jodi_cmsrn

Our hospital policy actually allows for parents to administer medications that were prepared by the nurse, in the presence of the nurse.

As a person that gets bored easily, med-surg has been a great fit for me because you just never know from day to day, hour to hour, minute to minute what will happen next. I love the variety of patients, illnesses, and never ending learning experiences. I have been a med-surg nurse for 6 years, and have just moved on to house supervision but still tend to migrate to med-surg when everything gets crazy. There are any number of specialty units, but med-surg combines them all - we get peds, cardiac, post op, cancer, gi, geriatric, bariatric, urology and anything else that comes along....

I always try to thank whoever I am working with for their help. Just the other day, I thanked an LPN that I was working with, she literally kept an eye on 8 of our patients while I spent a great deal of time with a family of a patient that we were sending home on hospice to die (her last wish) If not for the wonderful co-worker, I would not have known that everyone else was okay. Teamwork is not always abundant, and greatly appreciated when it happens.

[i can tell you from personal experience that one should never underestimate the pain (like you're on fire) that undiluted phenergan can cause] I totally agree. I came in one morning and went to medicate a patient with phenergan and found half of her arm was black from the last person that had pushed phenergan. The patient told me she told the nurse to stop it hurt too bad, and the nurse told her "Phenergan always burns, it is okay." Our policy is now to dilute any IV phenergan dose in 25cc normal saline and run over 20 minutes.

I have been out of nursing school for 6 years, and have been a preceptor to new grads for the last 5 years. I love helping the new nurses adjust to the culture shock of floor nursing from being a student. This year has been the hardest year for me though, because the new nurses seemed to know it all. When trying to explain any new procedure to them the reply was "I know." When asked if they knew how to perform any procedure it was "Oh I read about that." - even if they had never performed it. And my personal favorite, when asking about a patients assessment is "But the book says this problem presents with these problems". I have mentioned to more than one new nurse this year that their patient has not read the book that says what their symptoms should be. I like nurses with confidence, but if you don't have the skills to back it up, that is a whole different story. While on orientation is the time to ask questions, not to know everything. I still ask questions when something new happens, and am not afraid to admit it. Good luck to all the new nurses, we can sure use them.

I just signed up. Thanks for this.

Thanks for posting the above link, however when I clicked on it, all it showed was a Microsoft Outlook Express sign in page. As a nurse in PA I would really take advantage of this. Between the new state requirements and my Med-surg certification requirements, I take advantage of all the free CE's I can get. Thanks again.

Thoughts and prayers to all as we remember this day in history. Thank you for sharing the link above, it was AMAZING!!

I have my med-surg certification from the Academy of Med-Surg Nurses (CMSRN), and although it doesn't directly mean more money at my facility, they did pay for the certification, and it counts towards our "Clinical Ladders" which are achievement levels we can earn that are worth $.50 or $1.00 more an hour.

Thanks for the reply. We are trying to prevent the RN's being run ragged, and unfortunately are REALLY short on CNA's, so someone has to pick up that piece too. We are just looking for ideas at this point.

Our med-surg unit (22 bed) is considering switching from team nursing (1 RN and 1 LPN for 10 - 12 patients - sometimes one CNA for all) to some form of primary care system where hopefully each nurse will have 5 - 6 patients. Our biggest issue is how to utilize the LPN's the best way possibe. Just wondering if anyone else had experience with this, or how your unit does it? Thanks for the help.

I was also a non-traditional new nurse (mid-30's), and was scared to death when I started. It does get easier and you will become more confident in your assessment skills. As for knowing when something is wrong, there was more than once that I have called a Doctor and said this person concerns me but I can't give you anything specific. Most doctors will ask questions and can sometimes help figure out what's wrong. Sometimes it is nothing, but just last weekend we caught an occluded leg graft and saved a women her leg. Good luck and hang in there.

Remember that even though you read the books in school about what the patient should do or look like because of their diagnosis, the patient has probably not read the books. Trust your instincts or the patient that says "Something isn't right"

Sometimes changing shifts can help too. I was pretty stressed last fall, and was asked to help cover some shortages on night shift for a month . . . nine months later and I am going to go back and try days again . . . our unit and patients are a completely different world at night.

Have had several surgical procedures at the hospital where I work, and one unrelated inpatient admission. Everyone treated me wonderfully, and I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else.