adnstudent2007

First of all, I want to thank you all for your advice and opinions. I really appreciate them.I agree that she is probably not intentionally trying to undermine me. I think she is so eager to be the nurse, that sometimes she forgets she isn't. For me thought sometimes that seems more difficult to deal with someone like her than the person who is intentionally lazy (at least for me). As far as the working on the confidence issue, I realise that is a big problem I have-and I don't know exactly how to get it other hope it comes with more experience.

I have a problem with a CNA at work. I am a new RN (since May) and the CNA is a nursing student (who has been a CNA about as long as I've been an RN). When we work together, this person frequently interrupts me in front of patients to explain the same thing I am trying to explain to the pt, "teases" me in front of pts which makes me sound like I don't know what I'm doing. If the pt or family puts on a call light or comes out to speak with me she demands to know what they wanted. A charge nurse and I were talking about some issues we were having with something-and she included herself and it had nothing to do with her. These are just a few examples of things that have been happening. She can be really nice, and I know she is caring to the patients. But it feels demeaning and disrespectful to me when she acts like that. She does her work (which is more than I can say about some of the other CNAs I work with), so I probably should be happy working with her but sometimes I end up leaving so frustrated. I look young for my age and am still getting confidence in my job. I know we hear a lot about "nurses eating their young" but at my job the experienced nurses have for the most part been wonderful, but this "young" is eating me! (I'm sure the answer is to talk with her, but I wouldn't know where to start and I'm absolutely horrible about stuff like this!) Thanks for listening.

Thank you so much for all your replies. I am feeling a little better. I know the md "should" have known the pts condition, but I work night shift and it was an on-call doc. In the short time I've been here, I've been asked several times by docs what they should order! That scares me for this very reason. They went to med school, not me. Is that common everywhere?

I am a new nurse and just got off orientation a short time ago. A few days ago, a pt was complaining of some pain so I called the md and got an order for percocet. The pt had severe hepatitis and it didn't even occur to me until now that percocet has acetominophen in it and that it's bad for the liver. I am so worried now of what I've done. I haven't been to work since then and the thought just randomly jumped in my head. It's not an excuse, but I was really busy, and it just didn't occur to me. I feel so stupid. What have I done to the pt and what should I do now?

"Well trained dogs can spend most of the night in a kennel, crate that is. I have been raising and breeding dogs for 30 years and my dogs are trained at a very young age, as young as 3 months, to sleep in a crate. I bring my dogs in at night, around 9pm and they will sleep until i put them out at 7am. At first you will have accidents but will have to deal with them. The dogs will grow out of it as they get older. The problem I can see with yours is that they were never raised like this. Crating them will be harder on you and them. Patience is very important. Older dogs are set in their ways and it is very hard to convince them that this isn't punishment. Good luck though." My dogs do sleep in a crate at night, but its only from about 11-7 right now. I guess I feel guilty about locking them up for 13 or 14 strait hours. When I do get home, they'll be excited and want to play and I'll want to sleep! Vixen007: How did you train your dogs to use a litter box. One of my dogs is very small, the other is medium sized.

First, I guess I should change my login name because I'm not a student anymore. I recently graduated and have been offered and accepted a night position at a local hospital (assuming I pass the NCLEX of course). I don't really want to do nights but I'm hoping to move to days as soon as a position becomes available. I've been reading some of the threads about night shift working, but I didn't see one addressing how to train dogs to allow for that. I'll be working 7pm until 7 am. Then I'm going to want to go home and sleep. My guys are used to going in and out pretty frequently, esp in the evening. I'm the only adult in my house and don't have anyone to come and let them out. Has anyone else had to deal with this. I'm a single parent and I think I've come up with a way to care for my daughter on these nights, but I can't figure out what to do with my dogs. Thanks for any advise! I love this board.

"One poster stated that people who have advance directives do so becasue they wisdh to live (paraphrased).. for me it's the opposite. I have my advance directive so some yahoo doesn't get it in their minds to keep my going long after I should. " When I stated that about advanced directives, I didn't mean everyone who had them wanted life saving treatment. I meant to say that everyone has differing opinions about what they personally would want and not a "one size fits all" answer. It was really a response to the question in the OP that stated: "What reason is there to doubt that any person in Nancy's circumstances would want--if they were capable of even wanting--feeding to be continued?"

I think it was just the way the bottom questions were phrased (possibly by your instructor) that seemed to incline the answers a particular way.

I'm going to answer just a couple of the questions. These are just my personal opinions. The fact that we have advanced directives at all indicate that there are people who would in fact want to be kept alive. These may be for any number of reasons, but there are people who want every possible thing done for them-no giving up and they do indicate this on their advanced directives. I also know of some extraordinary sad cases (which I can't give details due to HIPAA) but due to personal circumstances must be kept alive for unusual reasons. I don't think anyone should have to prove that they would want to live. Proof should be required to show they wouldn't want to be on continual life support. I was unaware that there are places that assisted suicide may be considered legal. I do believe that there is a big difference in discontinuing futile medical treatments and actively assisted in suicide. While there are a few high profile cases regarding the right to die, it seams like most questionable cases are handled at the hospital level, possibly with an ethics committee. I would be uncomfortable with the health profession having too much input on these cases simply because there are so many diverse beliefs on this topic. It is an ethical/legal concept which health providers have valuable input, but shouldn't be the deciding factor.

I can relate completely to what you are saying. I also look considerably younger than I am and have been asked by a few of my patients if I've graduated high school yet! I am never sure if I should add yes, and college, and worked for a while, and then went back to school to be a nurse... I don't really have any advice for you, unfortunately. Once everyone sees that you are professional and knowledgeable, the age you look will (hopefully) not matter.

To use FMLA you need to fill out a boatload of paperwork and have it signed by a physician that you or an immediate family member has a serious illness which requires you to miss work. It can't be used for the occasional sore throat or stomach flu that people may typically miss work for.

Ok, I'm sorry this is off topic but would someone please explain to me why a baby sleeping in a car seat at night is dangerous ? (I am not talking about a situation with the animals which was gross negligence on the part of the parents). Honestly, I have never before heard anyone say anything before negative about it (and I knew other parents who did it) and the pediatrician never said anything against it. I also remember thinking if I put her in her crib (on a different floor in my house) in the corificeat, it would seam so much more dangerous in terms of being trapped in the rare case of something bad happening. On the floor she was just inches away from the ground (as opposed to between a car seat and crib bars and mattress). Plus just feet away from me to feed her a couple times a night. To me, it just seems safer. She is older now, but I would never want to do anything that would endanger my child. Other than this insident with the animals, has anyone heard of something bad happening to a baby from sleeping in a car seat? (Please forgive me for hijacking this thread!)

When my daughter was an infant, she slept in a car seat on my floor at night for a few months (we did NOT have any animals running around our house at the time). We had a crib, but she (and her parents!) slept better this way and I have never hear of an argument against it. I tried once to put it in the crib but was to scared that if something were to happen she could get trapped between the car seat and the bars of the crib. If babies can travel in a car safely for hours at a time, why not sleep in them at night?

Hi Karen, I have a Tungsten E2 (one of the lesser expensive models-about $199) and I love it. It is much easier having the diagnoses, prescriptions, labs, & dictionary in one spot than looking through a bunch of books-particularly at clinicals. I use Epocrates Essentials software. A lot of people in my class use a pda and all seem to really like it. (Plus it is nice to have the calendar for scheduling and I have a solitaire game for fun as well!)

When I had my daughter about 5 years ago, I had a really long labor and decided to put her in the nursery for the night (they brought her to me a couple of times to b-feed). At the hospital I was at, it was the policy that if you wanted to room-in with your baby, you had to have your room-mates permission. My roommate care in after I did (pretty late in the evening) but had decided since I was putting my baby in the nursery she would too (I would never had said no if she wanted to keep the baby in the room). Anyway, it the middle of the night, a nurse came in and woke my roommate up to tell her that her baby had been "silent choking" in the nursery. It was noticed immediately and taken care of without any problems. The next day she kept saying how thankful she was that the baby was in the nursery being watched. I think now if I had another baby, I'd be too scared to room in the first night or two.

At my school passing is 75%. 75-79 is a C, 80-89 us a B, and 90 to 100 is an A. Our NCLEX pass rate is over 90%.

I understand that most of the "venting" posts are from excellent nurses who just need to let off a little steam (and some of them are pretty funny). However, there are some that I feel cross a line. I have had alot of experience with nurses (due to personal experience and also at my clinicals)--most of which was very positive and made me want to become a nurse. But there have been a few made me really wonder why they are nurses (grouchy, disrespectful to patients etc). A patient may not realize that they are asking a question you think is a no-brainer, and they don't know you already were asked it many times that day. Those nurses also left a lasting imprint on me. I know everyone has bad days and you shouldn't judge them on one day, but I also wonder when I read some of the really negative posts on those threads, if the nurses are not as good at hiding their feelings as they think they are. Also, I don't understand why it seems like its okay to vent about patients, but if you vent about the venting, its not.

My school is very similar to this (except we have one more "grade" for excellent so you get a little credit if you do something great). I prefer this way very much. I have found when I concentrate on grades I tend learn alot less, I would rather concentrate on learning new skills and taking care of my patients.

It depends on your school. At my school, we do not do any blood drawing or IV starts at all. They tell us we learn that stuff after we graduate. But other schools in the country do teach it . I am so glad that we don't have to practice that stuff on each other. I would spend the whole semester unconscious!!!

I'm a fainter also. Not just getting my blood drawn but almost whenever I get any type of shots or really unusually stressed. However, I am in my third semester of my ADN program and haven't fainted at all, and I've been giving injections, hanging blood, and even watching a surgery up close. I've noticed that keeping my eyes open, talking and even hitting or pinching my leg (I'm sure that looks weird!) helps if I even think fainting may be a possibility. I've also noticed that if I worry about fainting, I'm more likely to actually faint--the worry about fainting is worse than the event (blood draws, shots, etc). I hope that helps. (Oh, I also remember a cardiologist once told me that HE faints when he gets blood drawn too! It made me feel a whole lot better!)

I was on the other side many times as a family member of a patient in an ICU at several different hospitals, each with different visiting hour rules. One had 24 hour visiting hours, one had visiting hours but they were very lenient about letting me visit outside those visiting hours if I needed to (if he was having a bad day) and one had very strict visiting hours which were very difficult times to come visit. I loved the first two places. I knew he was getting good care because I could see it myself. At the last place the nurses all seemed to disappear during visiting hours and I had such a hard time getting questions answered etc. and I am sure I was a more annoying family member there because I felt so ignored. At the other places they encouraged me to help as much as I could and it made me feel useful during a very difficult time. There were times I was there all day and night but usually I went home for dinner and bed (and I worked part time during it so I wasn't there all the time). And I had no problem leaving for a little while they were doing specific procedures if they prefered me not be present for them. At that place his condition improved beyond anyone's expectations (nurses were telling me it was a miracle). At the third place with the really strict visiting hours-he died. The only time I got to stay outside of visiting hours was the night he died. I wanted to spend the time with him when he was alert and conscious, not unresponsive. When I graduate, if I ever work in an ICU, it will be one with 24 hour or extremely lenient visiting hours. I don't ever want to kick out a family member without a really good reason.

My school also doesn't teach us to start IVs. I believe it is related to the school's insurance. We are able to IV pushes and discontinue IVs. All the hospitals in our area know this and don't expect us to be able to know how to start IVs.

I have actually passed out a few times, although not in nursing school. I used to pass out whenever I had blood drawn or just got a regular shot. One thing that helps me is to keep my eyes open and talk. I also think its harder when you watch something happening to a friend or family member. I once had an ICU nurse tell me she fainted watching a procedure on a family member. The other nurses couldn't believe she really was a nurse. Since being in nursing school (I'm in my third semester of clinicals) I haven't fainted (yet) and strangely, the only thing that bothers me is helping people brush their teeth (I gag with that but the blood and other stuff I've seen doesn't bother me, go figure!) I hope things go well for you!

"Syncope is not an emergency unless you are old or have a major medical problem. Drink some damn water and take a nap, I almost passed out on my way down the hall to check you in, suck it up." My one time as a patient in an ER I had been fine and then I turned a lovely shade of paste grey and fainted while having an X-ray taken. I was quickly taken out of there, wheeled back to my room, and I had several doctors and nurses standing around me and trying to figure out what happened. I thought I learned the trick to getting faster treatment when waiting for a while in the ER!:chuckle

I am not sure if this is the best place to put this thread, but it seams the most appropriate to me. In summer/fall 2003 my husband was a patient at Hopkins, primarily in the MICU and (following surgery) surgical intermediate care floors. I know its a little late, but I want to thank all the wonderful nurses who took care of him (and me as well). I really felt he got the best care he could have. Later he moved around to different hospitals and ultimately passed away. While the nurses in the other hospitals were good, the ones I dealt with at Hopkins were outstanding, and inspired me to become a nurse, which I will (hopefully) graduate in May 2007. I know I bugged you all with stupid questions, thanks for putting up with me! To those of you who don't know if you make a difference-you really do!