veronicajr

Okay, I work in a large ER and I also work PRN in a rehab hospital. I will say that many times when I go in to do a simple assessment on a patient, especially at the rehab hospital, I don't necessarily wear gloves. They're always bedside, for me, and if I encounter a situation where I may need them, I am quick to put them on. Oh, and just because someone doesn't have gloves on doesn't mean they don't take the time to wash their hands. That's an unfair assumption.

I, for one, am glad that nursing schools have tough standards.

Seriously?? Wow, maybe it's different in the south or something. I love my night shift. We have dinners/parties all the time, our management is great...I never feel like we get the "shaft," so to speak.

If I have a patient with a simple extremity injury, chronic back pain, toothache, etc....no, I most likely won't take an O2 sat reading.

We are a 35 bed Level 1 trauma center, and we have 2 paramedics in our dept who function in the same role as a nurse. They can give meds, about the only thing they don't do on their own is hang blood. However, our NM hired these people very carefully. One of them was a tech in our department for 9 years prior to taking on her current role. She is a very motivated learner and knows more about the medicines we use down here than a lot of our nurses, esp the newer ones. The other paramedic we have also works as a flight medic and has a variety of significant experience. I am fully comfortable working with either of them, and would have no problem having them work under my license. But I do think paramedics need to be used carefully in the ER...

Yes indeed, the rivalry is alive and well. I respect ICU nurses, and know that they have a stressful job just like we do. My only gripe is that at times, it seems they wil do ANYTHING to avoid getting a new patient. The nurse will be "out of the dept," on their lunch break, assisting with another pt, the list goes on and on. After I've called two or three times and been told things like this over and over, I'm going to get my charge nurse involved. We consistently have unstable patients in the ER, and we need to eat and go to the bathroom and drink our coffee too...and yet we can't tell EMS that, "well, we can't accept that patient yet." I just don't understand why people don't want the patients that their job depends on.

I think you did great! You can only do so much, people have their right to refuse I guess. Maybe next time she'll listen to you.

So true! Wouldn't life be so much better if that were the case?? If your family member is unresponsive, sure, I'll let you answer for them. But if they are awake and talking, come on...they are at least capable of providing their own pain scale number.

Each nurse where I work is assigned a pod, or section of 4 beds. If we're staffed well, we'll often have a nurse assigned to the hallway until 11 pm. After that, different people will usually pitch in to take the hallway pts if needed. Our trauma bay has 6 beds, and so until about 1 am they try to put two nurses in there to work together. After 1, you've usually got the trauma bay to yourself, but our dept is very good about helping each other out...and usually the only time that I feel like I'm "drowning" is if the whole department is just having a horrible day and no one has a spare minute.

I'd be careful, this might be state specific. Where I work (TN), we have to report an assault of any type. The pt is not required to actually make a report, but the hospital is obligated to let the local PD know so that they can come and talk to the patient about it.

I just had a patient call our front desk and request to speak to a nurse, so our patient reps transferred the call over to me at triage. This chick says "umm...I'm just wondering, if I have genital herpes and I have sex, can I spread it?" I think the pt rep could have handled that one.

That's hilarious. She didn't have ONE person in her life who was like "hun...they meant C or K at the end of his name"? Poor child.

I work in a 40 bed Level 1 trauma center's ED...we are able to have one LPN on shift at any one time. They have taken add'l classes and can give IVP meds. About the only thing they have to get an RNs help with is to hang blood and sign off on their assessments.

Ahhh so true. Sometimes I just want to be like "Look, I said 1-10, not 1-30, not 1-50, not 1-12. Just ONE to TEN." And yes, it's amazing to me how similar all of our accounts are, no matter where in the world we're writing from.

hey, I took TNCC a couple of years ago, it's a good course. Our hospital doesn't offer any extra pay, but at least they paid for us to take it. My biggest suggestion would be to make sure you VOICE everything you're doing when you are graded on your head-to-toe trauma assessments. For example, I lost a point just because I said "draw and send labwork," but did not specify to "type and cross the patient." Just little things like that. Other than that, just pay attention to detail. You'll enjoy it. :)