Bill E. Rubin

I agree with those who say to let it go. No winning those battles, unfair as the are. Who would want to work on such a unit anyway? As one poster said, it's one thing to sprawl out with a blanket and pillow with your tongue hanging out and snoring, v...

I had a vent I was all excited to share.... and found the thread to be closed. :-(

Thanks everyone! I've lost some of my steam since my last post, but here goes: "Yes, I know you'd like your Ambien, as is evidenced by your pressing the call light seventeen times since the last time you spoke to me about it. As I mentioned before, y...

I'm guessing the pt is on a heparin gtt (or argatroban or some such) and the night nurse was looking for a PTT? There is usually a therapeutic goal and an institutional policy about when to draw a PTT if it's therapeutic vs sub/supra therapeutic (12 ...

A dear relative of mine is really struggling to provide care for her demented husband... a tough situation for her given her advanced age and mediocre health. However, I had to laugh when I received an email that her husband was hospitalized for a "u...

The hospitals really aren't that interested in protecting us healthy people from getting sick. They are concerned with us getting infected with the virus and by the time we show symptoms, have already spread it to frail, sick patients who could die f...

Actually, my big Boston hospital doesn't require it, but strongly encourages it and does require opt-outers to wear a mask after the first case of flu hits the hospital. I think it's a reasonable request to protect the patients (and staff from each o...

I second all those who say sending praise to the supervisor (or hospital administration). Nothing beats a highly public "thank you" that gets seen by the nurses' peers and management.

It was in a part of the hospital known as Phillips House 22, a lockdown medical-surgical unit on the 22nd floor of the Ellison Building, a modern glass tower that's part of the Mass. General main campus in the West End. Phillips House is a unit of pr...

You are not alone (though it feels that way sometimes). I left a 20+ year as a software engineer/architect to be a nurse. I consulted part time while going to my accelerated BSN program, and now I work as a nurse making about 2/3 the salary I made at...

Whoa, dude, why the hostility? Mike has a valid point. He witnessed what appeared to him controlling and jealous behavior and just said that in hindsight, he wondered whether getting the pt alone for further assessment would have been warranted. That...

Seriously? Who comes up with this rubbish? I love how so many different institutions force the "I have the time" onto the scripts as if saying so makes it so. I'm sure that so many different institutions' patient satisfaction surveys have a common c...

We had a pt with a long and complicated illness who was just the nicest guy and always appreciative of everything that was done for him. All the nurses loved him and couldn't do enough for him. He also has a good sense of humor.... I walked by his be...

Seriously?? Thank you for jumping to conclusions. In fact, you are incorrect. My wife works full-time, though my MIL is retired, from another country and is staying with us now to help take care ofthe kids at times. We actually pay her for this. Her ...

I'm a day-night flipper, sometimes more than once in the same week, much to the amazement of my colleagues. My secret is chronic sleep deprivation, secondary to the presence of 20 month and 6 month old daughters in my house. I can fall alseep pretty ...

Started my ABSN at age 45 and finished it at 46.

Most of the companies I worked for are still in business and have not "gone under." Laying large numbers of employees was just a part of doing business, and people who got laid off usually were due to not being liked by the right people in management...

I still maintain what I said. I have worked in the corporate world for over 20 years in all levels of hierarchy from entry level to senior management, in eight different jobs in seven different companies, not including the consulting gigs and famil...

Interesting thread... I worked in corporate America for 20+ years before I became a nurse, and it is different, though I wouldn't call one better than the other. I've seen just as much gossip, childish behavior and backstabbing in the corporate world...

I meant medical education, not medical career, sorry, editing posts with my blackberry doesn't seem to work.

I haven't read all the posts yet, but I'd guess that the poster must be very early in his medical career (I assumed the friend to be male, because that particular flavor of trash talk sounds male to me). If he actually spent any time on a teaching me...

It would depend on how desperate I am. For a long-term job, it's important for me to have a job that requires no driving. All major hospitals in Boston are accessible by public transit from my house with varying commute times. When I was looking for ...

$8.00 nights, $4.00 weekends (so $12.00 for weekend nights)

I think they are useful to the newbies and male nurse wannabes because men in nursing is such a tiny minority, many men considering going into nursing don't have any role models to look to to ask the "dumb" questions. So the forums, FTMP are a place ...

The extent to which some physicians disrespect nurses can be an eye-opener at times. Combine this with the fact that many MD's may be spinelessly covering their own butts against litigation by blaming the nurses. I was once sitting in rounds when an ...