Stormy62

Do you mark the NG canister with the time and date at the end of your shift or do you empty the entire canister and put it back? Seems to me this emptying of the canister is only opening you up to chances of exposure. If you do mark the canister as opposed to empyting it, can you offer me any magazine articles/studies that would support this, so I can take it to management? Thanks

Mandy, That is a beautiful poem. Did you know they (whoever "they" are) made that poem into a very touching video? It is about 10 mintues long and it shows some elderly patients in a nursing home. I first heard that poem a good 10 years ago, and it did make me cry. But then last year I saw the video they made with the poem along with it. It was absolutely awsome! I wish I could get my hands on that video now! Has anyone else seen it, or know where to get it?

You all are too funny! I thought until now that I was one of the few people in this world with such a warped sense of humor- I now realize I have this sick humor because I am a nurse and it must have been a "coping skill" that I have developed along the way to survive the things I've seen throughout my career. My practical joke happened back around 1990 when I worked an Oncology unit and a new housekeeper came to the floor. She was in her 60's, kind of quiet and timid. I found one of the red "BIOHAZARD" stickers we used to place on the discarded chemo tubing. I stuck the BIOHAZARD on her banana that was on top of her cleaning cart. Around 10am, she was gong to leave the unit for her break and reached to get her banana. The look on her face was priceless. When I explained how I had accidently spilled some chemo agent on her banana she asked if it could still be eaten. I told her it would make her hair fall out- even after I told her it was all a joke, she refused to eat it! I ended up buying her breakfast that day.

How are each of you dealing with patients who are abusing prescription medications? There has been so much emphasis put on the patients right to pain control (over the past ten years or so). I understand and agree with this belief. However, there are also many, many patients who (although not always a planned thing on their part) have become addicted to prescription pain medications. I know clinically how we handle this (pain agreements, referrals to alternative pain control specialties such as massage therapy, psych counseling, etc), but my question to you all is: How do you personally deal with this on the patient level. We are trained as nurses not to "judge", yet I find myself growing increasingly angry at these patients who knowingly abuse there medications and then come in early for more. I feel I am being "played" when they hand me a line about losing there medications or tell me "they were stolen" or any other lame excuse. Another question I have is: If the MD does not prescribe the medication that day and the patient goes into withdrawls, is he not liable? If he does prescribe it early to keep this from happening, are there not legal ramifications for this as well? Sounds like either way we loose and in the long run the patient does too.