Hannahbanana BSN, MSN

Hi all, somehow this popped up on my radar again, the question that caught my eye being, "When did you really feel retired?” Well ... Having had a mild case of COVID in March 2020 I thought I was home free, and for awhile, I was. Then a shredded...

Perhaps you'll feel differently after you practice as a real RN for a few years. I don't need to hear any more until then. Good luck.

That's for sure. As a specialist in nursing practice, I helped write, vet, and validate quite a few of them for advanced certification. You have no clue about the difference between the LPN role and the RN role, so you can't know the difference ...

How does your co-worker even have access to the chart of a patient in another hospital, even if an affiliated institution, much less an active procedure log in use? That's the violation unless there is a bona fide reason for the access permission, e....

Sorry, what is that? Never heard that name. It was a large square of heavy flannel or linen with a row of 8-10 long tails on either side. The flat piece went underneath the back with the tails trailing out laterally to the side...

You will pardon my replying somewhat curtly to somebody who has less than a year of nursing practice as an LPN who demonstrates so little understanding of the profession and, more to the point, the nurse practice acts of nearly every state in the uni...

I dropped into this thread sorta by accident. I trust that the OP has had some opportunity to figure out that RN is not a mere procedural step above LPN. I hope the concepts that all nurses do is "follow doctor's orders" because doctors know everythi...

Well, I do try to remember not to ascribe to malice that which could be laid to ignorance. The hoary old "Lose your license" trope just refuses to die. It's as common anywhere there are nurses as exam gloves and washcloths.

Glass syringes Red rubber catheters Scultetus binders Cloth lap sheets in the OR Autoclaves to sterilize irrigation fluids we mixed in two-liter glass bottles with salt tablets Treating decubitus ulcers with antacid and suga...

Hydrocollator! When I was an aide I got to clean those. After a few years of nobody else cleaning them there was a thick tan sludge in the bottom.

I still have my stainless tubex injector somewhere, NOT plastic, AND my set of locked leather restraint keys!

Oh my, I remember when the Dial-a-flows came in. They were hot stuff. We had had pumps with little stretchy parts in the IV tubing; a roller squeezed the fluid down the IV but we had to count the drops. In our ICU we sent away and got stopwatches— cl...

Testing urines at bedtime in test tubes with tablets that turned color for different levels. "Blue-negative" was the best.

Nonsense. Not one BON I know would give a hoot about this. If you saw what they really have to deal with you'd see why this sort of thing never gets two minutes of their valuable time. It always annoys me when people say, "I / You could lose my / you...

She may have been cleared by two physicians, but now they need to be contacted by the school with this new information. It would also be possible that the school requests an eval by other physicians of like specialties. She will have to provide them ...

For stuff that I found invaluable as basic background even when working ICU, look into the 5-Minute Consult. They have an app, too (check your App Store). Even when you find yourself deep in the weeds of complexity, this will help you put all the pie...

Even in places where they don't post it as a matter of law, you are perfectly within your rights to ask, and the HR people won't hold it against you if you do.

I've told this story here before. When I had my first ICU job one year out of school, it was in a world-class hot-**** unit, about half open heart and cardiac transplant, and half everything else critical care (neuro, medical, respiratory, general ...

All good opinions. Suggest you contact the program(s) you're considering and make an appt to sit down c the admissions folks to get a realistic appraisal of the current newly accepted applicant pool and their creds/experience that led to their admiss...

I always said I would rather work my butt off with two patients in the ICU than waste a minute of precious percentage of my time running up and down halls in med-surg. THAT's stressful. I think it's a myth that ICU is inherently more stressful tha...

Never heard the term "open ICU" used to describe "does everybody have active malpractice insurance?” If the nursing administration doesn't have representation on the medical staff meetings, s/he had better get to the next meeting stat, and bring t...

Short answer to your question: Heck no, all ICUs are not like this. If you are a travel nurse slotted into this lousy job, that tells you they were already short-staffed there, and if this is what conditions are like, it's no wonder. Next time you...

No, you're not going to get your institution in trouble with the Feds for violating the privacy rule. Note that individuals are not bound as individuals by it, but if an individual violates privacy (as listed above) their institution gets hit for not...

This goes to my nursing experience after I left hospitals. I have retired as a legal nurse consultant and nurse life care planner now, and while I was still working I assisted attorneys to understand things like healthcare records, standards of prac...