floridaRNtoo

Ditto to the above. I recommend his website to all of our new nurses on my tele unit.

I went to LPN school and worked as a CNA starting a second career in my 40s. School was like being in military boot camp. Very scary:uhoh21: Hang in there. You will get through it. If your program is tough, you will be scads ahead when you start your first employement as a licensed nurse. Organize your time by priorities. Time management will come with experience. I am very glad I made the switch and went on for my RN. When a patient says I'm glad you are my nurse, it makes my day. My goal was to get out of middle management and be a bedside staff nurse, and I love it.

I'm sorry you had such a horrible experience as a patient. You should write a letter to the CEO or CNO telling your story. Not to excuse those nurses caring for you for their unprofessional behavior; but I'd like to know what the nurse/patient ratios are at that hospital. I wish you a speedy recovery.

You might visit the Medscape.com website. They have a cardiovascular page that links to the latest standards of care for various conditions. Lots of good answers on beta-blockers, ACE/ARBs etc. A good understanding will help you with patient education efforts also.

OOps, My spelling in the above message needs some help. English majors please forgive me!

Dittos to the above replies. Continue to educate yourself with ACLS training and look for opportunities for cross-training. Maybe you could do some per diem work on a different unit. It's too bad your manager doesn't support your efforts. It does get easier with experience. We have a 'rapid response team', a team of ICU,CVICU nurses that respond to a floor nurses request for help. They can help analyze the situation, organize info. get calls out to doctor's and hopefully prevent a code. With a 5:1 ratio on our telemetry floor, we welcome the extra help when we have a patient crashing. Maybe your nurse practice councel or some committee in your facility would welcome this suggestion. Hang in there. I love this kind of nursing.

Good luck with your new assignment. I have worked telemetry on a surgical step-down unit for 6 years. My best advise; If you don't know,ask. If you just did a 'gut check' and you think something isn't right with your patient, bring in another nurse for a second opinion. I am a unit preceptor for nurses new to our unit. I am more nervous about the new nurse who doesn't ask questions than about the one's who do!

Hi. I hope you are using your drug references. A nurse infused Corvert to a hypomagnesic patient. Patient developed Torsades. You can guess it wasn't pretty. She was so devestated she resigned. I am glad you are reaching out for information. I agree with those listing phlebitis problems with amiodarone drips. Check your IV site frequently.

I have worked at my hospital for 8 yrs: 2 yrs Med-Surg, 6 yrs Surgical telemetry Step Down Unit. Over the last few years we have had tremendous nurse turn-over. I think of the original crew that opened this unit 6 yrs ago, there are only 3 RNs left. The problem is the new hires are LPNs and the hospital is doing little to educate these new nurses. Most of them are new nurses and no telemetry experience. The precepting nurse has typically 4-5 patients plus trying to teach the new nurse the ropes. What is happening in your facility? Are you having the same kinds of problems with orienation, training and staffing? I am seeing too many mistakes made with critical drips and even routine procedures. Scarry!

Yikes! Your situation sounds unsafe for the patient. Currently our telemetry step-down unit does not take patients on Insulin drips. Our typical ratio is 1:5 and at least half of the nurses are LPNs. I sure hope Insulin drips on step-down units isn't the trend. If so, nurses have to voice their opinion on staffing rations as a united group!

It is interesting to see the various replies. Our telemetry unit has a bank of monitors inside the nursing station. There is no way I can hear the alarms in the rooms. Most the the alarms are artifact garbage. If I had to respond to everyone of those alarms no patient care would get done! In our ICU there are monitors in the rooms and overhead in all 4 corners of the nurses station as well as near the charge nurses area. On that unit I can see no need for a dedicated person to sit and watch monitors but.... not with the setup we have on our telemetry step-down unit.:uhoh21:

Has anyone worked when these replacement nurses were imported in? How quickly did management get back to negotiating in good faith?