limestone

I find the idea of employers' discrimination for engaging in a legal behaviour to be quite bizarre. What next? I suspect that BMIs or cholesterol levels will be the next exclusionary tactic in the power trip that HRs everywhere are on. With only the medically perfect left to staff our hospitals (and other workplaces) there's going to be a mighty small workforce left. I guess the rest of us can chill at home with a beer, chips and a smoke while the Models of Perfection toil on our behalf. I think the Franciscan Health System HR Dept should get over themselves--sheesh! And to the pre-nursing student who started this whole thread, whoever put you up to this should be ashamed of themselves. A paper on maybe compassion or ethics would be far more useful and appropriate.

The circumstances of your interview were appalling--most unprofessional in every way. However, they don't owe you any kind of communication afterwards. Common courtesy that existed in the past has fallen victim to the impersonality of the new hiring processes / job market pressures. I hope you will have an appropriate setting for your next job interview. And I agree with the poster who said you are better off NOT working where you had this interview--they sound sloppy and disorganized.

On our unit it is a team decision. Team takes into account the pt's mental status, behaviour patterns, and the usefulness of pressing a charge in the context of the patient's management and treatment. On our acute care psychiatric unit, staff know the risks of the job and acccept that assaults cannnot be taken personally. We expect empathy from our team, support from administration, and appropriate debriefing/ care of the injury if warranted; but we do not react personally to an assault. The goal is management of the assault that will result in the healing of the victim, improvement of approaches to safety, and appropriate management of the patient.

We have a doctor in Ontario who does penile lengthening treaments and his name is Dr. Stubbs. We had a dietitian at our hospital whose name was Mrs. Death (pronounced deeth, but the spelling....) Also on staff: Dr. Payne and a female Dr. Kevorkian.

Hearsay is not proof. Therefore you have no case. Period. Going to your instructors with this allegation will cause grief for you without resulting in a conviction of your classmate.

PLease don't get a dog. They are more work than you think and need lots of companionship, not just the few rushed bits of time here and there that you have left over from the demands of school. I have watched colleages stress out about getting home to their dogs after work. What if you have to do 12's at some point? What if you meet a sweetheart and want to stay over? Or go out with friends after work? What about days in clinical and then hours in the library afterwards? Cats are more self-sufficient, especially if you adopt 2 adults. I've volunteered with the local humane society for years, and we got so many dogs in that students wanted for company but couldn't realistically look after.

I"ve been a nurse all my life but 2 weeks ago was suddenly hospitalized with PE's following orthopedic surgery. I did not CHOOSE or SEEK hospital/nursing care--it just happened. Sorry, but I was glad to be a patient and be looked after. On the other hand, I had just prior to that SOUGHT out and CHOSEN a lawyer for some business matters and as her client, was the one whose wishes were carried out. There definitely was a difference. I would have been so uncomfortable if my nurse had referred to me as a client. I had enough stress being deathly ill without feeling I had to work at my care. "Patient" meant having my needs met by others or as I got better, being assisted to look after myself. As a "patient" I had input into my discharge planning and that was quite enough.

In answer to the last query about strangest place you have fallen asleep, mine is the ferry dock. After my 12-hr night shifts, I have a half-hour drive to the ferry that takes me to the island where I live; there are times a crew menber has had to come down to the dock and knock on my car window to wake me, or when we get to the island, knock to wake me up to drive off. My husband is always glad to see me in the driveway, as he knows how tired I am after nights and yet have an hour's journey to get home. Back as a student nurse, when I worked my first night, I then went to the beach with my friends for the day, and then worked the next night, not realizing that somewhere in there I should have slept. I was on Infant Medical and fell asleep in a rocking chair about 0300 with a baby in my arms. I was awakened by the footsteps of the night supervisor, and woke up in a panic, unable to figure out where I was. Then the adrenalin kicked in and I felt so grateful that nothing had happened to the baby. It was then that I realized that I couldn't live the life my friends were living--as a nurse, even a student, you have to sleep. Nobody had ever discussed that with us. It was, literally, a wake-up call and I always took care of my sleep after that.

Recently I was standing at the pharmacy counter waiting for my husband's prescription. The lady next to me was reading the label on her prescription med. She said to the young clerk who was ringing up the sale on the cash register, "It says here Paroxetine...is that the same as Paxil?" Without thinking, because I answer questions like that all the time at work, I said "Yes, it is." Oops--none of my business! Just sheer reeflex.

This is a great thread! Brings back memories.... In our provincial psychiatric hospital, we used cigarettes for rewards in the token economy programs, even on Admitting units. In our canteen we sold papers and tobacco for those patients who could roll their own. Now, decades later, we are forbidding those same aging patients, mostly suffering from schizophrenia, from smoking in the hospital, even when they are involuntary. We give them nicotine patches and preach quitting smoking when they are discharged. For some of them it's the only pleasure they ever had in life and the health care system contributed to that in a major way. And when I was a community nurse, I remember patients boiling their needles and glass syringes in a pot on the stove for when I came to give insulin or other injections. Generally in hospitals in the 60's, it was: The Doctor is God. Give up your seat for them, clean up after them, let them on the elevator first. They had their own section of the cafeteria, and only the OR nurses got to sit with them, as they were considered a cut above the rest of us. You could look out across the cafeteria and tell from the sea of caps which hospital any nurse had graduated from (we all attended hospital-based schools of nursing). And we all remember the strict rules of residence life--all of us virginal student nurses had to live there with a vigilant house mother keeping tabs of our every move. No marrying allowed till you graduated!

I am Canadian and am shocked to read of nurses discussing carrying guns. Nurses affirm life, and guns are for killing. I know the US is a gun-carrying nation but I never thought nurses would be involved with them.

I sharted working shiftwork at age 62. We do 12's, and I found out that I prefer nights for all the reasons other posters have cited. I work in psychiatry so we can have nights when many of our pts are up a lot, which makes it hard to get our charting and other night duties done. But I still find it quieter and there is more time to talk with patients. I switch back and forth between days and nights a couple of times a week, which is hard on my mind and my body. I sleep poorly and am "out of it" a lot, which worries me. But I am part-time and take what I can get. Hope I can last another 3 years till retirement! I enjoyed reading all the posts. Seems there are lots of nurses who love working nights b/c of the many benefits, and who are willing to trade a "normal" life to do that shift. Tough trade-off, but worth it if you can do it.

Sarah, ...be assured that every professional caregiver who read this or hears of your situation will keep you in their thoughts, with a fervent hope for the best possible health outcome for you. That event could happen to any of us who deal with the public--nurses, paramedics, technicians and doctors--and we are a family who supports and grieves for our own in tough times. Blessings upon you

I got through 3 years of in-hospital nursing training by promising myself every morning I'd quit at the end of that day. It wasn't for me, but having started it, I felt I had to finish it. I then rolled that over into a university degree program in public health, so my nursing career has been in the community for 40 years now. I have really enjoyed that b/c of the automony. I was glad to have that career b/c like you I didn't have to work at first but life changed. If you can't find a type of nursing you like, then think carefully about working as a nurse. You need to feel reasonably positive about it, or your attitude will show to colleagues and patients, and the outcome will confirm your worst views of the profession. Compassion is right up there with skills, and if you don't have any to spare, it will show. Good luck finding your niche.

I can't handle the chaos of day shift--too many people from all the disciplines crowding into the nursing station and NO place to even sit down and chart. Also, the constant chatter/gossip ruins my concentration and I worry about making a mistake. On nights (we have 12-hour shifts) I have more opportunity to talk to my patients before they settle for bed. I work in acute care psychiatry and spending quiet periods of time talking is so important; we're not there just to push pills. I have developed my routines and love having the time and work space to do things up properly. Have learned to sleep not too badly in the daytime, although I am part-time and also get called in a lot, so that I work intermittent nights and wreck my sleep patterns. But I don't have to get up at 5 am for days, and that's just great!