essarge

Do I hear the word "Egypt"? When we do our clinicals it is at a massive medical center. Student parking (including med students) is located at the far east side in the back. It takes a good 20 minutes to walk to the clinical area! If you don't park there and are caught parking in any other lot, your car is towed for a hefty fee of $175! One student had their car towed twice...didn't learn the first time I guess. I just leave extra early and when I get there, grab a coffee in the restaurant inside the hospital before going upstairs to clinicals.

Please don't think that I am stereo typing all LTC nursing staff. I stated in my post that SOME do this. And yes, I know that there are some (most) very caring people in this field. I do however know of several cases that the patient was admitted with "altered mental status" per Dr order, and when all was said and done there really wasn't anything wrong except that they were agitated because of the change in environment by the admission. By the time an evaluation was done, the bed was gone and they had to wait to find another one for several weeks. This is mostly from the state hospital and one particular nursing facility in this area. I do respect LTC nurses very much. It's just a few that I find this happens with and I was just asking if anyone else had dealt with anything like I posted.

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I work in a hosptal setting and have seen a rise in LTC residents being admitted for "change in mental status". When we get these residents, they present with no fever or any other symptoms. Their chart from the LTC facility states "dimentia" or "Alzheimers" being diagnosed long before there admission with us. Once the patient is admitted, we have to get a sitter to stay in the room with them so they do not fall or injure themselves or others. They usually stay long enough for the LTC facility to give up their room or refuse to take them back before they are "evaluated" by a mental health person. So then they stay for weeks on end awaiting placement somewhere else. Now, I understand that someday, we all may be there but, it really upsets me that SOME health care people at the LTC facilities are using the hospitals for a "vacation" from these residents taking up beds for patients that really need to be in the hospital. Anyone else experiencing this?

Actually, the Spanish language is now the "2nd" language of the U.S. I took two semesters of it and it has come in handy many many time when I worked in the ER and now on med/surg. If you can do it, I would highly recommend it!

Your idea of being "Lawrence Welk" is a good one if you are having problems. Just count lub (one) dub (and). If that doesn't work well, try taking the total and dividing it in half until you get the hang of it.

While you are a student, you are not held liable for your state's nurse practice act. You are working under your instructor's liscense while you are in clinicals and it is their responsibility to make sure that you practice nursing correctly. At home, you are not held responsible for your actions because you are not yet liscensed. But, that being said, the above poster is absolutely correct, never correct an instructor. That is the fast road to failing....saw it happen several times in my class.

After two years of actual nursing courses (freshman year is pre req's) we've lost over 50% of our students. Started with 45, now down to 18 original and 5 that failed earlier and are now with us. Nursing school is very tough and a person considering it cannot consider it "normal" college. They have to know that studying is a top priority and be willing not to be in the "norm" of things like parties, dances, going out with buddies etc. They also have to realize that there are added expenses beside books and tuition like uniforms, transportation (have to get to clinical sites on their own with no school help), etc. Would I have done this when I was younger. Absolutely not! Am I happy that I am doing this now...sometimes...sometimes not. But in the end, becoming a nurse is a great accomplishment for anyone at any age!

All of our doors except the ER are locked after 830pm. You must have an ID badge to "unlock" the door to enter. The only problem is that sometimes one person will swipe and 5 will come in behind them. And the ER is pretty lax in letting people go through to the back door and allowing them to go to the floors. Security does their best but what are you going to do when there are only three security officers on. One outside, one inside, and one in the ER. Kind of scary actually!

Gee, now I'm kinda depressed! Been married (((((coughing))) a few times to non-medical personnel. Maybe I should have listened to that song "Looking for love in all the wrong places" a few more times!! LOL!

While I am not familiar with OR, I do know that here in Delaware, everything is left in place....just in case. We clean the patient as best as we can if the family would like to view the body, but nothing is removed.

blue, thanks for saying to be nice to all assistant staff. I have run into many, many nurses who feel that assistant staff is there to do their bidding and have no clue that they have a job description as part of the team! Being an assitant myself, I will do my job to the best of my ability and then some but when a nurse does the justa thing, he/she will have quite a bit more to do if it is not in my job description!

While I have had "hard" courses and "easy" courses, nursing school is an animal in it's own category. It is very time consuming and much of it is "self paced". That is that the instructors expect you to know things that haven't be gone over in lecture and are not in the syllabus. My best suggestion would be to ask questions, and ask more, and ask more. If the question doesn't have anything to do with lecture, wait until after class so you don't disrupt the "flow". Whoever said to never challenge an instructor is absolutely correct. They DO NOT like being challenged. If they say that the sky is green....then for the purposes of that class the sky is green.

I'd like to give my opinion from a student nurse/assistant perspective. I have worked all three shifts and on the surface, it appears that day shift (on our med/surg unit) seems busier. I think that is because tests are run on that shift, visitors coming in, docs doing rounds etc. But, that being said, I've seen very busy shifts other than that also. I feel that: 1. organizational skills have a lot to do with how busy a shift seems. 2. The amount of staffing available plays a large part. 3. Attitude also comes into play. I would also like to note that on the assistant front though, day shift is the busiest, then evenings followed by nights. It seems that assistants on nights (at my facility) do as little as possible on night shift and have extra time to "socialize", study, and sit.

Working in a hospital situation, I've seen many nurses with attitudes (not good), some are burned out, some are just snobs, and some have some twisted idea that they are better than anyone else. I have also witnessed some wonderful nurses who have no problems helping with baths when they have time. Or assisting in other areas...always remembering nursing 101 and the fact that it is part of nursing and not beneath them.