Buddy Christ

You said it yourself, your job includes unpredictable things and being replaceable. The truth is you were always replaceable, always expendable to an employer seeking to find better/cheaper employees. Even with a chronic nursing shortage, employers are still able to be picky about who they hire and who they keep on staff. This might be a blessing in disguise since you and your employer have such differing opinions on employee health records. If they think so lowly of you then you probably don't want to work for them to begin with. There are other employment opportunities

Pumping someone full of two liters an hour just sounds like a relatively extreme situation, though I'm sure this is common. At the *** where I work this is unheard of; we run the pumps to max if someone really needs a bolus, which is usually 999ml/hr. I've only seen this done if someone is OD'ing on opiates

A pharmacy does seem like an inappropriate place to be asking domestic violence questions, but those questions do get asked anyway. At some point the nurse is going to have to address those questions. I'd recommend giving the most practical advice possible. If the person is struggling with abuse, then you can't be there to defend them. Law enforcement might take hours to reach the person; they can't reasonably defend the person at any given time. When seconds count, the police are only minutes away. I'd tell the patient: you have two options, defend yourself or don't. If you choose to defend yourself, use whatever methods of self-defense you have to to prevent yourself from being assaulted and maintain self-preservation. If this is a matter of verbal abuse, and you can evict the person, then you might benefit from calling the cops and ask them to remove the person who is being belligerent/disturbing the peace/trespassing. If they can't evict the person then they can either move away or not. This is an extremely unfortunate situation and the nurse can't solve all these problems. A referral to APS/CPS or law enforcement may be necessary. They might need a restraining order. They might need a lawyer. All you can do is point them in the right direction

2000ml/hr? That's an extreme situation and in such a situation I would use the pump instead of gravity so you can be sure the patient is getting exactly that amount of fluids. Scanning things would be the last thing on my mind. I'd be more concerned about their IV being patent and them getting an antidote if necessary. If you're giving a bolus that fast then you're trying to save someone's life - screw your facility and their policies, you have to do what's right

If your boss denies you time off then just call in sick like everyone else. If she doesn't like it then she can cry about it. Odds are pretty low they'll fire you over being sick unless you've already been reprimanded many times. Like that other nurse said, there's a major nursing shortage and they probably really need you

Their cultural differences apparently include aborting the wrong people

Does watching videos of similar experiences evoke the same feelings and provoke feeling faint? Maybe you can watch a bunch of these in your private time and become desensitized to the experience. At least if you faint at home it will be in the comfort of your own chair/bed or whatever. Syncope is generally involuntary, but surely there is a way to rewire your brain into accepting seeing these things and staying conscious. At some point you are going to have to watch patients suffer, so you might have to attempt to solve your physical intolerance to it. Just thinking out loud here, maybe if you consume a bunch of caffeine or other stimulants before seeing the traumatic experience, then it will force you to stay conscious. Surely someone out there has tried this. This is a temporary solution and has its own negative cardiovascular effects, but at least it would keep someone awake and from not passing out, risking a cranial injury from falling. But again this seems like a simple solution to a complicated neurological problem and I'm not going to claim to have all the answers. A long-term solution would be much more beneficial. If you find anything works or doesn't work, you should let us know! Queesiness is an s.o.b. that we still lack permanent solutions for

Don't know why a nurse would try to be these patients' mothers. Grown adults have the right to do whatever they want with their bodies, and we are essentially just doing damage control and keeping them alive during their brief hospital stay (long-term care facilities notwithstanding). If a patient wants to shoot up heroin in the bathroom with a used needle, so be it; that's their choice. I'm not going to attempt to control their actions because I don't want or need that power in my life. I'll give them narcan when they OD and call the doctor for a fluid bolus order if their BP goes low. As long as we're keeping non-DNR patients alive, following orders, giving good advice and documenting everything, that's all that matters. Pediatric patients might benefit from a more active authoritative hand, because all kids (and many adults) need guidance. But any patient education should be limited to "I highly recommend doing X/not doing X because of such and such reasons." If they choose to accept the advice or not is their own choice. The real question is to what extent should we enable self-harm before intervening. It's really subjective and depends on the extent of self-harm. It's disturbing to see any amount of harm done, but all you can really do is attempt to persuade someone to make some sort of lifestyle change to attempt to avoid harm. Life is just a series of harm and suffering with brief intermissions in between, and even active attempts to avoid it will fail eventually. "Bro you probably shouldn't eat that twinkie"

Why did he do that? "Not being himself" isn't really motivation for assault. Sorry if this was already answered previously in the thread, I didn't see any answers to this

carpenter

whether or not its discrimination is irrelevant what you should be planning is what to do if they turn down the raise. Then youre gonna ask "is it moral or immoral to repeal this refusal on the grounds of racial discrimination?" To which your only answer should be, "who cares," because your income is more important than the feelings of a corporation. Could anyone blame you for repealing such a decision? You are there to make money, period

As long as they don't worship Satan I'm good

Panhandler

being a CNA at an understaffed nursing home

my runner-up was Sun Tzu's The Art of War

Robert Munsch - Love You Forever

A lot of people are probably turned off from the nursing profession due to the "you have to be an extrovert to be a nurse" misconception which is a real shame. People usually don't really have a problem if you can explain in 5 words what could be said in a hundred. Your body language and compassion can easily make up for not being super bubbly and outgoing, as long as you listen to the patient and convey that you care about their concerns. There's no reason to not be genuine no matter how introverted you are, and patients are generally forgiving if you seem quiet but still concerned about them. in my experience I helped a friend to the ER a few years ago and during the admitting history/physical the nurse barely even made eye contact with us. He was like a robot.....not that people like that don't have their place, but they can certainly get away with doing their job, and even excel