holisticallyminded

“Science” for the flu shot is about 9-18% effective in recent years and exposes you to metal adjuvants that are highly neurotoxic. When I hear a nurse espouse this flu propaganda I am dead certain they not only don’t understand the immune system but are NOT educated enough to be making decisions for anyone. You embarrass me. You work in a field where you are supposed to advocate for MEDICAL CHOICE and yet you would deny that care to someone who works in this industry? Hypocrisy at its finest, you are disgraceful and I hope you are never forced into anything against your will (that’s assault). By the way it’s against your civil rights to deny you employment in most states over this issue. I ALWAYS refuse and if you all want them, take an extra one for me.

I’m weighing in. I disagree that anyone learns to be emotionally tough. This is pure personality (and actually personality has been studied extensively). I am fairly unemotional, with a very low level of neuroticism, which is why I do well with dementia, psych and hospice. I can connect but my “empathy” is totally cerebral/intellectualized. I rarely feel any of it. Trust me- having worked in psych as well: many people are very empathic and don’t tolerate the emotional distress of others. In fact, this is often one of the reasons they end up unable to cope well in situations since the degree of empathy can be so extremely great and when combined with other traits can be miserable for the individual! My husband could never even be a nurse, he is so affected by pain, distress and suffering! Hopefully all will find their niche. Good luck to all.

Should I start displaying my other degrees and credentials as well, or just the nursing related stuff? Really? How about displaying your licensure: RN? In no other profession do they list their degrees on their badge. What arrogant silliness!

Oh please. I’m not entirely sure about the age of this male nurse (OP) but nursing is a business and many of us understand that this is a JOB. We have families and lives outside of work and aren’t interested in organizing or protesting anything. This SJW culture is totally about youth who haven’t had enough time to gain any life experience or to figure out that they can QUIT their jobs if they dislike them so much. Harsh? Welcome to reality. Time to grow up and put on your big boy pants. Act as a resource and support your co-workers and your own interests FIRST before you try to “change the world.” And yes, I’m totally aware that AllNurses has become a political “change” promotion site. Not all of us agree with this. I have to WORK for a living. Respect REAL diversity, which is the diversity of IDEAS that are not your own.

I regret it every day, it takes a toll on your body. But I’m easily employed and I won’t complain there. My main gripe is that nurses promote the Florence Nightengale story to guilt trip us into giving our own rights away “for the patients.” Last time I checked my position was paid and not coded as “volunteer.” I can do what is required but you can’t make me put anyone above my own life, health, wellbeing. No double shifts, no flu shots, no skipping breaks.

It isn’t difficult compared to other BS degrees which often have more rigorous science requirements. The BSN is minimal. Nursing school is hazing. Just get through it.

Become better informed: https://www.nvic.org/vaccines-and-diseases/Shingles.aspx

I enrolled in a BSN program. I have a BS in nutrition. When I realized it was not only so similar (clinical coursework focus is changed from clinical nutrition to nursing with patient care ideology remaining the same) but that my dietetics coursework involved far more science at the graduate level (5 year degree), I dropped it as a waste of my time. I have never had difficulty getting a job anywhere and I'm in Seattle. Whatever position I might be missing out on because hiring managers don't understand that a nursing BSN is a lesser degree does not deserve me. And as nursing shortages grow, the pendulum will indeed swing the other way. Don't let anyone use fear to swindle you out of your money.

You've got to be kidding! Don't let ANYONE guilt trip you into putting your life at risk for ANY reason. I do disagree with this "patients first" bs. There wouldn't BE any care if it wasn't for you and if your facility doesn't care to put you first, YOU do it and find another job! Believe me there plenty and certainly will be, fired or not.

Oh there's a shortage all right but it's a planned shortage! With plenty of nurses, facilities understaff on purpose based on a cost/risk analysis. This leads to higher turnover, higher recruitment and training costs which sends the cost/risk analysis further screwed toward insurance pay outs (settlements) vs recruitment and retention of new nursing staff (expensive for the reasons stated above in a never ending feedback loop). And nurses say they want more money!! (Technically it's up to YOU to negotiate for yourself but don't expect a business you don't own yourself to give it up easily.) if you want more money, I wouldn't pick a nursing career. In my home, it's just supplemental.

Wow, bad advice to the OP. My first year as a nurse I fell for this idea that I could sacrifice my own well-being for my patients/to get the work done. That sure changed fast!! A student should be taking breaks since rest is helpful in a learning environment. Also nurses who don't wish to burn out and run themselves dry absolutely put themselves first. Barring an absolute emergency, I take breaks, eat, rest, chat with coworkers, etc. it's like any other workplace in that regard and is just as much a job as any. God I really don't get some nurses; I sure wouldn't work for free!! I'm convinced it's a generational issue. And nope, I'm not even close to millenial.

Farawyn, I didn't mention "hate" did I? But the notion of "equality" in this context is highly flawed. What are you unequal to? What rights and choices do you not have? I'm sorry but I find the notion of equality between the sexes to be a worthless nothing. I have had more opportunity in my life time as an individual than any other time in all of western civilization. I think you and the other complainers need a history lesson.

Thanks Feelix, this man-hating "equality" business is absolutely ridiculous. People keep THEMSELVES down and nursing is hardly a patriarchy. Neo-feminism has become another way for the militant left to sink their claws into society. I wish I had time to tell my personal story. As a woman, listening to all of this political riff raff, I could put many voices to shame for what I have accomplished in my life based on my personal statistics. I am what I made myself: I blame no one and I take all the credit for every success.

Oh my, where do I start? The nursing collective as it appears to be referred to by many here is not much of a collective at all. Our common thread is our license. Aside from this, nursing is still very much a blue collar job with various points of entry for most, including various ways to travel up the ladder into management positions. We are pitted against each other from the start because many of us come from different educational backgrounds and bring a different perspective. This could be said of any group of workers but the difference is that we are making decisions about another human being and the stakes are higher. So we come in with different knowledge bases and practical life skills (nursing is often a second career these days) to contend with others who may not have much of either. This doesn't change with standard entry education because a nursing license and a nursing position is still fairly easy to obtain in comparison to jobs with similar requirements in other fields. A BS degree is a hell of a lot easier to come by these days than it was in previous decades, even if it costs more. After establishing that nursing is easier to take on than say, engineering, you have to actually look at the varied socioeconomic, ethnic and cultural backgrounds of nurses, in addition to their personal motivations. These vary so widely we could have an entire thread devoted to the topic. First generation immigrants may have a more difficult time standing up for themselves in the workplace generally, for fear of rocking the boat. Younger women may not have a sense of their own voices yet; for some nursing is even a first job. Older women may be trying to bide their time for retirement. Some, like myself, prioritize my job last in a long list of priorities so that I choose to work part-time per diem only to accommodate more important interests and obligations. I may not be close to retirement but I also don't need a full-time job. As for the victimhood of women that is so popular these days (and we've been through before- I remember the 90s)- views tend to be largely generational. I see a whole lot of Millenial and baby boomer women complaining out there but less of my own generation (does this have anything to do with the fact that gen X has been more financially successful than their parents?) But I also remember growing up in a world where we shucked off the feminism of our mothers and grandmothers since we believed (and I still do) that we were living in a world with plenty of opportunity for women for the taking. Those boomers were so angry at us for not appreciating them enough (though it was their mothers and grandmothers who really did the work). So interesting that their own children are now out protesting divisivesly with silly pink hats. I'm sorry but I can't get behind the neo-women's movement. I'm doing just fine and so are many, many women that I know. I have CHOICES. So forgive me if I do not believe that the way to change nursing is with collectivism, which is the new political rage these days. I haven't any issues standing up for myself, asking for better working conditions, speaking up in a meeting, standing my ground over an important issue, asking for more pay and GETTING it, refusing work, quitting my job, or letting another nurse know that they are WRONG. I have positioned myself so that I OWN my work and that is each individual's responsibility. If we had more personal accountability and less kowtowing, we might get somewhere. Having someone else hold a gun to the head of management (unions) gets "us" very little. Wanna change nursing? Change HEALTHCARE. No, I'm not talking about lobbying for more care for the sick, I'm talking about a wellness model. KEEP people well. Advocate for alternative therapies, promote naturopathy, clean food and water, advocate for livestock health and small farms, advocate for personal choice in healthcare, model wellness to your patients. We need to change the sickcare model. You work in an INDUSTRY that operates for PROFIT and it is no different than any other, I am sorry to say. Why would you expect any more? If you lobby your state officials, perhaps you should think bigger and stop worrying so much about teeny tiny changes that frighten the beast but keep him going. And on that note, I'm going for a run.

And PAs are less educated than ARNPs! He has to feel superior to someone I guess!

I'm so sorry. What a scam. Back in the 90s when I went to college it cost $991 a semester for full time credits at my state university. Today's costs are atrocious with all of that inflation factored in! I am very in favor of creating more labor training programs in the trades so that high school students have options. I'm sorry but not everyone needs and is even a good candidate for earning a college degree. Very overrated. And the nursing push to BSN is quite the scam, seeing that the pay does not increase (a mere $1/hr could be had by changing jobs and asking for more money) and that floor nursing is learn-on-the-job training. Not everyone can be a manager or become an ARNP. I have a son who began apprenticing as an electrician at 16 and now at 26 has his own contracting company and has FAR more earning potential than his lowly nurse mother. There are options. Encourage youth to really think through other options before they sign up for the "needed" college degree (and advanced degrees!), paying off debt for years. That's the real answer to all of this talk about "loan forgiveness." Higher education is NOT A RIGHT.

As someone who floats for a living (on-call) and ALWAYS has (yes, even in my very first RN job and also before I was an RN and worked in another healthcare area), I just don't think it's a big deal. If you're a nurse, you're a nurse. If you aren't familiar with something, you ask someone else. If you're overwhelmed, you ask for help. The key is honesty and thoughtfulness. As long as you're working in a situation where there are others around (as opposed to home health, etc) there is usually someone to help. Now if there isn't, run for the hills! Otherwise, it'll all become old hat over time.

I think the problem is that too many people use their JOB to identify their status/position in society to others. I don't care how much schooling you've gone through or what type of degree you hold; when you are working for someone else, you are making THEM money and you do not own your work. Self-employment gets you out of this status holding pattern of always needing another degree to rise up and work over someone else. This doc's inferiority complex is coming out bright and clear. He has to "put others in their place" in order to feel good about what he does: working long, long hours fixing others for no other status than to say "I'm a doctor," and get the respect that he can't find otherwise. EGO goes a long way in covering up our inadequacies. I don't think you need to say a damn thing because this guy embarrasses himself daily. The moral of this tale: do not use your job position to determine your worth.

So no one is addressing the fact that it's legal in WA State? LEGAL. It doesn't matter what you think/feel about it; it's a LEGAL drug that can be smoked outside of work recreationally. And other states are going in such a direction.... Do any of you know nurses who smoke tobacco? I do. And that one baffles me more than any other.

Well it's legal in my state. Does that mean I smoke it? Not since college. But then.....how is it any different than drinking? Are we talking about drinking/smoking on the job? What about tobacco? Now if we were talking about nurses abusing narcotic pain meds.....that's a different story.

Uh oh, another "bad nurse" topic. The reality is that diversion is not so common; this isn't Nurse Jackie. Our realities as nurses are so different than this and typically involve staffing ratios, resources and other non-personal issues that affect our work.

I'm a former nutritionist turned nurse. It isn't just fast/junk food that is causing this problem. The problem is that the field of nutrition (based in biochemistry and not fully understood without such knowledge) has become political fodder for government organizations wanting to push particular foods/ideas down our throats (literally). What am I talking about? You know that nutrition course you took for nursing prerequisite? Politics. Even the basic chemistry used is not enough to understand the way nutrition works. Myth Number One, the lie going on for almost two full decades now is that dietary fat makes you fat. Nope, nada, CAN'T do that. It is and has always been starch/sugar/carbohydrates. And with the million and one "health professionals" recommending "whole grains" and a diet of "complex carbohydrates" (that mainly come from starch), people can't figure it out. Swapping out puffy white starches and sugars for "whole grain" versions are not going to cut it. They all break down into the same glucose molecules in the end. Sure, you can get them through the system faster (fiber) but you'll still break most of them down because they're SO EASY to break down, even with the fiber. And you don't need even HALF of what you're eating of them. I always tell people when they remark on how I am able to keep my weight down in my 40s, "Well, if you had any idea of how much fat I eat!" Blood lipids? Fabulous. All of my vital stats are great. NO HEALTH ISSUES. My younger siblings? Not so great. So no, it isn't just genetics. If you want to get rid of the obesity epidemic, you'll have to pay the real cost of food, tell people the truth about their food, recognize that nutrition professionals are just as propagandized to about how health studies work as any other health care worker (the main reason I left the field), stop talking to doctors about nutrition (because they have NO IDEA; they don't have the background) and start doing some research yourself. You have been duped long enough and I've only brought up ONE issue. If I tried, I could go on all.........day.........long. Main rules (with REAL science behind them): avoid sugar, limit starch, if you're sensitive to a food stay away from it (and find out what you're sensitive to), stop eating food out of BPA lined cans and bottles or out of shrink-wrapped plastic whenever possible, buy organic (that's poison-free, GMO-free food with lots of soil organisms that you NEED), don't wash the dirt completely off of your organic produce (root vegies, etc), eat cultured and fermented foods whenever possible (daily), grass-fed free range meat/dairy/eggs OR NOT AT ALL, I personally would not eat as much seafood as recommended if you want to avoid some really huge toxins that are totally unavoidable otherwise (yep, it's a bummer), eat coconut oil, grass-fed butter and olive oil but fats from grass-fed meats are also good. An avocado a day would benefit anyone, nuts make the best snack ever (forget about all of those calories they have- that's another topic entirely). Throw away all of those soy/canola/corn oils but cold pressed nut oils are fine. Grain in serious moderation, depending on sensitivity. And remember, you don't have to eat any particular food. That's right, you can live without it. There is no 100% rule for all. I'm sorry that I can't explain all of this but it would be enormous.

Nursing is a clock in/clock out shift job. The only way to get any autonomy with your work scheduling is to work per diem. I started out that way and I will never do anything else. So it's V-Day and I'm off today. Off all weekend. Off for every holiday (I worked NY Day for 1 & 1/2 time), take off for every kid school event, every b-day, every time I want to take a vacation. As long as I can plan 30 days in advance (to turn in availability calendar) I can have any day off I'd like. And I still manage to work an approximate 0.7-0.8 time and earn as much as a 1.0. It's worth it.

I'm not a newbie but have made mistakes 2 & 3 on a not-so-regular basis. Number 3 is very easy to think you've fixed; it's great there's a beep to remind you if you haven't. :) Tired, overworked nurses can't be perfect and it's nothing more than YOUR time wasted. Number 2? I've done that far more than once. I'm not even slightly embarrassed about it; I'm corrected and I move on. Can't say I have a whole lot of time to worry about this one. Number 9 is also pretty easy to do since the doctors change and I'm on-call. Again, I just move on and try not to think about the minutes I've wasted. I've never had a doc who wasn't totally understanding. My big pet peeve on what not to do (because it happens to me almost every week)? Not being quick enough to write down VS before your patient starts to ask a million distracting questions, the machine goes blank (ours doesn't save the numbers) and I have to list approximate VS after that because I'm gloved up and can't get back to my pen or computer fast enough. Relying on my memory is not so good. Damn.

I push the call button for my CNAs. YES, I really do. I'm not even close to Nightengale. This is a job where I'm already on my feet all day and have the spider veins at 40 to show for it. I will not do double shifts, I will not lift people, I will not put myself in danger for a paycheck. I've not heard ONE THING in my performance review about this. Ever. What happens when the CNAs aren't available? My patient WAITS. I am not there to help people go to the bathroom or get up in bed. I am there to ensure that they make it out alive at the end of the day (as long as this was the intended result). I tell their complaining families that "someone will be with them when available." If my facility wants better "customer service," they can hire more staff.