ladside

If you read my original response, then you would know that I did not apply this to all of ER. And I am not here to complain. I posted an experience that I have encountered as a floor nurse that could possibly lead the ER nurse to be on the receiving end. It goes both ways. That is what I said. Obviously, you appear to only want to see one side of it. It goes both ways. I gave respect in my first post as I said that I could not go to the ER as I know my limitations. Did you read that? Some people are not cut out to be floor nurses and some are not cut out to be ER nurses and what I said is that "life as a nurse would go so much better if everyone respected the other's position". If you read that, obviously it meant nothing to you, which goes to prove my point in saying respect the other's position.

How do you pop out to say hi to someone that you are unaware of UNTIL you walk out of the room? As I said in my post, I was completely shocked to see that there was a patient in a hospital bed outside in the hallway with his family. There was no report, no announcement that he was even arriving. This is a patient that was admitted through the ER with SVT. There was no one available to even place the patient on telemetry. When I came out, he was in the care of his family, who informed me that the ER nurse told them that "it happens like that sometimes". That was TOTALLY unprofessional. And whatever room the patient was going to should have been the location where the patient was left. How things are run in the ER is totally different from how things are run on OUR floor. We have policies in place to inform all of the floors if there is mass casualty and to be prepared for an influx. We had no such situation that particular day and I know this because I reported his behavior and there was an investigation. After all, he left the patient to the patient's family, not to the nurse. He had no justification for what he did. There are nurses in every hospital who takes short cuts and this is an actual occurence. And it was unprofessional to stash a patient in the hall on the floors. To be admitted to our floor, there has to be an active cardiac situation in progress, be it acute, chronic, or resolving. What he did was not safe for the patient, his license, my license, or the hospital as a whole. There is no defense for this behavior and you should not take this personally because there are those nurses who put others in jeopardy, patients and staff, and the only way to prevent a tragedy is to call them on it before something tragic happens.

I, a coronary care stepdown unit floor nurse, had the pleasure of working on a day that we only had 3 nurses. The ER nurses, please note 'nurses', brought up 4 patients at the same time. Our census was low, that's why there were only 3 nurses, so we had empty rooms. The 4th patient was parked outside of the room where I had just started working on patient #3. The rationale was that there was no one available to accept the patient in the room. So just leave him and his family in the hall??? Really???? If you just cannot keep him in ER until one of us is available, it would be so much nicer to DUMP him in the privacy of a closed door rather than ABANDON him in the hall with the statement "it happens like this sometimes". First time ever that I had witness unprofessionalism to that extreme. 26 years of nursing and I thought it would take a lot to surprise me. Well, that one rendered me speechless! I walked into the hall with my mouth open and in pure shock! I, too, am one of those who would not go to the ER. I know my limitations. But I have encountered quite a few ER nurses who need to recognize the same. There is no shame in admitting that you cannot do a particular job. But to leave a patient in the hall of a floor that has at least 5 empty beds...you have not even learned the concept of fair customer service, let alone 'excellent' customer service. Should you be in the ER? You guys are the first faces that the patients see. Only one chance to make a first impression. Even the deceased are not left in the halls in the morgue. Life as a nurse would be so much better if we all could respect the others' position. This particular ER nurse just blew the patient satisfaction score for his department and ours before WE even had the chance to say "hi, my name is ladside and I'm gonna be your nurse this evening".

If I understand your question without any specifics, I would say that if a patient says something like, "I couldn't sleep last night", that statement needs more follow up. You, the nurse, need to find out why. If the question states a scenario in which a patient was recently medicated, that requires follow-up on the part of the nurse to see how effective the medication was. Anything that makes you want to know why or what happened, requires follow- up.

I took boards in June 2010. I studied a total of about 8 hours during the two months that I waited for my ATT. Passed on the first try with 75 questions. But honestly, I did a whole lot of praying because I couldn't bring myself to study.

I understand how you feel. Everything should work out in your favor.

Dang! Do you know for a fact that you sent in ALL of the required documents? If so, relax and enjoy the victory. All you can do at this point is have faith and hurry up and wait. Really sucks.

In 48hrs, you can pay for quick results through Pearson vue. You will get a definite pass or fail then.

Took 8 days for mine to show up....depends on what state you're in.

Everyone has their own opinions. Obviously you disagree. To each his/her own. I know what I see, I know what I read and you are more than welcome to debate your issue with any physician at any time if you feel that they are improperly diagnose patients, which they sometimes do. Again, the patients and families complain of being cold and when they complain about the temps and then someone gets sick....there you have it.

You can tell them that, too, while you're at it.

Tell that to the doctors that make the diagnosis and to the families and patients who complain that this is what caused them to get even sicker.

You've never been so cold that you developed a runny nose, the sniffles, sneezing, etc? These people are already in the hospital for whatever reason and because we are always removing their linens for assessments, tests, etc. After a while these sniffles, sneezes, little coughs, etc., turn into something major....which prolongs their hospital stay after the doctor diagnoses them with pneumonia. Whether you think it works that way or not, it actually happens.

We have soooooo many people that come in with one thing and end up with 'colds' so severe that the physicians diagnose them with pneumonia after being subjected to extremely uncomfortable temperatures on the general hospital floors. Just this summer alone, we had family members to bring in electric blankets and heating pads for their loved ones because it is soooooo cold and the nursing staff have no way of adjusting the thermostats because the 'main' hospital units takes over and engineering is the only ones to control it. We have the patient 'disatisfaction' scores to document this very issue.

I'm 40++++++++ years old and I have never had the flu vaccine nor the flu! I don't even catch colds! So, I, for one, am not about to let anyone start forcing me to treat/prevent crap that I never had. Obviously, my own prevention techniques are working just fine! If they want to start preventing something, how 'bout starting with these subzero temps in the hospitals that causes a lot of cases of nosocomial pneumonia....so much so that we run out of blankets in the middle of July!!!! What about the cases of flu that we get in the middle of the summer, yet we who are not getting immunized are not required to wear masks during those times? Let's just toss out the isolation carts and door tabs for the patients and just place an isolation cart at the time clock for the hospital staff!!! Or better yet, build a bubble around the hospital and isolate everybody who enters the building!!!!