lilrn03

Not if she's employed by him. My GI specialist's group owns their own free standing facility. The nurses there are hired by the doctors and employed by them. I know, because I asked about getting a job there. They have the whole process down to "T" and I much preferred having my proceedures done there, than at the hopsital. Also, it is likely this person couldn't report it to the board, as she would be unable to identify the particular nurse, where the doctor may be able to. If on the other hand the procedure was done in a hospital, then no, the doctor wouldn't be responsible for the nurse. Sue

In our hospital, alot of auxillary personnel were wearing scrubs. The housekeepers all had the same patterned top, but it was a scrub top. A year or so ago, they changed the uniforms. Female housekeepers got a grey & white "maid" type top, males and transporters got grey polo shirts with the department (and maybe their name) on them. Central supply has maroon polos, the "valet" has what looks like a doormans uniform. Dietary has white dress shirts & black pants, though the younger kids have the option of wearing a blue polo shirt. It helps, but you still can't tell an xray tech or most lab techs or the aides from a nurse just by looking. One hospital in our area requires white uniforms for their nurses. On the other side of this problem is Dr.s that come in, don't introduce themselves to us and grab charts. I can't always tell a doctor from a social worker from rehab, and 98 percent of doctors don't introduce themselves, 99% don't wear their ID. I've gotten in the habit of introducing myself to them and expecting them to reciprocate. I work part time on evenings, so there are lots of doctor's I've never met before. Many a cardiologist has become miffed that I didn't know who they were. Oh, well. Sue

This reminds me of a little girl we had that had an allergic reaction while in the hospital. We weren't sure what it was to, but she was getting worse with each benadry dose. Turned out it was red dye, the original culprit was a lollipop, the benadryl and tylenol made it worse! We had to send out for dye free meds for her. Sue

That ranks right up with the patient that wanted her tampon changed! Sue

Hmm, don't think I've actually done windows, but I have rearrange furniture to improve a patients view . Sue

Hey, gotta ask, what's "SWAT"??? Sue

Exactly, there are times when getting paid X amount of dollars to "wipe butt" is a much better deal than to deal with a doctor, family or make a decision on how to deal with a situation for that same X amount of dollars. I work on a pediatric/med surg unit and occasionally get to deal with doctors who say things like "I don't take care of kids - what do you usually give a patient for that? Or what would you recommend?". I don't get paid an MD's salary, don't ask me to do your job! Sue

I always try to put my patients needs first. I will admit that there are times though, when to a patients family it may look like I'm sitting at the desk doing "nothing", but I may be looking at critical lab values and determining course of action or taking orders from a doctor over the phone, or writing orders so that I can scan them to pharmacy and get an urgent medication. If a family member has approached me at the desk and I truly can not assist them at the moment, I will usually apologize later. Most are pretty understanding. What floors me is nurses that wont put their personal phone call on hold to answer a buzzer, another phone call or to deal with a patient or family requesting assistance. Nothing like having someone standing at the desk, waiting for you to finish your story so that you can assist them (even if it is to get a box of tissues from the supply room). Sue

Research supports better outcomes for patients with more RN's at the bedside. It amazes me they had to do a study to realize this. What scares me is that my hospital seems decades behind, they are hiring more aids and techs when other hospitals are moving in the opposite direction. Sue

We get dopamine drips on my combined PEDS/Medsurg floor, but only at a renal rate which I believe is 2-4 mcg/kg. I was pulled to another floor last night and had one infiltrate. I hope I NEVER have to deal with that again.

I can't stand working with people like that. There is no "I" in team. Anyway, in PA an LPN can take an order for anything that is in her scope of practice. The hospital where I work hasn't changed their policy yet, but some of us have been pushing. We do primary care, where the LPN's take an equal assignment. When I am in charge I will try to avoid assigning them pts with central lines or a lot of IV push meds. This saves me time in the long run. Sue

I'm looking. It's something I've always wanted to do, and since I'm thinking of leaving the hospital at the begining of June when my contract is up, it may be a good time for me to do it. I am fortunate to live within a few hours of MANY camps. My problem is this, I have a four year old son. I saw that one nurse brought her younger kids with a mother's helper that she paid and the camp provided room/board for her mother's helper. Is this something that would be reasonable to propose to a camp director? I emailed a few camps about their nursing positions and had 4 responses within a few hours. This makes me think they need nurses badly and may be willing to be flexible. Thanks, Sue

First and second sons each 9 months, my last one 22 months. Sue

I work on a "pediatric" unit. We also take general med/surg paitents when our pediatric census is low, which is most of the time. I can only remember a couple of times that we had all pediatric patients. This also means my patient load can include a 3 day old and a 93 year old. We do primary care. Day shift uses a charge nurse, who does orders, talks to the doctors, etc, but then the other nurses do all of their own care and meds, etc. There is a mix of LPNs and RNs. The charge nurse also does IV push meds or hangs blood if necessary for the LPNs. On second shift we do primary. Someone is appointed "charge" but basically does the patient assignment, assigns beds, etc. We all do primary care, the RNs do their own orders and assessments. Depending on how many LPNs are working, either the "charge" nurse will do whatever they can't do or if there is more than one we will sometimes make "teams" where each RN will team with an LPN and do their pushes, etc. Generally though we all get along well and will pitch in. I have no problem giving a push med for most of the LPNS I work with and some will offer to give PO meds for me in exchange if we are busy. It used to be that one person would make a med list and check meds for the floor while we were in report. Originally it was the charge nurse, then it was whoever had time during report, but things started getting missed and we all started having our own med book and checking our own meds. All of this worked fairly well when we were averaging 12 - 15 patients on the floor. Lately our census has been closer to twenty patients and I honestly think we need to reevaluate how we do things. Friday I arrived at work to find the census at 21. It was myself and another RN who was scheduled 3p-3a. We just kept looking at each other like, is it just us??? We were joined by an agency nurse who had been a psych nurse for 20 years and has just returned to hospital nursing, and an RN & TECH from the NICU who did our vital signs and basically were our nurses aides. We each had 7 patients. It was horrible. I felt like all I did was go from room to room putting out "fires". Meds were late, I wanted to lock the doors so no more doctors could come through the door. My patients included one who was getting platelets, one with an ileus who had an NG draining large amounts. A patient that had to be turned every hour and was still breaking down, because he was end stage (fill in about 7 diagnoses here), was on a 100% NRB, tubefeeding, etc..and I had a hard time dealing with emotionally because I felt he should be on hospice. A man who had just been diagnosed with an abdominal mass. One of the other RNs had a patient getting blood, I honestly don't know how the agency nurse made out, she asked a few questions at the beginning of the shift and I really didn't see much of her after that. Last night was much better. We had 23 patients when I started the shift, 3 RNs and an LPN, then they sent us another RN and we had an RN from the NICU again acting as an aide. I ended up with a 4 patient assignment and one was discharged, I thought I died and went to heaven . Sue

I couldn't find any information on this strike online. When was it??? Sue