obtnt

What do I think??? I think you all have WAY too much time on your hands!!! Oh how I miss those slow nights!!!! We don't have those anymore!:chuckle :roll :chuckle

WOW! I thought I was alone in my experience here! In the late 80's, I was a green L&D nurse just learning OB and the hospital decided to "pull" from L&D to any and all areas, including ICU, CCU, AIDS floors, etc. and if it got busy in L&D, we had to run back to the unit to do a delivery!!! We were all mostly new nurses so we had little backbone but we knew this was not good for the pts or us! Look at cross contamination like mentioned above just for starters and the inexperience we had in other area. We all decided the next time they called to pull whoever was up to go would refuse. We had all the docs backing us so we were confident things would go well. Well, I was up and things went according to plan except I too was told to go or go home, which I did and I was FIRED and my attempts to get another job were tainted by a certain head nurse (who had NO OB experince and was only using her position to furthur her CAREER which it did)! She went up the ladder and even made TIME magazine in another of her positions in our hospital. In the mean time, she gave out very unflattering and downright malicious references to the positions I tried for at other hospitals and then denied it to my face. The other nurses did benefit though as the pulling stopped at that point so I was the sacrificial cow so to speak. It just goes to show ya!! In the long run, we have to protect our pts. We take that pledge you know, and look at all the nosocomial infections we are seeing and hearing about today!! You know it is related to the bottom line being the dollar and not pt care!! God help us all if we need to be hospitalized in todays enviroment! That's why I'm a radical nurse advocate!!!

Another point to ponder: if you LOOK like one of the staff, you could be called upon to help (in the hallway?) and you would be put in a very tough position trying to explain. The public is still very old fashioned with nurses. I once worked in an office where I was the only RN. On day one, I ASSUMMED I was working with a RN, as she had on a uniform(this was a while back) and a pin that looked VERY MUCH like mine!! I asked her where she went to school and was shocked to hear that she had previously worked at a local salad bar!!! She had bought the pin at a uniform shop and it was for "nursing assistant"!!!!!! To the general public, that pin, uniform, and stethescope means NURSE!! So as it has already been stated, make it CLEAR that you are NOT a nurse!! You can be comfortable, just differentiate your position clearly so it is obvious you are not part of that hospital's staff. It will help you work with the staff if they know you are doing your job, not trying to "compete" with them in this sticky issue of appearances.

we only use it for iufd due to the above. the doc's place it, and we're happy with that. too much liability and like above, a few doc's who LOVE to pass the blame when anything goes wrong. we don't place iupc's either and only experienced r n's place ise's.

From the voice of experience here: ALWAYS check fetal position when you think you "feel cervix". We have had numerous FT to 1cm noted by new nurses who were in fact frank breech!! Think about it, this happens quite often. Also, I agree, until you are comfortalbe with SVE's you should not hesitate to have a back up examiner to give confidence when there is a question. The more you do the better you will be.