OrthoNutter

We have a similar thing going on for a couple of hours during the day shifts at my hospital, provided by the Red Cross. They're all volunteers, they don't get a dime for doing it but they all love the interaction so all we are free to get on with doing things which, to us are far more important, even if the patient may not agree. And because I'm not getting paged by the patients every 2 seconds to do flower arranging, toenail painting, application of makeup or providing cups of tea not only for the patient but every relative as well, I find it a lot easier to fulfill the customer service aspect of my job (ie smile and nod politely in all the appropriate places and mind my p's and q's). I only wish that they were on staff 6-10pm!

I went to ICU straight out from graduating. Spent the first six months of my nursing career bewildered, confused and utterly lost. I was supposed to have a 6-8wk introductory period as well but they were short-staffed and to management, a body was a body so we got thrown in the thick of it. My time management skills, which were used to a 6-8pt load went right out the window in my time there (I'm sorry if this offends ICU nurses, but it is a lot easier to for me to co-ordinate care for 1-2 very very sick pts than for 6-8 less sick pts). ICU terrified me but I'm proud to say I survived my stint there and still go back occasionally, when staffing needs necessitate it. I'm MUCH happier where I am now though (ortho, in case you hadn't gotten that).

In a perfect world, I would agree with you. I'm one of those lucky people who can work whatever shift and still do my job. I don't need to sleep on nights....sometimes at 4am my brain gets a little fogged but I find the best thing to do is go outside in the freezing cold without a jacket. That usually wakes me up. But I digress....lucky me, I work for the state. They give us NO choice when it comes to shifts. You either work all three on a rotating roster or you shift your keister to the private sector, which incidentally pays less. Money is important to a lot of people, so even though it may not suit their body clocks to be working all sorts of shifts, they do it for the differential and the public sector award pay rate. I continue to work public because I couldn't live on a part-time wage if I worked in the private sector. I'm just lucky that I can cope with the constant "back and forth" nature of a rotating roster.

You evidently haven't worked with some of the acute medical patients that I have. One pt I recall was on 80u Actrapid TDS with 120u of Protophane at night. Sounds insanely high, but that's what was required to keep this patient's glucose levels in the "optimum" range. No it's not a "regular" dose as you put it, but for some people, it's normal for them. Yes we should all be smart enough to know what is normal etc but mistakes do happen and I personally would rather cover my own backside than lose my license over a med error that could easily have been avoided. I respect your abilities and all that (as I do all of my colleagues until they prove themselves incompetent), but I'll have to agree to disagree with you here. It's not THAT stupid an idea.

The only meds we do not double check are oral meds, excluding the anti-coagulants and steroids. They too, must be double checked. Anything IV, IM or S/C MUST be double checked, regardless of whether it is a narcotic or not. Personally, I don't mind. The number of times on night duty where my mind is not completely at work, another pair of eyes has saved a patient as well as my license. It is so easy to make a mistake, so why not exercise a little caution when it takes so little time to do?

How does that work?? I'm starting to feel very technologically deprived here in Australia. We don't even have Pyxis! lol

When do you get time to do that? I have trouble fitting everything I have to do in the hours that are in each day as it is, let alone writing to someone every time they posted something that annoyed me. :chuckle

I apologise to all those who cringe at my typos and elipses....haha...I love knowing that what I do has a name. I have to say when I visit this board it's generally before night duty or after an evening shift. My brain is usually putty by then...I make typos, sometimes I even make (God forbid) grammatical errors and I put my punctuation in the wrong place from time to time. Sometimes my brain is thinking so fast....and I know you people who have a hot temper like myself will identify with this....that my fingers just can't keep up. But I really could not give a rats. I can advocate for my patient...I can interpret handwriting FAR worse than my typing at the speed of lightning...I can communicate with all the doctors of non-English speaking backgrounds in order to get the best care possible for my patients. My professionalism, or perceived lack thereof, does not come across in how well/poorly I communicate on a BB....it comes across in the way I deal with people at work and how well I do my job. And in the end, isn't that what really matters?

I hear ya....when they float me to OB....not being a midwife....all I do is make beds and answer phones....they won't even let me do the vitals because they always have to go back and do a foetal heart rate as well so according to them, it's a waste of time me doing the others. So I sit back and collect my RN paycheck for doing the work of an AIN/ward clerk.

Again, I have to ask....how does this happen and people not realise? I'm assuming that these syringes are like the pre-filled Clexane (enoxaparin) ones we have here...but even so, the syringe is enclosed in packaging so people would know if it had been tampered with. I'm assuming that the same precautions would be done with pre-filled narcs or how would you know that you were giving what originally came in the package? We don't have any narcs in pre-filled syringes in my state. We have to physically go to the DD cupboard and sign the ampoules out, break the suckers and draw the stuff up. It's not all that time-consuming that I would see a need for pre-fills. All our narcs are checked by two nurses and we count each time the cupboard is opened. Maybe we're just more strict in our practice here....but this is just not an issue where I work.

How do you do that with a glass ampoule???

Considering some of the people I work with, I don't think it requires much intelligence at all. In fact, I'm beginning to doubt that you even need common sense either. :roll Forgive me folks, a large number of my colleagues are excellent to work with and could probably beat me in the brains department any day but sometimes I have to wonder where management finds them! Seriously though, I don't think you need to be an Einstein. Common sense will take you a lot further than Einstein intelligence any day in my book.

I never wear gloves when starting IVs or taking blood because I too, can't feel the veins properly, especially if they're a hard stick. My thought is that gloves are not going to protect me from a needlestick anyway...it's not like they're made of industrial strength steel. But for all other jobs, the gloves are always there. A pair always lives in my pocket "just in case".

Hell yeah....I think that theory is a whole heap of stinking, messy code brown.

I don't see what the big deal is here. Sheesh....part of the appeal of doing travel work or agency, per diem, casual pool whatever...part of that is because no one tells you what to do. I'll be switching to that next year myself and if I find anyone telling me "oh no you can't have every friday off because nobody on the FTE staff does", then they can just kiss my sweet (_|_) !!! lol I agree with sleepy...no fault here...except with management as per usual!