inava

Thanks for mentioning that you need to treat writing as a business. The administrative part of it can certainly take up half your time. The fun part is the creation, but that alone does not bring home the bacon. (I'm probably dating myself with that reference.)

I was recently hospitalized for five days with flu and pneumonia. I tried very hard not to second-guess everything. But I'm the first to admit I'm a terrible patient.

That's the spirit!!! Take it day by day and you'll get there soon enough.

I join the chorus saying do not bring this to your manager's attention. Big NO! NO! Other staff's salaries are not up for discussion and you will only establish ill will from your manager towards you. Trust me, you do not want to earn the moniker "problem employee".

WOW! Congrats. Age is relative. I thought I was old when I graduated at 27. Took time out to have a baby and spend the first 2 years at home with him. And that was 30 years ago. How time flies. And now I feel just as young!

What I would tell all my orientees was that they needed to know 2 things: 1) What they don't know and 2) where to look it up. I find that nurses who act on what they presume to know are dangerous. And no one can know everything all the time. You have to be ready to receive new knowledge constantly. The mantra "we've always done it this way" is passe.

I took all my non-nursing classes before entering the program and even so it was not easy. I ended up taking only 2 classes per semester and that was a lot of work. I did have a toddler at home so I was busy. What makes nursing hard is that you can't fall behind. You are building knowledge as you go. If your foundation isn't secure it's hard to build on. It was very challenging but very rewarding and worthwhile. It's been a while for me but I have never regretted my choice to go into nursing. Keep positive thoughts. You can do it. And you are very much needed.

It's not glorified like you see on TV. You don't have time to stand around the nurse's station gossiping about every body else. Here's a small sample of what I have seen and done: --Handed a dead newborn baby into his mother's arms to hold for the first and last time. --Worked like mad with everyone else for months to save the remaining leg of an 18 year old accident victim. --Called a code to jump start a response from residents for a patient with double pneumonia who was soon to code and needed to be moved from med-surg to ICU ASAP. --Provided information and emotional support to a Mom whose 4 year old had just been diagnosed with diabetes. --Emptied countless Foleys, marked and read hundreds of Pleurovacs, hung numerous bags of blood products, started too many to count IV's, auscultated thousands of hearts and lungs, wrote an encyclopedia's worth of charting, and listened to many, many voices as they entrusted me with their needs.

it's easy to come across as holier than thou. it's a lot harder to work to fix the problem. the losers here are the patients who end up being shortchanged in their care due to lack of staff or lack of professionalism in the staff. we are all human but some of us act more so than others. i hope you find a better working situation so you don't get completely burned out.

I'm sorry but I have to ask: why do you tolerate this situation? I would have turned in my resignation long ago. This looks like a no win situation.

My pediatrician told me a few years ago that he was seeing an epidemic of adult onset diabetes in young children secondary to obesity. This is a real shame. When I drive around practically every corner has a fast food joint with a drive thru. Food dripping in fat and preservatives plus a disastrous public education system does not bode well for the future.

Who's in charge at this place? How can this person leave early? Is she being paid for not being there, in which case that would be stealing. Not to mention the liability you would incur for taking responsibility for the whole unit without supervisor's approval or knowledge. I would hightail it out of there pronto. I have worked with this type of personality. There's basically one in every unit. Shortly after I became manager, I was given the impossible task of imposing behavior modification on one of the squeaky wheels on the unit. I gently reminded my superior that I had not created this monster and therefore could not perform any miracles. But, this type of personality improves when you ignore them as they get no payback for their drama. But gall takes all forms. Like the LPN who, being in an accelerated RN program, complained to me about her assignment saying she couldn't take the every 2 hour feeder. When I asked why she said she had too much homework!!!!! My only response was silence as I let her digest what she had just said.

I can understand how you can still have some concern about the situation you were placed in without your consent. If it had been the patient then it would probably have been easier for you to oblige them a small comfort and then gone on about your duties. But, being that it was the physician who basically roped you and the patient into an impromptu prayer circle is what probably nags at you. You were probably made to feel subservient to his wishes and personally, I don't like that feeling either.

I have always addressed doctors as Doctor because that is what I was comfortable with. I preferred not to blur the lines between the familiar and the professional. In return I have been called "honey" as well as by my first name. And I'm sure some other choice words when I didn't kowtow. But the best example of interpersonal relationships was the hospital where everyone was known by last name only. No one used your first name. Our charge nurse was named Escobedo and she quickly became known affectionately as "Scooby-doo." The place had its drawbacks but one was not tension between staff.

Not to mention introducing textile fragments into the tissues. Never heard of such a thing. Except on TV shows.

When I worked a post-op floor in Galveston, we had private (insured) and staff (uninsured) patients. While it was a regular floor (no ICU glass walls where not only do you have a constant visual of your patient but conversely their families and sometimes the patients have a constant visual of you) I found that the least demanding patients were the staff patients, even though at times they had the higher acuity. Therefore I made it my business to make more frequent rounds on them since otherwise I might not know that they needed pain meds or ADL assistance. Over all there were no overly demanding patients but there were some tricky situations I would not have caught in time had I not been in constant surveillance. I have to say that I found working in an environment where I did not have my patients in my line of sight not my preferred work setting. This was 20 some years ago. My more recent experience as a nurse manager revealed more demanding and short tempered patients and families. It makes me wonder what has happened to our country's psyche?

This type of management double speak is one reason I am not practicing right now and may never again. What would have been said to you if you had catered to this lady and left your unstable patient unattended? Your manager should have gone to this lady and backed you up. You should have been given the leeway to prioritize your patient care according to each patient's acuity not their personality.

Your good friend needs to look up the meaning of "confidentiality".

I have my cellphone 24/7. So do my children. It's my quasi umbilical cord to them. On the rare occasion that I leave home without it even for a short errand I feel a sort of panic, a disconnect. And it makes me wonder, what did we do before the advent of the cell phone? How did we get along? How did we let our children out of our sight? My first cell phone came with 30 minutes per month, hard to imagine that way back then that seemed sufficient.

How could it possibly not be?

Great story! You should be a writer. As far as nursing goes, stand your ground.

So sorry this happened to you. You sound very sharp and on the ball. You were putting the patient's needs ahead of your own and the doctor was putting his personal needs above all else. I have had my share of such situations. I made it my practice to never get chummy with the doctors, never to address them by their first name. Invariably the time would come when they pulled the "I am the doctor" routine. I always kept a professional attitude towards them whether they had earned my respect or not. The priority was the patient. This doesn't mean "I took it." I have been known to walk away from a doctor having a temper tantrum and berating me in the nurses station. I figure let there be one fool and not two. If I treated them with professional courtesy I expected the same in return. I will say that starting meds on a patient for the doctor's convenience is something for risk management to look into.

Too true, I remember nurses being laid off in Houston in 1983. DRG's were hitting full force and of course to compensate losses hospitals let the most expensive (in their calculations) yet the most inexpendable asset go. Hospitals also decreased nursing staff by attrition. We all know how that little experiment turned out. Legislation affects us all, directly or indirectly. If quality health care (whether preventive or active treatment) is seen as a right and not a priviledge that can only lead to better working conditions and better pay for all care givers. And of course a better quality of life for all.

Shouldn't the goal be to provide universal health care as opposed to providing universal health insurance?