jstinerich

The patient rep. used to come and check the gold coast rooms before a VIP arrived. She'd get new mattresses, walls painted, mantainance to fix things, etc. The first time I saw her she told me that I had a VIP coming and to take good care of the vice-president of X credit union. I told her it was probably not a good thing not to tell me because it would have the opposite effect that she desired. That I got paid no more to care for the VIP that the medicaid pt. in the ward down the hall. That I gave all my pts. the best care I could and that they were all VIP to me. If the patient was rich they could afford to pay for a private duty nurse or aid. Plus, I said I thought she should do an inspection of every room to determine what they needed and take care of those rooms also. Needless to say she never spoke to me again about a VIP pt.

This is what the word of God says about how to care for others. Matthew 7:1 "Judge not, that you be not judged. " John13:34 A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. Galatains 5:13 For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. Matthew 21:31 Jesus said to them, "Assuredly, I say to you that tax collectors and harlots enter the kingdom of God before you." Mark 2:15 Now it happened, as He was dining in Levi's house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and they followed Him.

I was reapplying a colostomy bag to a quad and he got an erection. I retained my cool even though other helpers in the room excused themselves and left us alone. The patient looked quite proud of himself. A minister, who had had a stroke was admitted. He was wet so I started to change his linens. He started propositioning me. I finished the linens and asked the others about him. They didn't have a problem with him. He was readmitted about a year later and when I walked into the room, he started again. I told the nm that I could not take care of that man.

PRIVACY IN AMERICA: Workplace Drug Testing Legislative Briefing Kit on Drug Testing (Access this report for detailed discussion of the issue.) Today, in some industries, taking a drug test is as routine as filling out a job application. In fact, workplace drug testing is up 277 percent from 1987 - despite the fact that random drug testing is unfair, often inaccurate and unproven as a means of stopping drug use. But because there are few laws protecting our privacy in the workplace, millions of American workers are tested yearly - even though they aren't suspected of drug use. Employers have the right to expect workers not to be high or drunk on the job. But they shouldn't have the right to require employees to prove their innocence by taking a drug test. That's not how America should work. INVASION AND ERROR However routine drug tests have become, they're still intrusive. Often, another person is there to observe the employee to ensure there is no specimen tampering. Even indirect observation can be degrading; typically, workers must remove their outer garments and urinate in a bathroom in which the water supply has been turned off. The lab procedure is a second invasion of privacy. Urinalysis reveals not only the presence of illegal drugs, but also the existence of many other physical and medical conditions, including genetic predisposition to disease - or pregnancy. In 1988, the Washington, D.C. Police Department admitted it used urine samples collected for drug tests to screen female employees for pregnancy - without their knowledge or consent. Furthermore, human error in the lab, or the test's failure to distinguish between legal and illegal substances, can make even a small margin of error add up to a huge potential for false positive results. In 1992, an estimated 22 million tests were adminstered. If five percent yielded false positive results (a conservative estimate of false positive rates) that means 1.1 million people who could have been fired, or denied jobs - because of a mistake. "I waited for the attendant to turn her back before pulling down my pants, but she told me she had to watch everything I did. I am a 40-year-old mother of three: nothing I have ever done in my life equals or deserves the humiliation, degradation and mortification I felt." -- From a letter to the ACLU describing a workplace drug test. TESTS THAT FAIL Claims of billions of dollars lost in employee productivity are based on guesswork, not real evidence. Drug abuse in the workplace affects a relatively small percentage of workers. A 1994 National Academy of Sciences report found workplace drug use "ranges from a modest to a moderate extent," and noted that much of reported drug use "may be single incident, perhaps even at events like office parties." Furthermore, drug tests are not work-related because they do not measure on-the-job impairment. A positive drug test only reveals that a drug was ingested at some time in the past. Nor do they distinguish between occasional and habitual use. Drug testing is designed to detect and punish conduct that is usually engaged in off-duty and off the employer's premises - that is, in private. Employers who conduct random drug tests on workers who are not suspected of using drugs are policing private behavior that has no impact on job performance. FAR FROM FOOLPROOF Sometimes drug tests fail to distinguish between legal and illegal substances. Depronil, a prescription drug used to treat Parkinson's disease, has shown up as an amphetamine on standard drug tests. Over-the-counter antiinflammatory drugs like Ibuprofen have shown up positive on the marijuana test. Even the poppy seeds found in baked goods can produce a positive result for heroin. ABOUT SAFETY-SENSITIVE OCCUPATIONS Alertness and sobriety are, of course, imperative for certain occupations, such as train engineers, airline pilots, truck drivers and others. Yet even in these jobs, random drug testing does not guarantee safety. Firstly, drug-related employee impairment in safety-sensitive jobs is rare. There has never been a commercial airline accident linked to pilot drug use. And even after a 1994 Amtrak accident in which several lives were lost, investigators discovered the train engineer had a well known history of alcohol, not drug, abuse. Computer-assisted performance tests, which measure hand-eye coordination and response time, are a better way of detecting whether employees are up to the job. NASA, for example, has long used task-performance tests to determine whether astronauts and pilots are unfit for work - whether the cause is substance abuse, fatigue, or physical illness. Drug tests don't prevent accidents because they don't address the root problems that lead to substance abuse. But good management and counseling can. Employee assistance programs (EAPs) help people facing emotional, health, financial or substance abuse problems that can affect job performance. EAP counselors decide what type of help is needed: staff support, inpatient treatment, AA meetings, and the like. In this context, the goal is rehabilitation and wellness - not punishment. Employers need to kick the drug test habit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- SOURCES: American Management Association survey, "Workplace Drug Testing and Drug Abuse Policies"; R. DeCresce, Drug Testing in the Workplace (BNA, 1989); Under the Influence? Drugs and the American Workforce, National Academy of Sciences, 1994; J.P. Morgan, "The 'Scientific' Justification for Urine Drug Testing," University of Kansas L.R., 1988. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WHAT WE ARE DOING Privacy - the right to be left alone - is one of our most cherished rights. Yet because so few laws protect our privacy, the ACLU's campaign for privacy in the workplace is very important - particularly in the private sector. The ACLU is working in the states to help enact legislation to protect workplace privacy rights. We have created a model statute regulating workplace drug testing. In 1996 the ACLU launched a public education campaign to help individuals across the nation become aware of the need for increased workplace privacy rights. Our educational videotape Through the Keyhole: Privacy in the Workplace - An Endangered Right was featured on national television and at union meetings and other gatherings nationwide. Much more work remains to be done. As of mid 1997, only a handful of states ban testing that is not based on individual suspicion: Montana, Iowa, Vermont, and Rhode Island. Minnesota, Maine and Connecticut permit not-for-cause testing, but only of employees in safety-sensitive positions. These laws also require confirmation testing, lab certification and test result confidentiality. Hawaii, Louisiana, Maryland, Nebraska, Oregon and Utah regulate drug testing in some fashion; Florida and Kansas protect government employee rights, but not those of private sector workers. Only in California, Massachusetts and New Jersey have the highest courts ruled out some forms of drug testing on state constitutional or statutory grounds. The ACLU is now continuing our efforts to protect workplace privacy rights. You can help. WHAT YOU CAN DO 1) Learn more about the issue. Order a copy of our video Through the Keyhole: Privacy in the Workplace - An Endangered Right and share it with family, friends, and co-workers ($7 plus shipping, call 800-775-ACLU to order.) Feel free to duplicate the tape at will. 2) Get a copy of our 1996 report, Surveillance Incorporated., which documents the increase in various forms of employer surveillance and breaks down privacy laws state by state. This free report is available through our website or our 800-number. 3) Write your elected officials urging them to support workplace privacy legislation. For tips on writing your elected officials as well as sample letters, visit the "In Congress" section of our website under "tips" or send a request entitled "tips request" to [email protected] or fax (202) 546-1440. 4) Want to do more? Contact the ACLU's Campaign for Fairness in the Workplace to find out how you can personally help to get legislation passed. Write ACLU Campaign for Fairness in the Workplace, 166 Wall Street, Princeton, NJ 08540, fax (609) 683-1787 or e-mail [email protected]. JOIN Become a member of the ACLU and help support our efforts to protect the right to privacy. Write us at ACLU-Membership Department, 125 Broad Street, New York, NY 10004 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This document is also available as a .pdf file, which is designed to be printed and folded into a one-page c-fold brochure. For more details on how you can use this flyer, read about our Take Back Your Data Campaign. You can also Download the Free Adobe Acrobat Reader (and find out more about .pdf files). Acrobat and the Acrobat logo are trademarks of Adobe Systems Incorporated Copyright 1997, The American Civil Liberties Union

the whip - The poor hygiene of your fellow student does indeed suggest that she is doing what she's saying. How much is she doing? Here's the rule of thumb: (with drug use, divide what she says she does by 4; with alcohol multiple by 2). Jan - The instructors may not be aware - students' talk among themselves about drugs and cheating. Society is in desperate nurses. It's easier not to admit than weed out. Most schools do not do an interview, because interviews are subjective and not objective and can be questioned in court. Nursing schools do not have a high profit because of low student/instructor ratios dictated by nursing boards plus extra supplies and equipment to teach nursing. Then again another reason to try to avoid law suits. Nursing schools are beginning to do drug testing of students; however, it's not like when your licensed. When your licensed to nurse or to drive a car, you sign permission for blood testing. State laws cover that. However, no state laws exist that allow nursing schools to run drug tests - that I know of. Even if she comes to clinical too impaired to participate, she can always say she's coming down with the flu. Pray that she missed too many classes or gets caught cheating. Now, about the cheating part I know two nursing students who missed 26/100 of the same questions and sat beside each other. However, when this information was presented to the director of the nursing program - that in itself was not enough proof. One of the two students studied at home a year longer before taking boards; however, when she was in clinical, she didn't care to learn the best way - just enough to get by. A facility where the nursing students go could block her from practicing there; however, they usually go to the extreme of blocking all students - until they need the "free labor" to meet the needs of the patientss. Nursing Instructors are responsible for the student's learning. Facility RNs are responsible for the care the patient receives. Of course the smart nursing instructor would remember that the board can pull her license if she is teaching unsafe practices. Documentation for discharging a student from a nursing program can be compared to documentation of an uncooperative patient. It has to be written,detailed, objective, etc. Again that expense of a law suit comes into play.

Hey, it's a true story. I have heard that if you do crack even once you may be dependent. Ah, so you have some Peter Pan friends, don't want to grow up. Have you ever noticed that they don't continue any social maturation?

Just wait until you're a patient and your night nurse comes in late and "higher than a kite". While you were waiting for shift change, you tried to get up to a chair, you get stuck with a pillow under your middle back. On your left side you have a chest tube, a subclavian, a broken clavicle, a broken patalla and a long leg splint. This nurse wants to just take your vital signs - not position you until all assigned patients' vital signs are gotten. Well, about this time this patient got angry and had an adrenaline rush and pulled the pillow from under the middle of the back and throws it in the direction of the nurse. (The patient had the ability to hit the nurse, but was just angry.) Then this nurse rushes to the patient's left side to assist. Needless to say the patient said, "No, I'll do it myself." After setting yourself you tell the nurse where she placed her thermometer (on the window seal) and proceeded to call the night supervisor to report that you are tired of turning on the call light, nurses' peeking in, seeing you with your eyes closed (what else are you supposed to do at night when you hurt?), and saying "She asleep." It'll change the way you look at nurses even though you yourself are one. Oh, one other thing two graduate nurses are assigned to care for the floor you're on and the evening supervisor for whole health facility is their in loco RN. When they position you, you give nursing advice because you are there, you know -- although you warned the GNs you were under the influence of narcotics. They both told you how happy they are for you when your discharged, but also said they'll miss your advice. The next admission for a broken jaw not detected during the above visit, your nurse asks you why you didn't just go through outpatient surgery and what was she supposed to do to care for you. Gee, doesn't that make you feel secure! He who knows and knows not that he knows, he is asleep - wake him. He who knows not and know that he knows not, he is simple - teach him. He who knows not and knows not that he knows not, he is a fool avoid him. He who knows and knows that he know, he is wise - follow him.

What happened to the admin rule that all nurses are not to break-never tell the patients that you are short staffed. After all most hospital admin want you to be sued not the facility.

What happened to the admin rule that all nurses are not to break-never tell the patients that you are short staffed. After all most hospital admin want you to be sued not the facility.