babiesX2

This question was inspired by the thread about what other nurses have done to freak you out? Some of those stories made me wonder. Plus, I hear co-workers tell other nurses "they are going to loose their license." I only know a few nurses who lost their license d/t stealing and using narcs. I'll give an example that I hear at work: A family member calls and the nurse speaks to them. Another nurse overhears and says, You gave too much info and that violated HIPPA! You are going to loose your license!" Here's another: An IV antibiotic is hung an hour late because pharmacy didn't get it to the floor until then. Another nurse sees this and says, "You MUST give meds on time! You are going to loose your license!" Is the "You are going to loose your license" a real threat or just something that nurses like to throw out there to shake their fellow nurses up? Do you know a nurse who has lost their license for something other than drug abuse?

I am enjoying the philisophical dialogue in this thread. I left off on page 7, but I'll be back to post later once I've finished reading the entire thread.

I'm not the OP, but I want to thank everyone for sharing their experiences. It is a difficult thing to talk about and share with others. For years now, I've felt like I was the only nurse who has ever been fired.

rn2day, I wish I had some magical words that would take all your pain away, but sadly, I don't. Only time can fix this. I too know that sickening, punched in the gut feeling that happens when you are told you just got canned in the early days of your career. It is still something I don't talk about much. Actually, the only people I have ever discussed it with are my Dh and my best friend (a fellow RN that I graduated with). Stupidly, I took a position in the ER that I had tech'ed in during school. I had already worked for a few months on the med-surg floor when I transferred to the ER. I wasn't given and orientation, and stupidly, I didn't ask for one. On maybe my 3rd or 4th shift, a trauma pt came in per private auto and none of the experienced RN's would come in to help me. The next shift I went to the unit director and told her that I felt I needed an orientation. Not too long later she came into the station and paired me with my assigned preceptor and told me I wasn't allowed to touch anything and she took my pen away. Her words were, "You are only allowed to 'shadow'." I worked with my preceptor for a few weeks, and I was hearing positive feedback from her. It was the day for the new schedule to come out, and the UD called me into her office. She told me that I just wasn't cut out for the ER and I was going to loose my license because of my incompetence. I was crying and sobbing, and too embarrased to ask what I had done wrong and she didn't elaborate. To this day, I don't know what I did that was so bad. The trauma pt that no one came to help me with had a positive outcome. I transferred to another unit in our hospital, and the hardest part was facing my former ER co-workers. They would look at me and whisper. The ER nurses I had known and been "friends" with for years were suddenly avoiding me and whispering about me (or atleast that is what it felt like). Some of them would see me and not even look me in the eyes. So whatever I did wrong, the UD felt comfortable enough to discuss with my former co-workers but not me. I was the one who could have learned from it. It didn't do any good for her to make a fool of me and tell the others in the ER. On my new unit, I always had postive feedback and high yearly evaluation points. I transferred to the nursery back in May because the UD called me and asked me to come work for her! That did much for my confidence! It does get better. It just takes time.

Standing in the station peeing herself!

Like I said, this is only the 2nd nurse I have known (outside of ER) to want the Dr. to look at them and give antibiotic Rx. This nurse wasn't expected to work sick. She has been at our hospital for less than a week so she is in orientation. Once our unit director came in around 8AM, she told her about the nursery policy regarding illness and had her clock out. Prior to the UD sending her home, the charge nurse wouldn't let her care for any of the babies. She was told to sit behind the desk so it is not like she was "made" to be there.

I've seen it done in the ER, and the Dr.'s there don't seem to mind. True, some will say no, but the majority help out. The floor at our hospital is completely different. The only nurse I saw asking for meds was written up repeatedly for it. The nurse I posted about has been at our hospital for less than a week. I didn't want her asking the rounding pedi for a throat exam and antibiotics because she shouldn't have been in the nursery with her symptoms. When our unit director came in (after I had told her she shouldn't ask the pedi), she told UD that she was going to ask the rounding OB to look at her throat and write a Rx. Our UD said, "You're asking him to look at the wrong end!":D That was pretty funny. Our UD told her to clock out and go down to the ER. I wanted to see what other opinions were on this. I thought it was inappropriate and so did our UD, but the other nurse I was working with thought it was OK. I guess it depends on the culture at a particular facility.

The other day, a new nurse in our dept. (well-baby nursery) came to work sick (elevated temp and sore throat). The charge nurse wouldn't tell her to go home (didn't want to hurt her feelings ). She said she was going to ask the Dr. to give her a Rx when she made rounds. I thought this was inappropriate, and I told her so. Our unit director came in later in the morning and sent her home. Am I the only one who feels it is unprofessional to come to work sick and then hit up the docs for an exam and some meds?

That's disgusting! I can't really give any better advice than what has already been given. The "squeaker" comment had me laughing! I tend to deal with uncomfortable situations by making jokes. Say if she farted and someone started dry heaving, I'd ask her (the farter) if she needed to go around to the ER and get some help for that. She will either say yes or no. If she were to say no then I'd say, "If you do that in here anymore, the rest of us are going to have to go then!" Same for the towels on the furniture -- ewww! Bloody, urine soaked towels in the station! I don't see how you could embarrass her. She's already embarrassing herself. Good luck!

A vbac gone horribly wrong with a tragic ending.

Please give yourself more time on med-surg. I felt overwhelmed and like I wasn't cut out for med-surg. I transferred to the ER, and that was like jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire. I asked to be transferred back to med-surg. I transferred to a different med-surg unit in my hospital, but that time I was placed with a preceptor (didn't get that one on the first med-surg unit or the ER). I can't sing enough praises about what a good preceptor can do for a young nurse. "Doris" made all the difference to me in the world. Before I realized it, I was having more good days than bad. I gave 2 years to med-surg, and I'm so glad I did. I work well-baby nursery now, and there are days when I float to med-surg instead of being flexed. My med-surg "foundation" gave me organization and time management skills.

I just checked my state board of nursing's Spring quarterly newsletter. Forty three names were listed with disciplinary actions. Two of them are suspended licenses with fines r/t narc discrepancies. When it comes to narcs, I cover for no one. I value my license too highly to risk loosing it for someone else's mistake. Never, ever, never would I sign my name to a narc discrepancy that I did not witness. . . not even for my mother would I do that.

I had an elderly woman terminal with cancer who had fallen at home and broken her hip. Hip surgery was done, and she was recovering. I came into report one day and noticed her name wasn't on the report sheet (she had been on there when I left the day before). The night nurse told us in report that around 10PM she started asking what time it was. A few hours later she started asking "Is it 4:50 yet?" The night nurse would tell her no. The more seasoned nurses told the assigned nurse she needed to be in the room at 4:50. Yep, easy enough to guess. . . the pt died at exactly 4:50 AM! :chair: The floor I work on now has a L&D suite that the night nurses all believe is haunted. There was a really traumatic event that occurred in that room. The area had recently been remodeled before the event. The spooky occurrences started just a few nights later. I covered one night, and the call bell kept going off in that room. We didn't have any laboring pts. After it happened a few times, we closed the doors and propped open the door to the station so we could hear "who it was sneaking in to freak with us". It continued. Each time we would go and check the room. After about the 10th time it had gone off that night, 2 nurses checked again and came back running and freaking out. We went to look and the monitor strip had been taken and wrapped all over the room! It was wrapped around the bed and chair legs -- just really weird. We cleaned up the mess, but the light continued going off about every 30 minutes until around 5AM. :uhoh21:

Cotjockey, you absolutely did the right thing by not signing.

I've always had Lovenox in the prefilled syringes and the dose would be for prophylaxis. I'm in the nursery now so I don't see it anymore.