pkmom

wow, I forgot how heated discussions get around here. perhaps I didn't make myself clear..I DON't want to report anyone. But I don't want my patients harmed. I have carefully considered everything that has been written here. I am NOT planning on reporting anyone, just wanted some other opinions. We're not following her around keeping tabs on every tiny little thing. believe me I have way too much stuff to do to even consider that. Her big errors make themselves evident daily. All we are doing is keeping track of things as evidence for why she shouldn't be in charge. She does not have enough judgement to left unsupervised, but they have put her in a position to be advising others.

People who have talked to the manager about this have been shut down, the manager has backed this nurse. (Our manager is new and many of our staff don't trust her yet). Right now, we are asking everyone to document incidences of bad judgement and violations of our policy and proceedures and give to to one person so that we can take everything into the manager and once to prove our point. this nurse was written up 2 x in 2 weeks, but there are other incidences that have been caught but not written up because nmany of the staff feel the the process is worthless because nothing happens.

Yes, I mean the BON. iti s my business because she is our new charge nurse and could be making decisions that effect my patients. in the instance where she fed the pt that should not have been fed, she was charge, she knew the pt had the sheath in place and placed the pt in potential danger by feeding him. the npa states "conduct subject to reporting" section D "indicates that the nurse lacks knowledge, skill, judgement or conscientiousness to such an extent that the nurse's continued practice of nursing could reasonably be expected to pose a risk of harm to a ptient." I feel that her judgement falls into that discription, but I'm not sure if it is enough. I don't want to report anyone, but I also don't want her wandering into my patients rooms and and causing harm.

There is a nurse I work with who just about everyone considers to be unsafe. 3 big time offenses I can think of right away are: dc'ing a central line and starting a peripheral IV for TPN, feeding a patient who just had a heart cath, still had a sheath in place and wasn't supposed to be fed, and pulling an rn who was sitting in a room with patient who was a very high need for a sitter to do admission assessments and "cover the desk" while she was at lunch. the nurse she pulled to cover the desk also had absolutely zero training at the desk. The manager has made her a full time charge nurse and everyone is furious, most have left or are looking elsewhere for employment. Somewhere along the line, it occured to me that maybe she should be reported to the bne before something really bad happens. the occurrances listed above all occured in the last month with other less serious concerns added. Our administrators are aware of the big occurrances, but nothing has happened. I need some advice please, what would you do. on a differet note, one of our nurses requested a schedule change because she was having oral surgery and didn't want to work while still taking lortab. our manager told her she could work while taking the lortab as long as she had a prescription, but she refused. Is that really safe? I'm too cautious to drive while taking lortab after surgery, I certainly wouldn't want to risk anything at work.

Try Denton Regional.

I can't offer any suggestions on where to work or not to work, my first day ever will be monday. You may find helpful information on the hospitals websites, some are working toward magnet status, if that's important to you. some of the big hospitals in the dallas area are baylor, parkland, methodist, presbyterian. there are several HCA and Tenet facilities. If you want to be close to shreveport, Tyler or Longview might be good for you. I think its 1-1.5 hours away, lots of trees. best wishes to you.

My grandpa tried to talk me out of nursing school a while ago, his sister was a nurse and she hurt her back so badly she couldn't work. He's spent a lot of time in the hospital with grandma the last few months and now he's concerned about my health saying "we haven't seen one shapely nurse the whole time we've been here." That could be a whole different topic!

after my NCLEX, I wasn't sure about the last question so I looked it up. My text books didn't even have a definitive answer! I still passed.

Thanks for your reply. we found a third party file a complaint and negotiate the situation for us.

We had to take my son to the ER a few months ago and the MD ordered 3 CTs and only told us about 2. The bill is outrageous, our insurance company won't pay all the charges because they are beyond what is reasonable and customary. we need to get this fixed soon, this is the closest hospital that is hiring and I graduate in a few weeks. Do we have to pay this bill when we weren't informed about the proceedure and did not give consent? Any help would be appreciated. sb

at my current school, if a student is having a hard time with an instructor, a different, unrelated instructor will follow them for one clinical day to evaluate their skills and rule out difficulties r/t personality differences. there is one instructor who lots of people have a hard time with and it seems that every semester she has a student followed by another instructor. Even students who didn't have her in clinicals tell me that I'm fortunate to never have had to work with her. but, in a different school I had an instructor who did have something against me. at first I just told myself that I was being overly sensitive and that maybe I did deserve her harsh criticism. Our first clinical day she tore into me because I didn't know that there were different types of antihypertensives. she talked on and on about how unprepared I was. I felt that I was prepared as well as I could have been with my extremely limited nursing knowledge. There were some people who were not in complete uniform, some who didn't even look up their pts drugs...but I was the only one who was "unprepared." We had a lab that night and my clinical group gave me the best support and said that they didn't understand why she was being so hard on me. I perservered and passed with flying colors, but this is just to show that sometimes, there are instructors with an ugly agenda.

I think one could probably survive pregnancy and nursing school simultaneously, it has been done, but oh my, I certainly would not plan it that way. I couldn't imagine coming home from the hospital with a new baby and then leaving him to go to school all day. It takes months, most of the time, for them to learn to sleep through the night and there is no way I could learn without sleep. I had my son at midterms, before I was a nursing student, and my A average fell to a C, and I was only taking two classes that don't even compare to the time required of nursing classes. I like the previous posters advice reguarding which worst-case senario you could most likely deal with. Best wishes with whatever you decide.

sounds like me, but I'm working on year #7.

I enjoy the instructors who use stories in lecture, it helps break the monotony and let the brain rest for a minute before it goes back to being overloaded. Please don't read out of the book, students can do that on their own. Powerpoint can be very helpful as long as it matches the lecture format. my so-far favorite clinical instructor was very competent, easy going and reassuring. She let us break dress code too so we could wear comfortable shoes. She didn't think she had to be perfect, in fact, when she did have a small goof, she just made a joke and fixed the problem. I wish there were more like her.

In clinicals recently a fellow student had a pt who had OD on only God knows what. She was so out of it, had to have a sitter in their all day. Her boyfriend kept bringing food and things in, saying she needed her "iron pills" I don't know how long it took them to figure it out.