coleen

I can't stand these whiney non smokers either. What about your car? I ride a bike why do I have to breath your car fumes? Give me a break- the facility policy allow 2 15 min breaks and a half hour lunch. Why are you not utilizing it? They give non smokers LOOKS?!?? huh? Welcome to our world buddy. hey if you are covering every smokers break then i think at LEAST one of them would be nice enough to cover yours. Don't be a martyr . and If your feelings about smoking are so strong just say "no I can't cover" I'm sick of it or whatever- but harboring resentments only hurts you in the long run - look who's not getting a break I frequently don't take my lunch or supper break because I'm too busy but there are those who will leave an MI in the works to go have that meal - they never ever skip their breaks not matter what. I have that option too. But I choose not to. Nothing against them - they may be diabetic. Then I write on my timecard - I didn't get my supper and I get paid for the half hour if I don't use it. I have quit drugs, alcohol, caffeine, just lost 80 lbs and gave up my credit card- I am not giving up my smokes yet. Besides almost every single employee - over 40 of us smoke. We have an area by the garbage dumpters where they have even given us milk crates to sit on - does anyone object to that spot?. If a non smoker wants to go out to the dumpters and eat he is always welcome but will have to put up with that darn old smoke smell -it is terrible compared to the dumpster of 1,000's of used briefs isn't it? It kind of speaks something about the nuthouse we work in though when everybody smokes. I think I saw my CNA smoking something different in her car once but couldn't be sure. Also I do go out if I take a break- I put gas in car, get groceries, etc.- I have to get out of there even for 10 minutes - I hand my med keys to the other charge nurse in the facility and have never had a problem. She's never had to tend to any of my pts in that small time frame especially since they are all eating in the dining room. Maybe you can work around a quiet time at your place.

i was a medical secretary before becoming a nurse - I called in prescriptions in florida all the time! Once the nurse tried to slip in a lortab prescription for herself and a xanax for the other nurse-they are just phone messages from pharmacies and the doc just initials or phone messages from patients and the doc writes OK and his initials. Needless to say I was not comfortable calling these in for very long. In our major MN clinic the triage nurses call them in but sometimes the DON 's secretary calls them in - it makes me cringe how she massacres the med names. I've seen horrific consequences due to wrong med - one pt we had got lanoxin pills in his lasix bottle - he had to have a pacemaker put in and died 3 months later after taking 3 of those lanoxins a day for a month. This was because they also have clerks filling prescriptions at the drug store and the lanoxin bin was right next to the lasix bin in alphabetical order. SHEESH!!!! At least these people don't have licenses to get revoked when they call these in. It's very easy to say Celexa instead of Cephlexan if a secretary is familar with one of the meds (nurses do these things too-I'm careful to spell out name when calling in unfamiliar meds) That pt would be happy happy happy even though still hacking green loogies

Mine aren't that gross but I do have a few. Had to irrigate a foley and it was clogged at the connector. It broke apart and a big green ball of pus went right into my eye!!! i got pinkeye the following week and Bell's Palsy a week later! Dr said not related "Sure " Next-we had a bowel obsessed resident- every 5 minutes I need MOM I need an enema I need a supp - etc... His wife says he ate 3 large jars of metamucil right out of can without mixing in water a day at home! so my cna says one day - Oh by the way I gave Mr so and so the toothpicks he was asking for - NEED I SAY MORE! about 100 toothpicks had to be plucked from rectum, sheets, pockets and yes we are still finding them in the oddest places 3 months later last but not least - how could one copd'er cover an entire picture window drapery, bed, floor and even the ceiling with the most god awful brown sticky smelly mucousy phlegm and i think pieces of lung too in 2 hrs since last bed check? we thought it was vomit it was so incredible and just as i'm ending over the bed doing lung sounds - a large piece of brown organ material/phlegm? comes off ceiling and lands right in my bra!

Yes , me too, I hate eyeball stuff - In my clinicals my instructor made me clean the inside of this guys head - after taking out the eyeball!!!!! It was a huge gaping hole I had to squirt saline in! UGH!!!!!! I hate large, horrid, stinking, huge gaping pressure wounds that have to be debrided, dressed x 2 on my shift and the smell is something you've never ever imagined in your life - I hold my breath and try to get out before I breath again !!! Of course the resident came to the facility that way! I hate rotted necrotic flesh - foot/toes - when you go to check you find a toe in the bed! UGH!!!! That smell does not go away long after the person dies it still permeates the building - Even 6 mos later - I will smell a faint waft of it go by and I get so sick! Lastly - the worst - 1 single green booger hanging on a nose, on a tissue, or on a finger ready to enter a mouth! GROSS!!!!!

I keep my cigarettes and lighter in my pocket - the rest i run back and forth for like adhd nurse on speed. I keep alot around my neck on a light band that holds med keys, watch, pen and if I dared wear a fanny pack I probably would not be able to reach it or find it due to my own natural fanny pack being so large - it would be just as easy to run back to the med cart! Do they make extensions on those things - can I order from Lane Bryant? Besides my residents would have nightmares of the fanny pack that ate the Southwing.

Oh and by the way - reporting your coworker is not a good idea - not for something like that - abuse yes - but you really don't know the history between her and this family and maybe it goes way back or you didn't hear the whole conversation, Maybe you could help her talk about it - if she is always like this then, Yes she will burn her britches. Besides if you start reporting for this kind of thing you will start to become like a pest to your DON. Believe me I've tried to report rude staff and I end up looking like the flakey tattle tale because we are so short staffed anyway they can't get rid of a staff member and maybe talking to them would make them walk out. Staff is also vulnerable to abusiveness too - but like you said it's a matter of each individual - I wouldn't talk to anybody not staff, res or family in a short curt tone. It's like dismissing them.

That is why I hate working Sundays. All the family of residents come in out of the woodwork. I've noticed most supervisors are rude to family members and if not speaking harshly, or grabbing chart out and sighing heavily they are bending their head down totallly ignoring the person standing at the desk. Therefore they come and find me on the med pass and they shadow the cart and and I will never be rude to them. I usually know what's going on with a resident and can ease their familie's fears by acknowledging some small token of information that only pertains to that resident. I think they just want to know that we care and we are on top of things. But there are the other family members who show up in large groups on a Sunday and storm the desk asking if they could get free lunch today and I'm thinking there are 10 of you and your poor mother has not gotten a new set of clothes in over 5 years and you are worried about lunch or the hat pin you bought your non responsive Mom last year when you made your annual appearance. And guess what your Mom IS responsive when you leave - She says Thank GOd (This is true guys) Or the family members who hounded me all last week end for their mothers room to be changed to a more Airy Sunny room and DO I LOOK LIKE THE ROOM CHANGER? But they come to desk over and over and I have to stop med pass again and again. But the kicker comes when one of our residents got a injury and these god awful vultures are in her room looking at the view after the ambulance leaves and I say NO NO NO - she is not dead and you can't have this room!! COming from a small town whenever the ambulance comes so does the whole town running around the Care Center to see the scoop. It makes me sick sometimes. But I don't know how but I always get the job of talking to families - Even when the next nurse comes on - she passes meds and I'm still charting at desk and who do they ask??????? Some of the families are so wonderful - and faithfully come to see the residents and others have no family coming at all - that is why I think that being rude to family members is very unprofessional but even my DON said - tell then you don't have time right now! I can't do that. They keep telling me to be assertive or I will fall apart (which I am) but to me I don't see assertiveness - I see agressiveness.