eldernurse

I swear y'all work in my hospital!

Speaking of hotel, last night someone came to our ER via ambulance for (get this) DRY MOUTH! Talk about hotel!!! with limosine service!!!!! I, too, am sick and tired of catering to all of the idiots who think that we are the enemy or the handmaiden. What a bunch of crap. I would love to know what else I could do. What else makes this kind of money? I don't want to sell anything.

I had a friend who is also a nurse who had gastric bypass surgery. She was unable to eat ANYTHING for a year. She was on TPN via a picc line in her right AC. Then, she developed ulcers that began bleeding and she almost died. Then, she needed surgery to repair the ulcers that wouldn't heal in her stomach, at least the part that was viable. Then, she developed a deadly arrhythmia because of her inability to get enough nutrition. They had to put in a permanent pacemaker. Here it is almost 2 yrs later and she is certainly thin. She looks like a skeleton and can only eat baby food from a jar. And this because she felt fat at 210 lbs. Was it worth it? She says she did it because she didn't feel "pretty". She still doesn't feel pretty. But now she doesn't have her health either.

Actually, I agree. If doctors realized what we do then they would give us a little more respect. I am tired of trying to second guess that ones that think we should be able to anticipate their every need. I am sick and tired of the ones that think that their time is more precious than mine or the patient's. And I am really sick and tired of those that order test after test after test and wonder where the patient is when they show up to finally examine them.

Simple answer, YES! I work in a big city hospital, I have worked with all kinds of surgeons and the answer is YES, YES, YES. I have said to several of them that if humble was a requirement they would have failed.

I have voted and I am in the emergency room! We have beds in the holding area. I am supposed to have help back there to clean and make beds between patients but they are never around. I go through 10 to 15 patients a shift and I make 95% of the beds in between. My aching back!

Right On obeyacts2!!! Contrary to popular belief we are not all nurses like on TV. Most of us are real people in the real world.

Alright, a noise from someone who has done it all. My short experience with NICU showed me that bagging and tagging a baby is not a job for some lazy, good for nothing nurse. It takes skill, humanity, strength and compassion (not to mention a h--- of a lot of knowledge) to take care of these wee people. Then there is the night thing. What do you call work? On nights we have very little physician back-up. You better know your sh-- or people could DIE. That pertains to Med-Surg, Cardiac Step Down and ICU. Not to mention the fact that they expect you to provide night cleaning, massive paperwork distribution, along with taking care of more patients than on a normal daylight shift. Now, I work in the ED. It is the hardest physical labor of any other job I have done. But, there is always someone around to help you with situations and there is ALWAYS a doc around. I can honestly say that in all the jobs (and I forgot Oncology, which is another area of high-end learning to properly do your job), I have worked very hard. And I have all the respect in the world for the people I have left behind. Day shift, night shift, any unit I can imagine, WE ALL WORK LIKE DOGS!!!!!! Let's stick together to make this a better profession and quit being the catty bitc--s that we know we can be.

This year for Nurses Day we got a chocolate bar and a letter of appreciation from the Hospital Administration. My personal supervisor gave us all really nice hand cream from Bath and Body Shop. Silly me, I appreciate everything and anything I get. The most wonderful thing I ever got on Nurses day was a card and a gold bracelet from the family of one of my patients who passed away from cancer. No hospital gift will ever top that.

I am for the death penalty. I am not for nurses being anywhere involved in administering drugs that lead to a patient's (person's) death. When going for my BSN, I wrote a paper about the ethical involvement of nurses in Assisted Suicide. I am dead set against nurses administering a lethal injection to anyone. I wrote the case that any time you add a third party to anything like that, the chance of misinterpretation was too great. It is a doctor who need to be responsible for the life and death administration of life-ending meds. I wouldn't even want to hand someone a script for meds that I know is a lethal dose for self administration. However, I believe in assisted suicide, if the patient and doc agree. I just think that the third party, nurse, should be totally left out of it, (in prison, too).

I have held it until it came out thick like jelly. I have been so dehydrated that I have been dizzy. I have been so hungry that I almost passed out. Now, I work in a place where the supervisor thinks that lunch, hydration and voiding are important for the NURSE as well as the patient. I absolutely love my job. It isn't perfect, but it was better than the last job. That supervisor would always say, "and why didn't you get to lunch?" as she accepted more and more, sicker and sicker patients, higher and higher nurse to patient ratios and pulled you into the office if you're charting wasn't perfect.

I support the nurses of Butler Memorial. Administration doesn't care about nurse retention because they have to pay more for nurses who have been there longer. They can screw a nurse just starting by giving her less money. Also, one of their tricks is to hire 3 part time nurses for one full time retiree. No benefits saves them a bundle. What I have found with part time nurses is that they have no guilt about calling off if the schedule doesn't suit them. It results in the full-timers having to shoulder yet another shift. I am not a union supporter or organizer. I left a hospital that voted in a union for a hospital that had none. However, the longer I work in nursing, the more I see their point.

To Judy Ann, Some people see a glass half full, others a glass half empty. Frankly, I hope they all keep diaries. I know that I will be praised half of the time then.

The people who need the signs the most are the ones who waited 2 weeks to a month with their symptoms and expect to be seen in 15 minutes or less. If you put up with your symptoms that long, a few hours more won't kill you.

Thanks, I just remembered why I left the floor for the ED. BIG BIG BIG hugs for you.