Goofball

Our ICU is totally open, 24 hours a day. Cots can go in the big rooms, not the small rooms, but family member can spend a night in a chair if they want to. We just took away the intercoms, no calling to ask persmission to enter anymore. They were all...

How about, "Hey, the more you make, the more they take! (as in taxes)" Or sometimes I just say, "I never discuss my salary" and cut the subject off abruptly. If they persist, I may say, "It's none of anyone else's business". Or if I am trying to be...

Never heard of it; but I have noted that if a pt. is becoming bradycardic, and they are on high-dose propofol, cutting the propofol down will quickly reverse the bradycardia.

How about those family members or friends who come to visit? Any interesting experiences with that?

We are not allowed to restrict visitors at any time from being in the rooms in our ICU, except maybe for cleaning up stool and even then sometimes they refuse to leave. Most refuse to even use the intercom and they get mad if you say something. Most ...

I think you will see more poop, because ICU pts are usually too sick and out of it to ask for a bedpan.They just let loose. And if they don't let loose for a few days, you have to induce a code brown with bowel care. Sometimes you will think that a w...

There's a place called Sassy Scrubs online that will let you pick out the material, and then sew up a scrub top for you. Their sizes run quite large. I usually wear S, so I ordered Xs, and it was still the size of a medium.

METOO! I'm a scrubaholic, because I'm a fabric-aholic too. I'm always on the search for really unique material that calls out and grabs me. OCD's run rampant in nurses, and this is mine. First I thought maybe it was a craving attention. But I thin...

What are some of the things you like best or that you hate the most about ambulatory care nursing? What's the biggest stressors, and what are the doctors like to work with, compared to acute care hospitals?

We recently had a comatose patient come up from E.R., and nobody mentioned about the implant. The thing was huge, and as you describe, just sort of waving in the air, playing Omar the Tentmaker with the sheet. When I whipped the sheet down (we were ...

We had a patient named Larry Lobster.

We just got a 15.8% raise, biggest ever for our hospital. Now I make $36.54 per hour. It doesn't matter where you work in our hospital, whether ICU or E.R. or the med-surg floors or surgery - no differentiation regarding pay.

little asian man found down at home, E.R. reported suctioning maggots out of nose and NGTube and Et Tube. I was almost sick myself seeing it; until his family came in and reported he had eaten a huge bowl of rice just before coding at home.

We have one MD who practices intellectual snobbery, and he has a small cult of RNs who try to parrot him and stroke his already huge ego. These nurses also act holier-than-thou and speak as though they too are superior to all in our ICU. Lately, if a...

Also, before you call: Look in the chart in the physician progress notes section, and read what the last couple of entries say, because sometimes your answers are in there. Like if you are wondering if the dr. is aware of certain lab results or condi...

How busy you are depends a lot on what type of ICU you are working in, and how many beds in the ICU, and who is in charge each shift. Our ICU is 24 beds total, and mixed, varied diagnoses (example: Subarachnoid Hemorrhages with ICP monitors, MI's on ...

Never drips, always IVpush. Bag of NS with tubing already set up in case of need for rapid fluid bolus. No set dosage, MD tells you how much (example, "Give 10mg prop." or "give another 20mg prop." or "Give 50 mcg Fent" and continues to give variou...

It was just a 4-hour lecture by one of the heart cath lab RNs, along with a short post-test and a 6-page typed handout of info. There is no annual check; and people who haven't been to the 'class' (lecture) still participate anyway. BRN had nothing t...

Our Per Diem nurses have that option, to refuse to go to certain floors. If we accept them to come and work in the unit for 12 hours, then at 3PM we end up overstaffed - and one of the 8-hour floors are short for 3-11....then one of us ICU 'regulars'...

I got a young R/O MI pt from ER end-shift yesterday. I was rummy from lack of sleep over the past 5 days. I kept having to move his hands from his chest -he kept tangling his EKg leads in his fingers (too obese to fit in the gowns we had on hand, and...

Must have been good eatin's up there! But what doe "NH" mean?

I confess I have eaten it myself when desperate and no time for a lunch break, and the patient was made NPO and couldn't have it. But it does look kind of like something that came from a wound that wouldn't heal.

I think what's kind of freaky about a deceased pt. is the way their blood settles. When you turn them to push the morgue bag under them, it's all purpley.

Today one of our pulmonologists introduced a new MD just hired into their group. He said, "Meet Dr. Azfal." Well, you know what I thought I heard. I had to look at the guy's name on his coat to see if that other Dr. was kidding. (Try saying the nam...

We have an intensivist/pulmonologist by the name of Dr. Shragg. The other day, one of the new RNs in E.R. heard his name incorrectly, and was having the operator page him overhead as Dr. Shrekk. We were all just busting a gut laughing, because he ca...