fetch33

I have been a RN for 23 years...I have NEVER called a tech or nursing assistant to clean up a patient while I walk away. In fact, where I have worked for the last 10 years, we rarely have a tech on the night shift... nurses to it all.

I always say... 'women pay good money for this'

I had a patient last night. She had MRSA back in 2002. Had no open wounds of any kind, except her fresh incision. The nurses on the previous shift put her in isolation when she came back from surgery because she had not had 3 recent negative swabs for MRSA. There was no mention of MRSA in the doctor's history. After gowning and gloving every 20 minutes for several hours, I finally called the nursing supervisor to discuss the situation. She said it was rediculous to isolate the patient for something that happened 7 years ago so I took her out of isolation and her care was greatly streamlined. Being a weekend, the infectious disease nurse wasn't available. Anyone have experience with this... is it really warranted to isolation a patient for something that happened years ago?

You couldn't pay me enough to work days at my hospital.... Tons of patient turnover due to a very busy ortho unit. I choose to work nights and have done so for 16 years. The shift diff is 15 % of base pay and that jumps to an extra 12% on the weekends. I can't afford to work days!

I work in the Midwest.. we still have lots of positions unfilled PLUS I know of 5 nurses I work with on nights that will be moving in the near future.... more unfilled positions. I think it just depends on where you live. There are nursing jobs out there.

I love 12 hr shifts! Right now, I am in the middle of my 14 day vacation... I only used 4 days of vacation pay. I've been a nurse for a long time now. I can easily pull in 80-88k a year, depending on how much OT I pick up. Nursing has allowed so much flexibility in my life. I worked PRN while my kids were little. Now, as a full-timer, I am enjoying perks like paid vacation and have picked up the health insurance for my family since it is better than my husband's. Yes it can be very demanding and difficult work at times... my worst shift was just a few months ago.. I went in to work at 7pm and got off work at 1pm the next day....but I wouldn't trade my job for anything... I love it. My teenage daughter is planning to go to nursing school because she has seen how beneficial my nursing career has been to our family.

Misswoosie, Right now, as an RN, I am generally responsible for 4-9 patients, depending on if I am providing primary care or working with a LPN. So can I expect my patient ratios to go up as a cost-containment effort if nationalized health care goes into effect?... also, sounds like supplies are tightly controlled or limited. Must be frustrating to work in that environment. Do you find families mad at the system or at you? I work as an orthopedic nurse. We do thousands of elective total joint procedures a year. Are elective total joint procedures rationed by the government? Is dialysis rationed by the government? I heard if you were over a certain age, you just didn't get dialysis and you died. Is $550 the amount taken out for your health care or all taxes in general? I pay a lot less than that a month for health insurance for my whole family. Also, what are the pay caps for nurses? I have been a nurse for 23 years and make about $85K/year in a midwestern city. I could make a lot more if I was disciplined enough to work OT consistantly or worked on a coast.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22184921 about medicare fraud From http://www.hhs.gov/stopmedicarefraud/ : Most health care providers are doing the right thing and providing care with integrity. But sadly, due to the illegal actions of a small but active group of heath care fraud perpetrators, billions of dollars are stolen from taxpayers each year. Medicare fraud schemes have grown bolder and more elaborate, resulting in billions of dollars in false billings and fraud schemes which are robbing Medicare and Medicaid blind and leaving our most vulnerable citizens at risk. http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2008/12/disability_fraud_saps_social_s.html : Cheaters cost Social Security billions by Bryan Denson and Brent Walth, The Oregonian Saturday December 06, 2008, 8:36 PM The Social Security Administration has fallen behind in reviewing the medical conditions of 1.7 million Americans on its disability rolls, potentially paying up to $11 billion in benefits to people who are no longer disabled. The agency's failure to tackle those pending disability reviews allows tens of thousands of undeserving people to bleed government funds that Americans count on when they become too sick or injured to work, The Oregonian found in an ongoing investigation of Social Security.

Just heard a horror story from Canada on a talk radio show. A woman's father needed a heart bypass at age of 59. He was denied by the medical board because he smoke and drank. The doctors gave him 5 years to live and sentenced him to die. At age 64, he began feeling unwell. Because docs only work 9-5,M-F there (according to this woman), his doctor was unavailable to him. His wife took him to the ER at 9pm on a Friday. At 10am Sat, the wife drove home for a blanket because he was cold. At 4am MONDAY morning, the man DIED in the same wheelchair he'd been sitting in for 55 HOURS having never been seen by a doctor. This woman was crying on air saying the Canadian health system killed her mother also... she was unable to elaborate on that death due to lack of time. Universal care will result in rationing, longer waits in ERs than we have now and letting people die because their treatment may be deemed too costly. But hey, everyone will be covered... at least if you can find a doctor or be seen in an emergency. I also read an article by a Canadian doctor who said his opinion on the Canadian Health system was changed when , as a medical student, he took a different route through the hospital by going though the ER... he said it was a war-zone that stank of urine and sweat. Some of the patients had been laying on cots in the halls for 5 DAYS. His goal in life was to make enough money to immigrate to the US so his children wouldn't have to grow up in the Canadian health system. Even the prime minister of Sweden (I believe), had to wait 8 months until his turn to have a hip replacement. As a college student, I had the opportunity to go to England for 4 months and study the health system there during a Community heath semester in my nursing program. I remember one elderly gentleman that I visited. He had a badly fractured patella. He was was on the waiting list to get his fracture fixed... surgery was scheduled for weeks out... meanwhile, he sat in his house at risk for all kinds of complications. In the US, he'd been operated on within 24 hrs, barring medical delays. I can just see the problems that are going to happen. Patients and families expect immediate results and very timely service now... with private rooms, meals on demand and excellent nursing care. Everything is customer service driven. Imagine them being told they will have to wait weeks for their MRI or that they can take their elderly mother home with a broken bone while her wait on the list ticks down? Or maybe they'll be told that their loved one doesn't qualify for life-saving surgery... kind a bitter pill for those of us that have provided for our own needs for years to swallow. America is up for a rude awakening! Yes, something needs to be done. But name one government program that isn't full of waste and run well? I don't want the government in charge of my healthcare. The insurance companys are starting to wake up and realizing if they don't do something about covering people at a lower cost they are toast. Obama's health plan will put them out of business....

I work on a large ortho unit in a major city. There is an orthopedic practice specializing in hands that uses this hospital. They call the pinky finger a small finger or fifth finger. The fingers are designated like this: Index, middle, ring and small or they are numbered.

I had received an order to anchor a foley on an elderly man who was retaining urine. I explained the procedure to him, telling him that a male nurse was available if he felt uncomfortable with a woman doing it. He declined the offer and began telling a story of Adam and Eve, which involved a rib and birth, after which he said 'so you see why I can't have a man do it'. I told him I understood and proceeded with preparations, during which time he began talking. He told me how his wife had been dead 30 years and they always had a good sex life . Then he started talking about how he never had visited Las Vegas, but 'what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas' (I am assuming he was talking about legalized prostitution?). Then he says..... ' be tender'....:rotfl:. I about lost it at that point. Unfortunately, the catheter insertion attempt was short-lived.... he had a severe urinary meatus stricture and the 14Fr catheter could only be passed a quarter of an inch. I high-tailed it out of there and laughed to myself as I notified his female MD. I've never had a patient equate a catheter insertion with SEX before.

Do you have any ancillary staff like techs or nursing assistants? I work a very busy orthopedic unit. Night staffing is usually 5 patients, primary care as we don't have techs. If you happen to be working with an LPN, you could be reponsible for 9 patients. Day staffing is 5 patients to a RN/tech team, or a team of RN/RN/tech for 8-9 or RN/LPN/Tech for 8-9. I do night charge. I can have as little as 3 patients or as many as 6. My additional responsiblities including placing new admits, doing bed assignments for the next day's surgeries, staffing assignments for the day shift, taking care of any problems on the unit and acting as a resource for the regular staff, including starting IV's and drawing blood. I also have to take report on the entire 55 bed unit and give it to the next charge nurse. Many mornings I don't leave until 8:30 or 9 am. 80-90% of the time I don't get a break. All of this for a whopping $2.00/hr, which I shouldn't complain about because we only started getting paid for charge a couple of years ago.

Ten years ago, we had programs on the EKG machines that would interpret them for you. Being an orthopedic nurse, who does EKG's maybe once a month at best, this was great. Then they took away those programs and gave all of us a basic interpretation class once a year. The theory being any nurse should be able to do basic interpretation. I usually ran them off and sent a copy to the cardiac floor for interpretation. I didn't look at enough of them to know what I was looking at. Now we have the lovely rapid response teams, so usually if someone is getting a stat EKG, they are already involved and take care of it.

I use to donate faithfully. I was turned away often for low hct and once for an elevated pulse of 104... during which time my B/P was 90/50... I can't believe THAT didn't disqualify me! Now I am banned for life because I lived for 4 months in England during the mid 1980's.

I have worked nights for 13 years, mostly 12 hr shifts. I usually don't even get off of work until 8 or 9. When I get home, I immediately pop a couple of Benadryl and then I unwind for an hour or so. I use ear plugs and an eye mask faithfully. Hopefully, I can sleep until 5. Most of the time, I am up and down all day, letting dogs out and dealing with teenagers. I skip the Benadryl if I don't have to work again that night. Needless to say, I have learned to live (and work) without lots of sleep!