belgarion--I think you need to fill out a patient satisfaction survey and write all of that in BOLD letters because management seems to think that scripting works and thinks that calling patients by their first names is disrespectful...it's amazing the things that they push down our throats to try and please the patients, when scripting really can get annoying when you repeat the same paragraph 24 times in one day when completing hourly rounding, I'd likely lose my mind as well =)

[gabrielle76]

Mine is Nurses that dont wipe the ports off on IV tubing when doing a IVpush med or piggy backing a med into a port. I know its not cost effective but I always change my tubing if I was not the last person to use it. I dont know if the person befor me cared enough to take the 2 seconds to find a alcohol wipe and WIPE IT OFF!! Hello Nursing 101 people!!

[RNfaster]

One of my nursing school teachers said she felt it was important to glove before any patient contact. She said she felt it was safer for the health-care practitioners and the patients being cared for. --She noted that often patients are admitted to the hospital and then, days later, are diagnosed with MRSA.

I had initially been taught that gloving was only necessary for contact with bodily fluids.

It would be interesting to conduct some microbiology tests on a unit and see what really makes a difference and what doesn't.

[BooberRN]

PET PEEVES:

1. I hate when IV tubing runs dry. Some nurses let it run dry so that pt gets all med, but priming the tubing and getting air out of line waste antibiotic. So reset the volume and watch closely to keep IVPB tubing from going dry.

2. I can only start an IV with one glove on.....I have to be able to feel the vein with the other hand and can not feel it with a glove on. But as soon as I get a flashback and advance the needle, i have a glove nearby and place it on to protect myself. By the way, my hands are very clean when I start an IV.

3. Must wear gloves when pulling people up in bed.

4. I hate foleys that lay and/or touch the nasty floor.

[Leelee2]

The phone has more microorganisms than most urine/blood samples.

Definately do agree with that!!

[vegas2009]

EWWW.... A MUST AGREE. There are also people who go to restrooms, do their business, THEN, DO NOT WASH THEIR HANDS.

Yuck.. it's not suprising when phones, all kinds of surfaces, door handles, etc., have STD microorganisms AND E.COLI on them!

People are disgusting! This is why I avoid touching my face, head, neck area before I wash my hands. I just don't know what I got on my hands.

[mikeicurn, ASN, RN]

When I was training to be a CNA my instructor specifically told us to not wear gloves when washing peoples hair, because the gloves pull on the hair so badly. Flash forward a bit, and I was precepting in the ER and we had a code come in, they got her stablized, she had been intubated, NG tube, etc... and the nurse manager asked me to go get a rubber band for the lady's long hair to get it up and out of the way. I came back, and since all were busy I went around to the head of the bed and started to put her hair in a ponytail gloveless. Wow! That nurse manager came unglued, she yelled at me from across the room "get some gloves on", some people are just a lot more sensitive I guess. I am pretty anal about wearing gloves, I used to wear them just about all the time. I have quit wearing them when doing some things (like putting on EKG leads, unless the patient is bloody) because it is just a pain with the electrodes sticking to the gloves so badly.

[donsterRN, ASN, BSN]

The one pet peeve I can think of right now (and you know there'll be more...!) is this: urinals on the bedside table. Eww. Eww. And eww.

I glove for just about everything, I guess. That's just a holdover from nursing school. I will say, though, that there have been times that I've removed my gloves doing an IV insertion because I can't feel the vein otherwise.

Let's see, what else? Anything sticky on the floor or bedside table! Alcohol swab wrappers, saline syringe wrappers and caps and medication packet wrappers on the floor or the bed...

I sound very picky, don't I?

[sharkdiver]

It's disappointing to know your co-workers could potentially, and almost knowingly setting up the patient to die from infection.

So careless and unthinking. A big, giant pet peeve of mine.

Mine also.

It's a sad statistic that almost 100,000 people die unnecessarily in the US every year from hospital acquired nosocomial infections.

[mskate]

I was recently called out my a nurse for lifting up a patients gown without gloves. In the middle of report at the bedside, my sedated, intubated, freshly bathed patient was there and I wanted to visually show her where the JPs were coming out, so I picked up the gown. She said "Well, now, aren't we old school with no gloves?" - SIGH.