lauralassie

"I need to git her back right now, she has sick as Hell anemia !" " I get my STD from Zoloft". When questioning her about why she got the STD from Zoloft, she said, "well , it said on TV , that it causes sexual side effects". God , grant me serenity when I'm in triage !

A question for all of you Surgical/urology nurses out there. I have a friend that's an MA in a urology office. It's been so long since I really worried about the sterilization of equipment that I'm not up to date. (spoiled working in an ER or ICU , where it's all done and handed to us). Any way, they soak the equipment in a soluntion , dry it and use it from pt to pt in cysto's etc. Bx's and vasect. Is this OK now with distroying HIV, HEp etc. I know that in dental offices they use autoclave or gas to sterilize. But , I'm not sure what the standard of practice is now. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I wouldn't want equipment that was wiped down and soked used anywhere near mucosa that may already by irritated or suseptable to organisms.

When I worked ICU, the one who "red - lined" the chart at the end of the shift , signed it : dated and timed it , was the one resp. for being sure that the order were done correctley. It's unfair for the charge RN to be respon. for that, unless they are the one taking off orders. Any one can red line a chart. It's just saying that you checked the orders.

Not so, DO's actually go to school longer than MD's . If you actually sit atnd look at class time , internship etc,,, DO's do more time. But, they get payed the same. Besides, all I was really saying was that this discussion is getting old. The physicians are able to work for a solution better than nurses seem to. Who would of thunk ! ADN's go almost 3 years unless they really do some cramming, Diploma go almost 4 years (usually 1 quarter short of), and 4 years get summers off so talk about comparing fruit. There are so many programs out there, we all take the same federal exam, we all do the same job. I'm a diploma nurse, was just offered a job that presents pros, improv. to hospitals, talks to ER directors ,CEO"S and Admin , travel around the state 4-5 days a week , high profile job, lots involved, sounded soooo... interesting. They said my qualifacations exceeded anyone they had found yet. I was going to take the job but my husband and I decided we couldn't afford a 23 thou. $/yr. pay cut. because our daughters are in school. So someone else took the job, a MSN nurse. Her pay is the same. She has done nursing education, research. The company said they wish they could have hired me because she has book work experience but little true clinical experience. They wanted to know if I would re-consider to come on board and help her. I guess when she presents to CEO's and Dr's they make mince meat of her. I'm just saying when are we going to look at job preformance rather than what looks good on paper.

Seen new nurses do stupid things, just remember to protect yourself and you pt. If she happens to contract aids or whatever, she will not be covered by the hospital for treatment, if they prove she didn't wear gloves. You'll see all kinds of things out there from rn's to DR's. Just remember to look out for yourself. By-the-way, welcome to nursing. Sounds like you have your head on straight.

You know , I remember the days that there was a ginormous discussion about Osteopathic Dr's and MD. Was one better then the other, were DO's just MD flunkies, DO's arn't trained like MD's. DO's , do weird medicine, I wouldn't send a dog to a DO. Heck, I remember that our intensivist at a major level 1 trauma center in Ohio didn't put his title on his lab coat because it would cause him more greif than it was worth. (he was a DO). Now , in Ohio at least, every one is equal, I havn't heard a pt ask if their DR is a MD of DO. It was the same debate as this nursing BS. Now hospitals do not differentiate between the two. DO's go to what used to be primarily MD hospitals and MD's go to what used to be DO hospitals. The real question is how well are pt's cared for, if a DO has manipualtion courses and an MD has some other sort of class, who cares. They both get paid the same do the same job and are both respected. Don't know about you, I don't care if an cardiac surg. had a class in why tulips are red or yellow. I want to know how his pt out comes are and how many ssurg's he did before he opens my chest. That's the bottom line for most pt's as well.

It's everywhere. I've seen med surg nurses float to our unit and some nurses are nasty. But, it's not the med surg nurse. Those nurses are always nasty. It also works the other way, some med surg nurses are nasty when we float. Seems they always have attitude about, "look who's here, an ICU nurse.". Most of us who float do it because we know what it's like to work short staffed, just there to help. I do have to say though, to those nurses who give attitude when we float: when we respond to codes etc, and they are standing back wide eyed waiting for us, I can't help but to use that situation for a little"on the spot", critical care teaching. It's all about the self esteem of the nurse. Usually, the nurse who puts others down are the ones who lack self esteem. Just think how wounderful it would be if ICU nurses used the opportunity to teach and the med surg nurse about ICU .And the med surg used the opportunity to teach the ICU nurse about care of 9 or more pt's at a time. We would all have a little better understanding of the plight of other nursing jobs.

It's your choice for the loans. Shouldn't get paid more because you chose one rout over another. By-the-way. I went to a diploma school, we had all of our classes from a major university. Yes , the classes were tough. But, I can't speak to other programs. I didn't go there. If some one went to a community college it's OK. We took the same state boards. The higher pay should be based on work preformance. From my many years teaching and precepting students. In the state I live, many BSN's would have lower pay. Not because they're not smart, but because they have in general less clinical experience.

We've decided in our ER that ACLS should no longer include ABC's it should be DABC. Because our director is nuts about pt's being given DVD players in triage and in the pt care area's. She calls to be sure we giving them out. Then they want us to anounce every half hour , "we're sorry for your wait". I don't kinow about you, If I'm waiting somewhere, the last thing I want to hear is I'm sorry for your wait Q 1/2 hour. Espessially when I know they really don't care any way.

"They didn't even give me a meal tray in triage". The pt was in for abd pain. Granted the pain was due to gas but, non the less, we didn't know that in traige. "The guy beside me got IV dilauda, I didn't get any" "I would have even taken the geriatric form". It really ercs me that we do this in triage any way. Seems pres gainy = narctoics for good scores.

Maybe he has worked in an ICU where everyone has major lines, if you have plenty of lines you don't have much of a chance to start IV's. Lines are usually the first thing that goes in at our unit. But, if I were him I wouldn't have admitted that, I just would have done it and if I had a problem I would have asked for someone else to try. ICU nurses in our hospital can start IV"S but have some difficulty. They usually call those of us in ER to do it if their is diffuculty. It's not that they are less of a nurse , it's just that in ER we do it many, many times a day. If you ask a ER nurse to DC chest tubes or a Swan cath, they would about pass out. Now if the RN was never trained in iv starts in nursing school , well then that's another issue. (a big can of worms will open on that subject):chair:

I like what msadn said. A good point was made. By the time I finish my BSN, I will well surpass the amt of credits, classes and clinical hours that the typical BSN progam RN has. Therefore, should I get the better jobs and get paid more because I took a bunch more classes that made me "better educated "? Again, education doesn't equate to a nurse that can think on their feet, do critical thinking etc. I also agree with smiling blue eyes. Nurses need more experience with economics.

Just because you go to larger hospitals doesn't mean you had better experiences. I went to a diploma school. We went to different cities for various clinicals (peds, psych etc) but it was useless. The better experience actually came from the local hospital, so I guess it just depends. Bigger doesn't mean better. For instance, we went to a level 1 trauma center, kind of participated in level 1 traumas - but in the local hospital when a trauma came in our instructor was right there beside us, letting us actually do the work , not just watch. Also , we were able to see how a facility oporates with different resourses. How to stabilize a pt so they can be flown to a level 1 center. In OR, we were scrub nurses with the instuctor at our side.Most physicians were happy to teach us at the local hospital. At the major university hospitals we were in the way. They had the mass of med students, interns to intimidate , couldn't be bothered with us.

The ANA is a mess, red tape, legilation that is usless, a lot of people that think they are important. Mean while, nurses are drowning in an overloaded, law suit burdened system that leaves nurses out to hang while they get perks that none of us will ever see as bed side nurses. I wish they could walk a month in our shoes.

It never fails to amaze me that it seems so many BSN nurses mention "bed side nursing " like it is the lowest of jobs you can have. I've done upper admin, bed side and nursing education CQI. Just let me say, bed side nursing requires more skill than anything I've ever done. If we're talking difficulty of jobs then lets do a complete switch and make us lowley ADN and Diploma nurses do admin and the BSN do the more difficult job of bed side nursing. That is where the real skills are. To use critical thinking while multitasking to improve pt outcome and complete all the tasks for pres-gainy, JACHO etc,,, etc.... that is a skill. Compiling research, putting lectures together, organizing ceu classes and JACHO preperation is a piece of cake compaired to "bed side nursing". Hummmm, maybe we should rethink what a task or skill is.