mesixfuture

Teenage boy presents to the ED, hasn't voided in 23 hours d/t erection d/t um..pleasuring himself with....oragel. Oragel? Yeah, I still can't figure out what the inspiration for that one was.

You definitely need to do something about this problem ASAP before some serious patient harm comes down. Nobody likes to have to write up a fellow employee especially when you're new. You can try talking to them, but these sound like some rough broads, I would want every encounter to be a witnessed one so nothing comes back to haunt you. Good luck. And btw while you're having this heart-to-heart with your manager I would bring up this 1:14 nurse to patient ratio, that's too much even for an experienced nurse. Wish you the best!

I have two tattoos, both that I got after I became a nurse, they are both on my back and always covered when I go to work. I don't think they should have to be, but I made a concious decision to have them placed there because I understand that there is a stigma with them and professionalism is important to me. Now that being said I also have a tongue ring that I don't take out when I go to work, its small, not highly visible and is rarely noticed by patients and I work in a high volume ER. But my work ethic, clinical skills and nursing judgement stand out way above my tongue ring and if anybody chose not to hire me based on the tongue ring alone, they would be missing out on a great nurse.

love the quote! is this an rn or lpn program that has the 80% cutoff? i'm in an rn program now, but i know when i went thru lpn school our grade cutoff was high. good luck in your program btw.

I love both of our unit secretaries, even though one of them has more conspiracy theories than J. Edgar Hoover. Poor old gal always thinks everybodys out to screw her over. But I digress..due to the fact I'm in an RN program and EXTREMELY POOR, I work any extra shift they'll give me...as a nurse, an aide, or a unit secretary. One shift in CCU as a unit secretary and they nearly had to put ME on suicide/homicide precautions. That is a tough job. The doctors are all breathing down your neck with a kagazaillion orders and wanting fresh order sheets and stickers, the phones ring all day long, the call light NEVER stops, and twelve people talk to you at once. All that for minimum wage or a teensy bit more. I'm about to have a nervous breakdown just thinking about it again!

Uh, yeah. If that crap is really happening, and you know it and don't say anything, then it's your fault too. Report it.

I'm a peds and ob nurse, so I don't have a lot of cardiac experience, and when it's happening to you personally...well all kinds of stuff runs thru your head. I've always been a little tachycardic (108 resting), but lately I've been passing out for no apparent reason. I've passed out three times in the last two or three months. It's always in the shower, so I question vasovagal? But I haven't changed anything about the temp of the shower so....??? I had just recently starting taking Topamax for migraines...so I wondered if that could be dropping my blood pressure and making me black out. Or... could I be seizing? I'm out for like five minutes at a time. I've never had an MRI of my head. You'd think that be a standard neuro test, huh? I went straight to the neurologist the second time I passed out, but he refused to changed my meds and instead sent me for a cardiac workup. My echo is negative, my halter is negative. I still have to have a stress test. But I'm a peds nurse. What do I need to insist on for my treatment? What questions to I need to ask? What do you guys think? Help...

I had an accidental stick in nursing school once. We were practicing on oranges, my syringe and my hands were sticky, so my hand slipped and all 1 and 1/2 inches of the needle slid down the side of my pinky. So I was scared of needles for about a month. But my very wise instructor made me stick people until I could do it with my eyes closed. Now I let GNs and GPNs practice sticking IVs on me, even though I don't even have great veins. Practice. Practice. Practice.

I don't think working in the ER has anything to do with growing a thick skin. I work on a WIC floor and we have some of the thickest skinned nurses you'll ever see. But then again we code babies, kids, deal with fetal demises....traumas aren'ts the only way to callous your hide. I'm very interested in the ER and I've pulled a few shifts down there just to see what it was like...my first trauma was a drug overdose/attempted suicide who was paralyzed from his waist down due to previous bullet wound injuries. He was only twenty-six, but it was a heck of a lot easier than coding a twenty-six week, 1 lb baby who had to be c/sectioned early because her twin died in the womb and was making her septic. My thick skin might also be due to the fact that I'm a medical examiner on the side, but never let it be said that ER is the only breeding ground for a second epidermis.

I feel your pain, Girl. I've been a nurse for two years this June and I've always worked in women's and children's services and I have no kids. It comes up often, usually beginning as a compliment..."you must be so calm when your kids are sick," or "you probably did great in labor since you knew all the tricks". If it gets ugly, I just be the best nurse I can be. Telling them I know what I'm doing isn't as convincing as anticipating their needs and acting on those needs. Once I've anticipated and treated sore nipples, swollen perineums, sore backs etc. etc., they don't care quite as much whether I've personally experienced them or not.

If you don't get out soon, there will be no cover your a$$ measures because you won't have an a$$ left to cover.

When hiring for L&D, no experience is of any help to your resume except L&D experience, and maybe a little postpartum or some nursery. You are just as likely to get hired after nine months of med-surge as somebody is after nine months of dialysis. We recently hired a girl who had years of experience in CCU (and she was a good unit nurse)and she actually had to have longer orientation than a girl who had only two years of experience in an L&D somehwere else. L&D is like nothing else. The patients are different, most of the meds are different, the docs are different, even the documentation is different from anything you are used to. It's also one of the most rewarding jobs there is. Go for it!

I disagree with color coding scrubs just because I went to a private school for thirteen years and I enjoy not having to wear the same thing every day. However, I do agree that nursing should wear scrubs and other departments should wear something different. It's confusing for the patients, they can't tell nursing from lab, dietary or housekeeping.

Does your facility's blood bank carry RhoGAM? Any missed AB whose blood has an RH - factor, must recieve RhoGAM to counter the RH antibodies that have the potential to abort the next pregnancy.

I feel your pain. I was looking thru one of my peds patient's recent clinical results for an H&P and found a note from an ER doc that read something to the effect of "discharged pt to home, grandmother called back and said the pt was to be admitted, vital signs stable, labs w/i normal limits, no ill signs/symptoms noted" but by golly they brought her back in and he admitted the kid. What the heck? When did Granny get admitting privileges? We had a drug seeker that lived on our floor for months, came in every few days with some new ache or pain that had no rhyme or reason. Finally one of our docs refused to give her any more narcotics, and she was suddenly well enough to go home and hasn't been back. When he refused her narcotics, one of our RNs drew him a pair and labeled it "Sack Of Courage". He carries it around in his wallet. I'll see if I can't get a copy for the OP's doc, maybe he just needs to be reminded they're in his pants somewhere.