liveyourlife747

If you get enough sleep before your shift you should be fine. I know night shifters that work a 12 then go to Walmart grocery shopping before going home. I like to crash ASAP when I worked nights, but each person is different. Just be sure to listen to your body. Maybe do a mock trial one night where you stay up and do those things the next day to see how you feel about it.

Just do a basic assessment on them, focus on their neuro areas that are affected: legs, arms, etc. Also know the level of the injury, that will help you to focus your assessments as well. High level injuries will result in bowel/bladder issues that you could focus on as well. If its a hospital rehab, the patients stay there to get specialized rehabilitation until they are stable enough to go home or to a LTC. They will focus on PT, OT, and ST as needed.

I caused a bad nosebleed on my first ng insertion as well. We place our tubes in hot water to increase flexibility. If the pt is dysphasic I have one person hold the head back at the beginning and the move the head forward to help ease the tube it. Also make sure they are sitting as straight as you can get them. As for the straw, I thought they were supposed to not use a straw. I always think it goes down easier with an open cup.

We get some TID and BID PRN medications on our floor. But the Pyxis flags us if we try to pull a controlled med before the 8-12 hr time that needs to be between them. Other PRNs that's aren't a controlled med that are TID or BID PRN don't have a warning. I agree MDs should specify times because someone can get too much Meds in too little time if it gets into the wrong persons hands.

Wow! That seems like a lot of work! I work on the floor and the ED nurses rarely, if ever, start giving medications on admitted Pts. Our Pts med recs aren't even scanned until the pt is on the floor. I don't know how you all do it, but kudos to you and good luck!

We fax all d/c orders with copies of scrips to SNF prior to a pt being d/c'd. If the SNF sees something where they need a script, they call yhe hospital and usually the attending MD will write the script before d/c

The best way I've learned is to look at others note. You will see things you like and things you say "that shouldn't be in there." You can borrow others ideas of what to put in notes and make them your own. At my job we have "precut" nursing notes if we want to use them. Like: orientation, behavior, and problems for the shift. Hope that helps!

If you were answering call bells an providing the care you are supposed to (which sounds like you did) then I would be more than happy to have you as my aide. Sounds like you did a great job!

I agree with all the previous posters. Also some MDs break down "problems" that the pt came in with or developed and they list assessment findings related to that as well as their plan. Since most MDs won't call and let you know about what they are wanting to do with the pt, you should be reading them to feta general idea of what's going on. Eventually you will start to see trends with different diagnoses and how they are treated. With that, you can be able to anticipate new orders related to that diagnosis and be able to answer Pts questions about the typical plan of care for that diagnosis.

Some days will be better than others. Do the best you can. Try to cluster care as much as possible. Say rm 205 needs pain Meds? Md called on 204? See what md wants (I hate to put md needs over pain but they called first.) and call them back. See 205 and get pain Meds, go ahead and do assessment and other Meds while your in there giving pain Meds. A blood sugar of 70 is above our hypoglycemia protocol so I wouldn't worry about that at my facility unless pt has symptoms. What I'm trying to get across is, fight fires as they come and roll with the punches. Try to cluster care as much as possible while your in the room. Hope that helps!

"Unflavored" respirations! Lol. Gotta love the typos

I'd like to know as well! I am looking into that program for fall 2013

If you are planning on staying around the JMU/EMU area, I would go to EMU. Our local hospital staffs way more EMU grads than JMU, and working on the floor, EMU students tend to act better and think more than the JMU clans. Not dogging JMU, but those are my personal feelings.

Oh and at our facility aides do not do bedside report. It is just the nursing staff that does this.