KsEDRN

I worked with a nurse who felt she should never assist a patient not hers. She came to me one night to tell me a patient needed the bed pan. I was in the middle of assisting an aid clean a C-diff patient who required a bedding change, bath...you get the picture. By the time we finished C-diff guy we got to go do a second bedding change/bath. Would have been way too dificult for her to had the patient the bed pan labled with her name from the bath room. Teamwork makes everything run so much smoother, but if it really bothers you, let the other nurses know.

I too was military for 20 years and agree. I chose an ADN program for several reasons. 1. The ADN program in my area had the best NCLEX pass rate. 2. I needed to finish school and start earning before my VA education benefits ran out. 3. I was not interested in a leadership roll. Had enough of that. Our instructors were great and worked hard on our critical thinking skills and I think it made me a great nurse. I have only been an RN for 2 years, but have only seen 2 nurses fail there NCLEX, both from BSN programs... go figure. My husband is now going to nursing school and chose a BSN program because it was the program that accepted the most of his prior credits and he wants to go on to a Masters program after completion. Integrity, work ethic, team work, compassion & ability to learn from anyone are the qualities I look for in a coworker.

I had a friend e-mail me this news story, Phill Kline is a scary person to have in any position of power. I have refused to draw blood on intoxicated patients brought in by the police and it does seem to upset them, until you mention that it would be battery to do so with out the patient's consent. I was then told that not allowing a blood draw, or taking a breathalizer was automatic loss of license.

I have recently started working at a new stand alone ER. We are all required to have a minimum of two years ER experience. We are a full service emergency room and can handle anything that walks through the doors (and have). Ambulances only bring us "noncritical" patients. They do make errors at times and have brought us up to level 1 traumas. We have onsite lab, x-ray, CT scan, RT, and on-call sono. We have seen gun shot wounds, stabbings, cardiac & resp arrests that walked in or drove up. We start the stabilization process and call EMS to transport to our main facility across town. Our admits are transported at hospital expense to our main facility by EMS, and if necessary a nurse rides along. If the patient wishes to go to another facility the get the ambulance bill. It is a great place to work and we see a similar variety to the main facility. We were expected to see only about 30 patients a day by the end of the first year, we met that by the end of the first week and continue to see more patients every month.