Kerrigan 06

Of course it's allowed. I wouldn't recommend contacting the nursing board over this. Let us know once you find out if you passed. Good luck!

The A-line tubing in reference - the SafeSet - is actually very handy to have around. It's basically a 12-or-so mL syringe built into the tubing. This only applies to arterial lines as far as I've seen so far, but I suppose it could be used for a CVP as well. Seeing how quickly blood starts looking icky inside of a syringe, I wouldn't want to give it back to a PICC.

I had a job lined up in October, graduated in December. Not helpful. I know. Don't give up. :-)

First important lesson I learned in the ICU: Make sure there is plenty of slack on the ventilator, chest tube, IV, monitor, etc. tubing before you turn the patient away from them! :-)

I thought of this later on regarding the saline flush... Remember, with arterial lines, we do have the constant slow-flow of heparinized or normal saline, but those also get fast flushes of saline every few hours for maintenance. Sometimes after a blood draw I know I probably flush at least a couple of ounces worth of NS into that artery. Just wanted to throw that in in case it further calms your nerves.

Meh. Next time make sure you don't need an ABG before you pull it out. ;-) Probably didn't cause any more damage than an intentional arterial stick does. The important thing is you realized your mistake and fixed it immediately! Especially - before infusing drugs. Eek! Chalk it up as one of those things you'll never mess up on again! In a few weeks you'll chuckle when you think about it.

A few nights ago I had an IV pump that kept on going off for various reasons - I guess I had several drips, or tiny air bubbles, I don't remember. After I'd gone in a couple of times to fix the beeping, the patient's family member commented, "I bet you hear that in your sleep." "You know.... you're right! And all of the other alarms in the unit, too!" It's not just you!!

In the U.S., I don't see why not - unless you plan on having sex with your patients. Otherwise you oughta be okay. (Obligatory Universal Precautions reference here.)

Me? I'm staying up all night 'cause I work tomorrow night. Somebody's got to take care of the patients after the day shift leaves!

I can't think of a reason that having a foley catheter would prolong life in a patient who has already been sick enough to be placed on comfort measures. If there is, I bet the comfort that it provides in lieu of incontinence and frequent turning/cleaning/wiping outweighs any extra time it provides.

It sounds to me like if you were satisfied with the MA's explanation of her experience, you may well have stopped there. The onslaught of accusation about MA's who portray themselves as nurses was unnecessary for your purposes. I would be very upset if I walked into a patient's room and their first words to me were a questioning of my education, licensing, and experience, followed up by a long spouting about how some nurses think they're doctors, and really we all just need to pay more attention to our scope of practice and know our place.

When I was starting, we were instructed just as vaguely to wear all-white uniforms, and not scrubs. Turns out they just meant they wanted our scrub tops to be button-down.

It sounds like this might not just be me. Frequently when I'm dreaming about being at work, I'll either wake up, or alarm clocks will wake me up, but I'll be so disoriented that I'll try to go back to sleep because in my dream, I'm much too busy working to get out of bed and be awake at home! A few weeks ago, I dreamed that I was going to be getting a patient on a Cardene drip. I woke up, got out of bed, and walked to my living room in anticipation of their arrival. I remember waking up one Sunday morning before church knowing that all I had to do to get all the way ready was get dressed and do my hair. I think I also had been reading a thread on here about someone's experience with a home health patient in liver failure. Well, I woke up thinking, "I know I need to do my hair, but what am I supposed to be doing for the patient that's in my bed with me in liver failure?" (I sleep alone - the patient was my cat.) The most memorable nursing dream I've had yet, though, is one where I've floated to the ICU at work. Their monitors are a little different from ours. I was dreaming that I was trying to print a routine rhythm strip for one of my patients, but it kept printing off looking exactly like V-tach. So I just kept on printing strips and getting more and more frustrated - and they were all V-tach! I don't know if anybody in my dream ever did call a code...

If you're talking about arrogance, physicians and nurses/other healthcare workers are really not in the same class. Shoot, some surgeons deserve a class of their own.

I swab. If I have swabbed in the last few minutes and I find myself to be out of swabs, I skip it. I think I've only pushed one drug during an actual code, and I didn't swab that time. When we switched to the Alaris IV pumps back in April, we got an inservice on the new pumps and tubing. The representative told us that we are to let the alcohol dry on the port for 30 seconds before inserting the port/needle. I don't wait 30 seconds. I don't know any other nurses who do.