indeed

I work on a 35 bed Tele unit. Our usual assignment is 5-6 pts. Sometimes we have an aide, sometimes not, so we do most of these things ourselves. When I first started, their were no aides on night shift and we also were lucky enough to draw labs. I still can't remember how we got it all done, but we did. In some ways, I prefer doing these things myself. The more you are in that patient's room, the more you are assessing them (which, let's face it, as long as we are looking at a patient, we are assessing them), the more you are going to pick up. Indeed.

That sounds like something I get all the time...I have always attributed it to being a mouth breather when I sleep. The only thing that has helped is putting a petroleum jelly on the corners of me mouth before I go to bed. DON'T use Carmex...I tried that, and it just made it worse (too irritating, maybe). Indeed.

The KVO rate is usually a matter of policy at each hospital. Look it up next time you get to work.......ours is officially 40cc/hr. As for a keeping it wide open, I would think that is exactly what it says...run it wide open. I have only ever seen that when someone is CTD with a pressure of 30/nothing. But then, I haven't been doing this for very long, so I'm sure there is probably other appropriate situations where you can use that. Hope this helped. Indeed.

Most of the nurses that wear clogs where I work are men. The female nurses seem to be fond of Dansko's...they make a pair that looks like a clog from the front but has a closed back. Everyone swears by them. Me, I'll stick with my Spalding's that I got from Target for 20 bucks. Indeed.

Depends on the patient...some of the more "agitated" *ahem* ones benefit from having it placed under. Out of sight, out of mind and all that. The ones that I don't worry about pulling, over because, well, because it's more convenient that way, easier to move around. The collection tubing on most of them is so stiff that you really have to be trying to staunch the flow, and MOST legs aren't that big. What I find weird is that they are pushing where to place the tube in the first place. A policy on logistics, sweet mother of monkey. Indeed.

I just got a Litmann Master and it rocks. I was stuck between getting that and the Cardiology so I tried them both a few times (thanks to some very trusting coworkers) and for me, the difference was definately noticeable. Thing is, I could still hear what I need to hear with the Master, so I figured I'd let someone else buy the Cardiology for me. So yeah, long story short (too late) the Master is a good one. Indeed.

Unfortunately, my slump doesn't hit until 0700, so the nurses I report off to get to watch me rub my eyes and drink heroic amounts of coffee. I think I hit that slump because I am finally sitting Indeed.

I understand where you are coming from with this, Huganurse, and it makes sense on a certain level. But it is, in my mind, insulting to men to assume they cannot give the care and love a child needs in those formative years. And it is dangerous to women and our opportunities as women to say that this is a valid reason to expect SAH from a mother much more than a father. Nothing will ever change my opinion of that. I have had to fight tooth and nail for the opportunities my brother was handed at birth. To live your life being told "this is what you should do because of your set of dangly bits," with very few taking into account POTENTIAL, is a sad and sometimes damaging thing (for men AND women), and that kind of position can only contribute to that damage. If staying at home worked for you, and you really do feel better about the whole thing that way and feel you can do more as a PERSON that way, than I wholeheartedly support your decision, as long as it was your choice. "It really does affect the children when Mom is too busy b/c she works too much, the child feels slighted in many cases. I know b/c they tell me thier deep heart feelings and secrets." Then let me tell you a not so big secret. Both my mother and father worked when I was a child. My father specifically worked the craziest hours and jobs after he retired from the USAF because it was his "duty as a man" to be working for his family. I didn't know my father then as I know him now, and I directly blame his work life for this...now that we have all left home, he gets to do what he always wanted and needed to do in his career and had the time to get to know his children, something we would have benefitted from long before we ever left. I have always known my mother, and I love her dearly. But finding out now, twenty one years after the fact, that my dad is one of THE most incredible people I have ever met is wonderful...and sad. And I wouldn't deny that opportunity to other children to know their fathers as people, as most of us have always known our mothers. It is not worth the emotional distance that assumption (that mothers raise the children and fathers support them) creates. Indeed.

"Society couldn't pay a salary high enough to a mother to compensate her for all she sacrifices for her children, not to mention those sacrifices she makes as a wife. " That's where I was getting that from. I don't agree. Yes, a mother is important, OBVIOUSLY. I am not arguing that. What I am arguing is the idea that it should be recognized as THE MOST IMPORTANT THING, therefore making the argument that a man should be the breadwinner. If that were not the case, there would be no argument. That was all I was getting at there. Sorry it took up such a large segment of my post...my thoughts ran away with me their (yay stream of consciousness ). But the point still stands. Indeed.

WOW. So what some of you are saying is that because a PERSON happens to have a different set of dangly bits from you, that means they must be YOUR breadwinner? And why, if you are "perfectly healthy," shouldn't you be held to the same standards as your partner? Just my opinion, but that kind of thinking is the reason why I need to be able to do 150% better than my male counterparts in most of my endeavors to be recognized as an intellectual equal. By saying what some of you have said, you are handing men a sense of entitlement on a silver platter, and therefore can't place all of the blame of misogyny on men. If you cater to the idea that a man should be your breadwinner, you should be ready for expectations on you that you don't find entirely fair. As for the "mother being the most important role" bit, tell me then...do you all secretly feel "sorry" for those of us who don't have children (and don't plan on it....ever) because we will never achieve anything "important" in life? And would you feel just as sorry for a man without children who had achieved much outside of that sphere? (It's not a rare achievement to get pregnant, although it may be a rare thing being a good parent. So bully for you, but some of us are very good at other things that can be just as important to you and your children's future.) If my SO tells me tomorrow that he is The Man and therefore must support me financially for the rest of my days I will laugh in his f&*%$ing face as I get into the car that I paid for, to go to the job that I worked my butt off to get, and when I get home I will sleep much more soundly knowing that I am the only one responsible for me and for the things that I want to achieve in my life.

Hey there, andylane78. I'm not an ER nurse, but from a floor nurse's persepective, yeah. Sometimes I see coworkers who are downright nasty to the ED nurses. It's some weird bad-blood thing between the floors and ED. I think a lot of times, people get stressed, Admissions wants you to take this patient NOW (or possibly 10 minutes ago), and forever after (in some nurses' minds) the connection is made between undue stress and the ED nurses. Not saying it's right, it's just what I have noticed. Personally, I have no problem whatsoever with the ED nurses. They do a job that I DO NOT want to do and I do a job that they don't cotton to either. It all boils down to realizing that no one's job is easy, and that we all need to be cut some slack. *And that last sentence made no sense WHATSOEVER!!!* Time for me to sleep. Oh yes. Indeed.

Cheyne-Stokes is just a respiratory pattern though...not a sound. I looked it up and in Mosby's it just describes what a death rattle sounds like and that it is most often hear with agonal respirations, but didn't give any other name for it. Hope you remember the word you were trying to think of though. I hate when that happens!! Indeed.

In my limited experience with all this, I have found that the things that make nights difficult at times are things that are taken completely for granted on days. When we get admissions on nights, we not only deal with the patients, but tired (and a lot of times pissy) family members, waking up docs, starting the chart (which is why days have secretaries), running to the supervisor's office for meds when we don't have a house orderly (same for PRBCs and the like), doing all of the baths on complete patients, transporting to stat tests (and sometimes the morgue), and the list goes on. Gods forbid the sh*t hits the fan, at which point we have most of our nurses in that room, leaving whomever is left to make sure the rest are safe and sound. Recently had a situation where, no kidding, it was a double header...two patients (naturally at opposite ends of the unit), one a possible CVA in progress, the other in SVT. At the very least we are good at RUNNING! And then factor in all of the mandatory inservices and meetings that are NEVER held at a decent hour (by night shifts standards) and do not take into account the fact that if a meeting is at 0800 (which won't start until 0830) and you have to be back at work at 1900...well, no, we aren't delighted because you brought bagels...we are TIRED. I would dare management to mandate an inservice at 0300 and expect day shift to show. All of these things, and more, we accept and expect, it's part of the job and we know that going in. Most nights shifters have weighed the pros and cons and are doing it because it works for them, NOT because it is easy. I challenge anyone who says night shift is "easier" (a laughable concept, seeing as no part of my brain can accept the idea of nursing being EASY) to come on in some night and lend us a hand. We could certainly use it! I understand fully well that day shift is a whole different bag of oats, and I don't envy them in the least (what with all that sun shining through the windows...hehe). I just get burned when people assume that because THEY are asleep, everyone else must be and therefore we have nothing to do. We're all nurses, we all work our fingers and feet to the bone, and we all need support, not UNconstructive criticism and blabbing about "I do more than you blah blah blah." Just my .02 (and then some!). Indeed.