nell

Two of my babies got their first exe exam for ROP today on dayshift. In report, the day nurse told me that the Opthamologist said her eye speculum wasn't in her pocket and asked where we kept them on the unit. When she found out we didn't keep any ...

I've got a question: Do your Docs ever write for anything to be BID, QID, 3 times/day. etc. and if they do, what time schedule do you put the med/treatment on? The reason I am asking, is that we recently had a flap over a resp treatment ordered BID....

Daytonite, You are a California supervisor: please look up Title 22. I have to go to work now so don't have time to get a link, but in CA, a nurse must have documented competency for any unit s/he works on. And "A nurse is a nurse is a nurse" attitud...

Yeah.:angryfire Is there no such thing as patient rights if you are old/on Medicare/on Medicaid? I am truly disgusted. nell

Every union is different. There can be different contracts with different facilities that have the same union. Our union has approved our cancellation policy. Our union has negotiated for on-call pay which in most cases is 1/2 of base pay and doublet...

or is this common? Our unit is staffed according to patient census and acuity, so when either of those drops, someone (sometimes multiple nurses) are cancelled. In the past, the cancellation was for the whole shift unless the nurse asked to be called...

Thanks AliRae. At least you have 5-6 hours to get something done before the next call. I don't suppose you are paid on-call time? Our policy has no set time block - they can cancel us for from 15 minutes to 12 hours at a time. Our cancelation notice ...

Well, here's some more video: http://www.11alive.com/video/player.aspx?aid=71528&bw= Sure hope she does half as well as Mom thinks.... nell

Gawd, how many hoops do we have to jump through. Med tests, PBDS, personality tests and BKATs....... Well, here's a little info: http://nursing.cua.edu/research/toth-BKAT-7.cfm#BKAT nell

Hi lizzyette, The hospital I work for contracts with a company that does extensive background checks, including credit checks. I had terrible credit (divorce etc.) and was afraid I wouldn't be hired - but I was. Whew! Good luck. nell

As with anything in nursing, there are differences from facility to facility - in fact most hospitals in my area don't have a newborn nursery - they do mother-baby couplets on maternity... We maintain a newborn nursery so that our parents have a choi...

Hi Melissa, If you PM me, I can email you our code policies. Our crash carts have modules that are filled and sealed by pharmacy or central supply with expiration dates that are monitored by us on a regular basis (I forget what is daily and what is ...

Dixie, I am so sorry you are going through this, and I understand how much you love your son. I think the Narcanon and Salvation Army suggestions are probably good. My son was in a local mental facility after threats of suicide. Even though it is pa...

Wow, I wonder what the cost issues are with unplanned extubations? - collapsed alveoli, traumatic reintubations, what else? The neobar is great - you really have to work to accidentally extubate if the correct size neobar is properly applied. Steve: ...

We have a Neo who has done research on hyperbilirubinemia and for serious phototherapy he wants blue lights and however many it takes to get a reading greater than 35 (our new lights are >35 each). We check and document the reading each shift. nel...

mawjood, We use the Neobar: http://www.neotechproducts.com/store/detail.php?sku=NT-5&session= We used to tape something like this (scroll down): http://www.dhmc.org/webpage.cfm?site_id=2&org_id=116&morg_id=0&sec_id=0&gsec_id=3103&...

so midwives don't test the infants of diabetic moms? or lgas, sgas or preemies? and how "high risk" are you talking? how do you know those babies didn't suffer any harm? where harm from low blood sugar shows up is in learning disabilities and maybe a...

Maybe some of the confusion as to what the CDC guidelines mean has to do with how the lipids (change Q 24 hours) are infused. In any NICU I have ever worked in, the TPN and Lipids are separate bags and tubing. Therefore, per the CDC guidlines, the TP...

A nurse I work with calls it "Performance Penalty". nell

Our current ophthalmologist’s orders: Proparacaine 0.5% once, followed by Cyclomydril (Cyclopento 0.2%/Phenyleph 1%) x2 10 minutes apart. These orders are not a NICU policy - they are the preference of the MD doing the exam. nell

Wow, one of the premises for the nurse-patient ratios here in CA is that having reasonable ratios actually ameliorates the nursing shortage. We will occasionally have a short shift due to sick calls, but for the most part we have adequate staff. Many...

When I did pediatric home care (CA & Oregon), we were responsible for keeping the patient's equipment clean but NOT for doing any household chores. We didn't even vacuum/sweep the patient's room - well, often they were set up in the living or fam...

Excellent response, Humbled_Nurse. Anytime the PBDS question comes up, we should pull up this post - it says it all. nell

Wow, if they tried that here, I'd be out the door. I graduated in 1977 and none of my credits would count now. If I had to go through 4 more years of school, it wouldn't be nursing school. minus another nurse and counting... nell

mixy, I would have a problem with several parts of that form also. Good for you for actually reading the forms before signing them. I'll bet you will be one of those nurses who uses their critical thinking skills instead of just blindly carrying out...