Infectious

Hi all, I need info. This is what happened: I am a night nurse working on a med-surg unit. The other night I had a patient who was previously admitted for a diagnosis of LLE DVT. She was an elderly patient, confused at times, and was ordered to be placed on bedrest. Her stomach was distended for reasons that were unknown. MD had ordered stool for C.Dif x 1 since she had a history of C.Dif before. She also did not speak any English and did not have any family with her that night. That night, after I had made my rounds, I then started to audit my orders for the past 24 hours. This lady had been ordered to be on Coumadin protocol which needed to be started the following day. Her weight and height had not been taken on admission and I needed the weight to therefore start the coumadin protocol. I told my CNA to take her weight as soon as she had time. After some time after a doing some other patient care and auditing more charts, I heard a loud thump from her room and there I found the patient on her butt carrying on in her native language. My cna was there with the standing scale. I assessed the patient for injuries and skin tears. My cna speaks her language so she was able to communicate with the patient. My cna stated that the patient did not have any new pain-only the pain in her left leg (which had been there since admission). A couple others came in to help with this patient while another nurse went to get the lifting equipment to put her back into bed. I called my nurse manager,reported to her what had happened. I then called the patient's family to report to them what happened and got no answer but left a message and finally called the PMD to report to him about the fall and offered to order any tests. He did not want to order any tests because the pain the patient had was not new. He only ordered to DC the Lovenox for 24 hours which the patient had been on. I documented everything that I saw and filled out an incident report. A couple nights later, I come to find out that this patient sustained a Left hip Fx and now had been ordered an ortho consult. I was assigned to her care upon coming back to work but the nurse who was taking care of her told me that her family is pissed off and are threatening to sue the hospital. And that's where I come in. I am really freaked out about this whole situation and am worried that I am going to get sued and have my license be taken away. She was under my care that night. Please-all you experienced nurses out there-I need advice on what to do next. I do not carry nursing insurance at the moment. What can I do?

If you're a new nurse and going to be doing oncology, you're going to feel emotion like that quite frequently and not only during a code or death. It's normal to feel overwhelming emotion when you are new but the key is to not to get emotional everytime something like that happens or you will burn yourself out and you will not be able to take care of your patients.

My advice to you is if you don't need to work as a CNA before you go into RN school then don't worry about it. You could just get the certification. One of two things could happen-you could like working as a CNA and you could find it beneficial to your work experience OR you could not like being a CNA and not find it beneficial to your work experience. I am an RN and went to CNA school even though it was not mandatory to the RN program. I took the class and did the clinicals and got certified but did not like the dirty work that it is and the payrate. IMHO, if you work as a CNA you will HATE nursing. In any case, once you get that license as an RN (or even if you want to work on an IP), definitely research around the hospitals/facilities and inquire about the new-grad programs. A really good new-grad program can be all the answer that you need in order to succeed in learning to become a good nurse. Good luck!

The hospital I work at is doing the whole "journey to magnet" thing and it is really is a bunch of bull. What trips me out that magnet hospitals are the ones with the money and the prestige. The hospital I work at is small and the majority of the patients are non-English speaking,living in poverty, and have no insurance. The management is a complete joke and they really dump on you if you are new. The harder you work, the more they treat you badly. From what I understand "magnet" places emphasis on recruitment and retention of the nursing staff. It basically states to the public that the nurses who have worked here have all been here for years and years and love it here because they are treated so well. A lot of the senior nurses are either burnt out and they just stay for the money and also because the nursing staff isnt as nasty as other staffs at other hospitals in the area. And to be completely honest, you really do not have a voice at this facility unless your skin is a certain color.

Forgot to add- F/27/med-surg-orthopedics/ADN

1. Why did you enter the nursing profession? I thought I wanted to do psychology but found out that you needed at least a masters if you wanted a decent-paying job. I wasn't too into college and spent a lot of time partying and knew that I did not want to be in school for the rest of my life. My mom introduced the idea of being a nurse to me-that it was practical, paid really well, and I could be done with school so much faster than if I were to pursue a career in psych. 2. What do you like about being a nurse? I like that I get to call the shots. (some of the time) I also like it when patients show their gratitude to me and look up to me. Teaching patients makes me feel smart. 3. What do you not like about being a nurse? Having to take a lot of abuse-busy nights when I don't even have time to eat lunch or even have time to pee;dealing with patients who don't know to communicate (not speaking English);fixing the problems that the previous shift left for me;having to cover the LVN's pushes and piggybacks when I have a crap-ton of work of my own to do;charting;dealing with demanding patients and their families, oh I could go on... 4. Do you think you get paid what you deserve? I work the 11p-7:30a shift and get a differential. The pay is great but its a trade-off. You feel out of sync with the rest of the world and it can be hard when you're in a relationship too. The day shift is Hell though. Nights can be Hell too but its more during the days. 5. Do you think that nurses are respected by the doctors you work with? Depends on the doctor. I dont think the doctors care too much. 6. What do you wish you would have learned in school to help you in the real world? I wish they would have let us deal with doctors in school and also know what to expect what they will order in different situations. School was a vacation compared to the real world. 7. What is the worst situation you have ever been in? Too traumatized to talk about it... 8. What is the most rewarding thing about being a nurse? Using your brain to solve problems and having that influence on someone's life/health. 9. Do you think new-grads should start in the ER? Sure. 10. Are you thinking about leaving nursing? I dont think I could ever leave after all the time and effort I've put into it. There are many avenues to nursing aside to being a floor nurse. I think eventually I want to work in a clinic or something. I've only been a med-surg nurse for about a year and am already starting to burn out. It'd be nice to find a job where all I did was start IV's or something. But for now, this will have to do.