NurseMMM

I must have hit a nerve or something? So how many hours have you practiced in your BSN program this year taking care of a patient? As opposed to an ADN program that focuses on clinical care? I don't need statistics, it is a well known fact. ADN's are trained clinically, where BSN's are trained mainly for management. You do not get the same training. ADNs come out of school knowing how to insert an IV for example. I do not know of any BSNs that do. And I have done both programs. Have you? ADN then BSN. I received much more clinical practice while in my ADN program, then in my BSN program. And personally felt that the ADN program assisted me and my fellow classmates in patient care. I had no difficulty in transitioning to become a RN in the field. As opposed to while in the BSN program, I felt that more clinical training would have helped my classmates prepare for what they would encounter once they hit the unit and there fears over taking the NCLEX. Most of the ADN to BSN program RNs felt the very same way. Most didn't need additional clinical training. All we needed was the paper that stated we had management skills required for managerial and supervisory positions. Look up your own statistics. I lived mine. That was enough for me. It is my opinion that while coming out of any nursing program, the real learning begins once you are clinically challenged everyday. Most of us start at the bottom of the ladder. Some reach financial plataou. While others are able to advance only due to a degree without clinical expertise. I know plenty of great managers that where given the opportunity for advancement with their ADN's. I also know alot of great managers that were given the opportunity for advanced placement due their degree only. But what surprised me is that there was many a time they lacked understanding of what was clinically required for their subordinates to "get thru the day." You have to live it to truly understand it. I suppose you will find out oneday. Good luck.

Going back and getting your BSN is not usually a factor for making more money. It is usually because of wanting a higher education with the ability to advance to management in nursing. ADN programs do better for the NCLEX because you get more bedside care hours than in a BSN program. And most of the questions on the NCLEX are directly influenced on bedside care, not management skills or statistics. Plus, you can work with your ADN and then take online classes for your BSN without difficulty with financial aide available if you wanted to. Getting your BSN doesn't make you a better nurse. It makes you a better manager of nurses. It gives you the skills to manage more than bedside care. Thats the difference in my opinion. And there are plenty of hospitals that will give you tuition reimbursement if you decide to go for your BSN in the future. So what makes the best nurse out there? The one that is an aide before an LPN. The LPN who goes and gets her ADN. The ADN who goes and gets her BSN. Now there's a top rate nurse who knows what its feels like to be treated across the board! And a manager who will understand the back breaking work of an aide to having the management skills as a BSN and everything in between. But in my opinion, an ADN program puts out top notch nurses for bedside care. They get more practical experience than a BSN. I choose a BSN program not to improve my bedside skills but to advance in management. Nothing less, nothing more.

Pediatric patients restained in their beds by nets and or wrist restraints, both day and night.

I don't need a vacation, thank you. And find your remark insulting. Guess you are one of those nurses who get a chucle at someone elses expense? huh? What I need is respect. Or atleast someone to validate that offering a nurse half of what she is making is an insult. Why don't they tell you what they are offering over the phone when you ask before the interview and not waste your time? Or maybe I am just fed up with nursing after 25 years of doing it? And working with nurses like yourself that make cheap shots? And think it ok for you to do it?

Agency nursing simply stinks. Don't do it. Its not worth the extra money.

You are a new nurse. You are bound to make mistakes. Your human. Just try to be more careful next time. Check and recheck, twice if you have to. They should be giving you extra time for it, because there is a learning curve with new grads. You'll find the system that works for you. Expect many mistakes in nursing, you will learn from each of them. Especially when the day comes when you are given a verbal order and then the MD recants it and says they never told you that order, when you know they did, etc. Then you have to write out an incident report, knowing you weren't in the wrong. Now that one will really errck you! Hopefully, you'll never have to endure that sort of med error. The one you weren't responsible for, but had to swallow because the MD recanted it last minute.

At our facility, we have a response time of 20 minutes for the MD's to come to the hospital. Which sort of makes me uneasy most of the time. Alot can change in 20 minutes.

Oh, unless you work at the medical center where I live. They short staff you if you work thru an agency. I did this for extra Christmas presents this year. They gave me a shift working a step down unit. 6:1 ratio. All patients on ventilator and telemetry! With an aide 20:1 ratio. Needless to say, I complained after the patients family complained to me that I wasn't cleaning up their 250 lb mother due to diarrhea for 2 1/2 hours by myself! I couldn't move her. Nor am I going to go home and have to take flexeril and pain killers to get thru the night! I waited for the aide. I learned that my back is more important. And the agencies nurses are over worked and under valued and certain facilities. The nurse manager possibly wanted to save her financial quota and short staffed the staff this particular day because of having me there. Well, I will tell ya! I will not subject myself to ANY abuse as a nurse ANY longer. I have learned thru the years that if you don't speak up for yourself, they will walk all over you. And not support you. Especially if your not directly employed by the facility. The ICU nurses were complete b's. They got pissed off because the facility doesn't trust agency nurses in their med box. So you have to ask a regular staffer to get the meds out for you. I asked one nurse for one med during a day shift. She went off the deep end and made my patient wait 1/2 hour for it. I will tell ya. If you a sh_tty nurse like this I just hope that someday you get a nurse like yourself someday and they make you wait for pain medication. She should be ashamed of herself. I didn't make the rules, your administration did. Nor do I plan on losing my license and stealing your narcotics! Needless to say, I won't be referring anyone to work at this medical center anytime in the future. They put a very bad taste in my mouth.

Ginger! Wow! Cause in NY, or atleast where I live in NY- the pay at an LTC is absolutely lousey! I checked a nursing home close to where I live and they offered me $20/hr! I almost choked! I am making twice that in the hospital! So, for me- it was pure devastation when I heard that one! I also checked with an area MD office. Just to possibly cut down on the commute to work. They offered me $11/hr! That one made me fall off my seat! I told them flat out, "you are wasting my time, here." I got up and immeadiately walked out! And they wanted every Saturday to boot! It floored me! I laughed in their faces. After 25 years of nursing to be told I am only worth $11/hr or even half of what I am worth is deplorable to me. I was insulted. And told both facilities as such. All I can say is if you take a job for half of what your worth than maybe you need counseling. No one should accept that sort of insult. I feel that they waste our time. Get us to come in for the interview, for what? Just so they can piss most of us off? They should be ashamed of themselves expecting an experienced nurse to even consider that insult. I will stay right where I am at, thank you. The conditions of work are far better in any hospital center than in any LTC and or MD office, in my opinion.

Dying at home versus Dying in hospital? It depends upon the patient who is dying and the factors surrounding the eventual death. For most people, dying at home is more dignifying for them. They reach a point where there is acceptance. Where going into the hospital will no longer be valuable to them. Where they are ready to meet their demise with dignity and respect for there wishes. If the patient wants to continue to fight, than hospitalization is necessary. But if there is no fight left, than the home is necessary. An important factor is the age of the patient also. A twenty-six year old dying of osteosarcoma slowly may change her mind about dying at home. Even within the last few days of her life because she see's what it is doing to her family and doesn't want them to suffer with her dying at home, etc. She may choose hospitalization because she doesn't want the memory of death to haunt her family. Where they have to live daily with the notion that their daughter died in the next room, etc. You see every patient is different, every circumstance is different. Just like every death is different. There are no set rules. Most people prefer to die at home after a long struggle, nowadays. Thank god they have a choice and hospice care is better than it once was. I remember the days when we were unable to obtain a level of comfort for patients while at home. As well as in the hospital. I remember one of my patients back in the early 90s. She wanted to go home. They wouldn't let her. She had pancreatic cancer. But they were only medicating her with NUBAIN! I remember caring for her and her begging me to stop touching the bed and fixing her covers even. She was riddled in pain as I watched her die. I felt so helpless. Because they didn't ease her suffering. Nothing. I remember her clenching her teeth and clenching the side rails, until her last breath. I wish never to that sort witness the agony again by a patient. It was and is a horrible memory and experience. I wish I could forget.

A union would definately stop the nurse abuse out there. A strong one.

Before I took my NCLEX, I took a medication preparation review course. It helped my confidence. I went in a without fear and came out knowing I aced it.

I believe LTC nurses don't get respect because the pay is usually less. The care is not acute. And the requirments for certification, etc less difficult to obtain than such as CCRN. Not that you don't work your tails off. You do, we all do. I have never worked LTC. Basically, because of the pay. And I don't think they would consider me LTC material. I have always been in an acute care setting. As an ICU/CCU RN. I don't think I would have the patience to work with healthy grumpy patients, personally on a daily basis.

Have you ever researched the reasons why a nurse loses her license or is suspended at any state licensing site? Alot of them are LPNs who probably worked in a nursing home. Do you think they will support you if you make an error that may cause them a liability? Or a potential lawsuit? I would think twice about going back. But remember employers can now research where you have worked and for how long and with whom. And if you continue to start jobs and then quit. You will soon become what the nursing community considers "a temporary hire". Someone that will not stick around if it gets rocky. They will use you for the short term. Hire you, train you. But if you don't meet all expectations, they will rid themselves of you eventually. Or find a way, anyway of making you miserable until you quit. And your temporary employment with institutions will continue, over and over again. You can report it to the department of health. Even anonymously. They should be hiring temps thru the various agencies and not short staff the staff on a daily basis. Causing and inflicting you to feel as if your license is on the line. This is what happens. They don't want to pay experienced nurses in the field what they deserve. So they hire inexperienced nurses until they quit from abuse. The cycle just continues. There is no nursing shortage. Just alot of fed up, capped pay experienced nurses that would never have put up with that sort of situation to begin with. I bet you not even making what you previously made while working in the hospital to boot? LTC's are not known for paying a nurses worth. Even though there owners are making a sizable profit off of medicare reimbursements for care, gauranteed. I suppose I am stirring alot of things up today. But it is something to think about.

I don't believe most people realize what we have to endure sometimes as a nurse. And be expected to remain emotionally and physically intact after such an incident. Why were you left alone with him to begin with? I hope he rots in jail. And I hope that the hospital administrators supported you in all of this. You were probably looked at as being a liability for them in the long run. Has your employment status changed since this incident is the real question? Are you still working there or did they find a way to belittle you in other ways and get rid of you? Just wondering. I have seen this happen to other nurses that were assaulted by patients. I worked with one nurse who was excellent. A patient threw an IV pole at her. It hit her as well as flying out an 8 story window to the ground where the ER was and almost hit an EMT. She filed charges against the HIV, ETOH patient. He died while hospitalized, by the way. But eventually, they started writing her up. Over stupid things. Like at discharge and the charge nurse would go in to request a patients survey of care. They requested how this particular nurse did her job, etc. And low and behold sooner or later, found some patients to complain over her not emptying his urinal quickly, etc. Or that the IV came out and she stuck me twice without mercy, etc. I believe they interrogated the patients until they found someone to rise up and complain about her, only to write her up to get rid of her. She resigned because of all of the flack she was getting about a year later. It was very sad. She was a good nurse. But a liability for the hospital, I suppose. All because she pressed charges against this crazed man? Who almost killed her as well as an EMT. I hope he rots, you know where. I suppose I have seen too many negative things in my nursing career. This was in 1992. I don't know if she retired or is currently working as an RN or not. But I hope she is better off than what she encountered at our hospital. She didn't deserve to be "weeded" out. She was one of the good ones. If the hospitals feel your a liability and or want you gone, believe me eventually your gone. Whether you are at fault or not. If they don't like you, they find reason's to get rid of you. That's why I always keep it anonymous with reporting incidents. If they find out your a whistle blower, they will weed you just a quickly as if you were a mean nurse to others. It is best to keep yourself protected and remain anonymous.