rgdavisRN

I would have given the juice and a snack too. First of all, the patient was conscious, could swallow and wasn't NPO. Secondly, D50 is pretty rough on a peripheral IV site, so why give it to a patient who could correct her blood sugar by eating snacks. If I was too busy to stay with the patient after she started feeling better, I'd still keep checking her and her blood sugar periodically to make sure she did not become hypoglycemic again. If the blood sugar came up and stayed up, I don't see any reason to give IV D50.

My Mom is an LPN and she teaches CNA classes at the Red Cross. Maybe you could check there?

I teach for a state university with only a master's. However, I teach clinical and love it despite the pay cut. My stress level is way better than when I was a hospital nurse. Some of the faculty where I work only have a master's and teach in the classroom, but they have more teaching experience than I do. I just got my master's in 2008. Rebecca

The best one I ever heard was a CNA who called in because he got in a fight with his girlfriend. Apparently she got mad, ran him over with her car, and broke his leg. It turned out to be true!

I love tafford.com They are comfortable, well priced, seem to last a long time, and come in a lot of colors. They tend to run a little big, so you may need to order a size smaller than what you usually wear.

My priorites with scrubs... 1. Comfort and fit 2. Good colors, prefer medium and dark shades 3. Oh yeah, I also need tops with two big pockets. I carry a lot of stuff in them.

I love my Danskos. My feet hurt no matter what shoe I wear, but I seem to have less foot pain with Dansko or Merrill shoes. I swap them out and this seems to help a little. I've also noticed my feet hurt a little less when I wear support knee highs. I can't stand regular support hose, too hot when running around a med-surg unit all day long. I think part of my foot pain is just from being on my feet all day.

I always worked day shift, but since I worked med-surg, I knew that the patients didn't sleep quietly all night. Med-surg patients can get really lively at night time depending on their diagnoses. I would come in some mornings and the night shift would look totally worn out.

I am a new full time clinical instructor in a BSN program, and teach med-surg clinicals. My MSN program was adult health CNS, but I taught clinicals part time throughout graduate school and loved it enough to teach full time when I graduated. I've been in nursing since 1997, and really enjoy helping students to learn nursing and to love nursing. I didn't realize there was a forum on allnurses for educators until today. I've been browsing on this site on and off for a couple years now, and have started using it more regualrly recently. I'm looking forward to getting ideas from this forum.

Whether I am busy or not, I always get a set of vitals and do a head to toe assessment. If the patient is stable, and I am busy, I pass the rest on. If the patient is not stable, I do whatever I have to and go home late. I've stayed late before when patients have extremely high/low BPs, high temps, respiratory distress, etc. If I'm caught up with my other work, I do as much of the rest of the assessment as possible, so the night shift RN will not start the shift with a lengthy admission assessment.

I have an advanced practice degree (MSN as an adult health CNS), and work as a clinical instructor, but still work very occasionally PRN as a staff RN. I know a few NPs who do the same thing. For most of us the reason is because we still like to do regular old bedside nursing still once in awhile, just not full time.

When I was new, I was fortunate to work with a group of nurses who wanted to help me learn. I still remember asking for their opinions when my patients got complicated. Even the nurses who weren't my preceptors would teach me stuff and give me advice. I remember feeling competent and less lost after about a year or so, and like I really knew what I was doing most of the time after 2-3 years. I hate to call myself an expert even though I now have a master's and work as a clinical instructor because I feel like I am always learning in nursing. I have noticed, however, that even before I became an instructor, I slowly went from asking a lot of questions to answering a lot of questions. In my last couple years of staff nursing, I've become one of those nurses that other nurses use as a reference.

As someone who has been a nurse for 10 years, and a clinical instructor for 2, I will tell you what I tell nursing students. The best way to get more comfortable with the death of patients is to realize that death is a normal result of some diseases. You have not failed as a nurse. Think about how you feel about death and dying. This helps some people. Also realize, that while some patients will die, there are many things you as the nurse can do to make the patient and the family as comfortable as possible. The patient may need pain medicine, or the patient and family may just need someone to talk to. Always demonstrate to the patient and their family that you care. Check on them frequently. Ask if there is anything you can do or get for them. When the patient dies, I have found the simplest thing to say is "I'm so sorry". The family will realize you mean it since you have been there for them throughout the death of the patient. On a personal note, I still find it sad when patients die. Often I am mostly sad for the family, or the patient if they are a younger person.