fedupnurse

http://www.youwriteon.com/books/bookdetail.aspx?bookguid=40d595e2-9d05-4ada-a0bd-748eb513247c Looks like it is a book??

Amen! I'll take bedside smarts over book smarts any day of the week! Knowing facts or figures is useless if you do not know how to handle a crashing patient or an irate family member. Of course a solid foundation in anatomy and physiology is a must. You will learn far more your first year out of nursing school than you'll ever learn in nursing school!

Only things that can top the c diff smell are GI bleeds and the death dumper. C-Diff, ESBL, VRE, MRSA, Acinetobactor, etc. I take care of patients all the time and do not worry about it. Just scrub your hands raw with hot soapy water right after each and every contact with the patient. Always assume every patient has something bad and wear gloves for any and all contact with the patient and anything in their room then when the isolation sign goes up a week later it is no big deal (for the staff anyway!)

Hope you have a great smooth night!!! Good luck!!!!

Far more important than what you won is that you won and your union remains intact. This was clearly a union busting attempt. Now, get ready to go back. If anyone says anything to you like "you walked out on patients" etc. simply noted their name the date and time and immediately notify your e board of the incident. There are some simple minded people who buy all the rhetoric that administration puts out there. As tempting as it is to give it right back, don't. Remember to keep union talk out of patient care areas. Congratulations on your solidarity during this strike. It is very impressive that so few people crossed and believe me, all of you have sent a huge message to the powers that be!!!!

If I have an off day at work, perhaps not feeling well, something like that and I don't get my work done in a timely manner, human beings not only suffer for it, they may die because of it. Nurses aren't allowed to have bad days at work. We can't finish that "project" tomorrow. That is something I feel many in management have also forgotten and why I have long professed a need for anyone with the title of Registered Nurse should be legally required to do a minimum number of clinical hours at the bedside each and every year. No cushy assignments either. If they don't care about giving us 8 to 10 patients on med surg (and in many places even more than that) or 3 crashing unit patients or filling up the ED until it is literally bursting at the seams than they can do it too. Perhaps then they would see it just cannot be done safely.This is particularly true in my facility where many have gone into management to get away from the unreasonable patient care conditions that they now protect in the name of the bottom line! I would never permit anyone I care about to ever be in a hospital where any job action is taking place. I don't care if it is nurses, dietary, physical therapy or what. it is all of us "little people" the pee ons for lack of a better term that keep these facilities going and the thanks we get are substandard wages and treatment! Until the federal government gets up off its butt and passes and enforeces laws mandating safe patient care in this country the profit driven executives will still be laughing all the way to the bank!

Oh good Lord!! That is where I am working now!!!!!! You described my CEO to a tee!!!!!!

I agree with ZASHAGALKA. I treat patients like I would want my family/loved ones to be treated. Nursing Theory may God Bless you my child-that class was awful. I always love when these PhD (piled higher and deeper) people come up with this theory stuff. With conditions what they are in most places, my theory is if I make it through my shift and made my patients day a little easier to bear or a little brighter than I did a good job....

I just can't help but remember an old Joan Rivers monologue when she was filling in for Johnny Carson (any of you who just thought Johnny who-please slap yourselves!!!!) and she was talking about filming deliveries which was new back then and the camcorders were a general surgeons dream because they were so big and heavy they had to have produced a ton of hernias. Anyway Joan says "have you ever gone to a friends house for dinner and they show the film of their baby being born??? How disgusting is that??? I keep telling them put that film in reverse and lets see that baby disappear!!!" The people who complain about not being able to take pics are the same ones who show up when someone is on their deathbed professing to be the person best firend their whole life. Then you find out later they met once in a supermarket years ago.....

I wish you had been at this stupid seminar!!!!! That is CLASSIC!!!!!!!!

After checking out the above website, it is now all starting to make sense!!!! The health bosses and Disney bosses all think alike...$$$$$$$$!!!! And treat their employees like mindless idiots!!!!

http://www.anomalies-unlimited.com/Disney.html Check this out!!!!!

I have nothing against Disney. It is a great vacation experience especially with kids in tow, but the thought of them branching out into healthcare facilities and the powers that be falling for it. The employees in the movie section of the indoctrination had Mickey Ears on. I honestly thought I was going to need to see an eye surgeon. I don't think I have ever rolled my eyes so much in my life!!! Causes quite the headache when you use those muscles too much at once!!!

Say it ain't so!!! Not a Walmart Greeter!!!!!!!!!!

OH!!!! You need to copyright that little beauty!!!!!!! That is HYSTERICAL!!!!!!

I have actually considered downloading Be Our Guest and Whistle While You Work. But I have to be careful because I am one of the ones who failed the cult indoctrination big time and they are trying to get rid of us who won't walk around saying how great everything is!! It is just so insulting to be subjected to this. As pointed out in many of the posts, if they would just use that money toward staffing and realize that most patients choose hospitals based on where their doctors have privledges we could save a ton of time and even more money!!! Shades of re engineering, same type of mentality.

Anyone out there been visited by Disney yet? That's right, Disney. Mickey Mouse was there as well as a couple of other characters.All employees were required to attend the 2 plus hour sessions and the gist is that you are working in a perfect environment and you are to provide perfect care.No patients should ever have a complaint because we are at their (and their family members) beck and call 24/7. It was like a new horror movie...The Stepford Staff.

The ANA can say we have the right to advocate without the fear of retribution but we do experience retribution each and every day! I guess many of you haven't been Disney-fied yet!! Just wait till that happens to those of you with a mind and a mouth. It's like a cult indoctrination!!! The bottom line is hospital executives expect nurses to give "perfect" care in far less than perfect circumstances. This is the newest trend just like re engineering was in the mid 90's. Smile and profess this is the best hospital in the world. This is exactly what most strikes revolve around-administrators want complete and total power over their staff. I agree, when I read voice of reasons posts I began to get the stink of an executive!!!!!!!!

Here is the deal with PPO insurance coverage. Hospitals "own" them. We have a PPO and many of our docs hate it because the hospital (yes, it is the hospital that cuts the check to the docs) takes 9 to 12 months to pay the docs for services rendered. I don't know about you, but I certainly wouldn't wait for a year to be paid what I am owed. In the meantime, the hospital gets to invest not only the docs money that they are holding onto but also the stiff penalties (a grand is nothing to sneeze at for going out of network) and they invest that money to their benefit. I have heard from the sister of a RWJ nurse that many of their docs have opted out of being a PPO providers so then you have even less of a choice. If we had a non profit driven healthcare system in this country it would be a mute point. We would still have the old indemnity type insurance where I pay 20% and the insurer pays 80% regardless of what doc I choose to go to. If I lived 30 or more minutes away from my employer, I would have no choice but to choose a doc closer to my home. I would certainly not take 30 or more minutes in an emergency situation to get to a hospital!! Like CLCTRN said, it is not just about insurance. That is what the execs are saying to divert attention from the real issue. God forbid nurses have a say in patient care issues and this is why they are ignoring the unions requests to come back to the table. We all have a choice. If we don't believe in striking we have no business working in a unionized facility. We also have no right to reap the benefits unionized facilities garner for the "rest of us". If anything happened to the union where I work it would negatively affect salaries, benefits and working conditions for every hospital employee in this area. They have to offer what we have gained through our union in order to attract and retain staff.

Since we've gone off topic....I believe RWJ has a PPO. I have heard that many of their docs have dropped out of this plan due to the lengthy time it takes the hospital (that's right folks, the hospital is the one who cuts the check to the docs!!!!!!) to pay them for services rendered. Quite a few docs at my facility say it takes up to 1 year for payment of services so all the while the hospital gets to invest that money and make more from it. So not only do many of the RWJ nurses have to travel long distances in emergency situations, they also can no longer choose which doc they choose to go to. They have to go to the few still participating. In the end, the hospitals are still making money hand over fist by having a PPO and they supplement that with the huge penalties they force their staff to pay for non RWJ services. PPO's aren't covered by the Incsurance Commission but the US Dept of Labor who all but told me that their hands are tied since PPO's are private insurance. I miss the good old days of indemnity plans.....you could go to whoever you wanted!!!!

Sound slike that administrator was counting in non bedside nurses in those salary numbers!!! If you add in mgmt and CRNA's the average hourly rate would be 40 something an hour or more. Too bad there aren't some nurse reporter's out there to pepper them with questions like $44.00 per hour is an average salary for your staff nurses??? Does that include any mgmt or CRNA's? I like when they count non bedside nurses (and we have a ton of them in my place) and say we have 1200 nurses. Less than half that are bedside but no need to truly inform the public. Then you must also remember the penny wise pound foolish nature of administrations thinking. If we had gone to acceptable ratios years ago we wouldn't be in this shortage now. Nurses would have been able to stay at the bedside because their working conditions would have been tolerable. They'd rather spend millions training new nurses and paying scab agencies than do the right thing in the first place. After you deduct out what you are paying in healthcare, it greatly diminishes your hourly rate...between paying in for the actual coverage and all the out of pocket expenses if you God forbid have to go out of network!

The most important issue is this: when administration knows they can abuse you they will. By standing strong as RWJ Nurses have done, they now will have a voice. In the end, the strike I experienced was about just that-nurses still having a voice in patient care. We still do. RWJ Nurses still will. THAT is what it is all about in the end.

Nurses don't choose to go on strike. I know, I have been there. We are forced to fight for what is fair by a group of greedy business executives who couldn't care less about the patients who are caught in the middle. Unions have to give a 10 day strike notice and the purpose of that is so that the hospital can make decisions regarding closing units, cancelling surgeries, etc. When hospitals choose to continue with business as usual, blame the executives making those decisions. I would never allow anyone I care about to be in a health facility that is on strike. My uncle was a patient in my hospital around the time we went on strike. When we gave our 10 day notice I met with his doctors and said you either fix him before the date of the deadline or transfer him to another hospital and I made the arrangments for him to go to that other hospital. Had a doc lined up, etc. I think the point of the original post is the usual saga of how nurses don't stick together. Here we have a strong group of nurses at RWJ tired of getting worse healthcare choices that charity care patients in NJ and there is another subgroup of our profession willing to undermine their efforts because they are going for the big bucks. If every nurse said no to crossing picket lines this wouldn't be an issue. If hospitals knew agencies like US Nursing Corp did not exist they would have no choice but to bargain in good faith. No one on a picket line enjoys it or takes it lightly. It is heatrt breaking. But if we cave to these business executives who are only looking at the bottom line how much worse will patient care conditions continue to become when these executives know there will always be someone willing to cross that line???

Yup, the phone calls and intimidation like that happens. Managers will choose people they feel are more likely to cross or be upset by the news that people have crossed. Tell people if they get calls to ask for specific names. Of course mgmt won't tell them but it will at least put them on the spot. I'd also consider having a voice recorder near the phone and tell any person who calls trying to intimidate me into coming back "Hi, I need to tell you that I am recording this conversation...." I would then pursue harassment charges against them while the strike is ongoing. It is amazing what hospitals will do and spend to get their way!!!! Congrats on so few people crossing!! That is impressive!!!!!!