PiPhi2004

LOL if its a 1 on 1 I guess you could, but heck you cant protect her airway for her, even if you're sitting beside her! With compromise in respiratory status she bought herself some tube time, and definitely shes at huge risk for aspiration!

getting an art stick (or any stick) of someone on pressors, especially more than 2 is nearly impossible. If you have enough pressors that you have no access left, then you need an a-line, period. I would check to see if anything can run together so you can have a free lumen. I usually have something else running (insulin gtt, heparin, fluids, etc) to where I can stop that instead of a critical gtt.

We also get the fancy mattress for any patient that is hemodynamically unstable. We still bathe em, its a PTA bath if they can't tolerate more, and realistically if you've got a patient that sick, you are too busy with other priorities than about getting them bathed. Luckily they usually either get better or worse pretty quickly and they can be bathed later, no reason not to keep heels up though.

I know people who do this, we have no policy on it and I have better things to do with my time so I don't do it, plus why have a BP cuff going off q15 on a poor persons arm? Unless you're having problems with the art line, then sure.

Even on my busiest of days I am always able to clock out before 0800, even when I have 3 pt assignments in the ICU, and I've had some bad ones before! I always keep up with my charting and I delegate or decide what can wait for the next shift. If you are consistently clocking out late then there is a problem. However 90% of our nursing staff is on 12s, and getting OT for staying late doesn't happen. The last hospital I worked at only hired for 12 hour shifts for floors and ICU. I don't see why they don't just do that if its a problem paying all the extra OT.

There are so so so so many things wrong with this. Was anyone helping you at all? Anyone with any experience would've been able to assist you. A high dose of levo is the least of the problem.

Run, dont walk, to Huntington. I am an ICU nurse at CAMC in charleston, it is horrible. My friend is an ICU nurse at St Mary's and she is treated wonderfully. I will be leaving for higher education soon, or I would run to Huntington too!

When I was in college I think I was sick most of the time, but then again I lived with 20 other girls in a sorority house and we shared bathrooms and kitchens. We passed around EVERYTHING! Now that I'm married and living with a lot less people I rarely get sick, even being exposed to everything possible at work. I don't think I've been febrile in 3 years anyway. I have had a few stomach bugs but nothing major. I think the simple washing of hands and wearing gloves all the time takes care of most, plus I would guess my immune system is pretty tough lol.

I am very young, 23, and I hate looking dowdy at work and while I abide by all dress code rules and regulations, there are ways to still look good at work. To the OP, the rules are the rules, so you must abide by them, but you can always add little personal touches. I know one girl who had shoulder length hair and always wore it up with a pretty ribbon or those sparkly hair pieces. Some girls wear the chopsticks to keep it up. For loose pieces, you can get cute bobby pins or something like that so you still have that feeling of personal style at work. I personally think if the hair doesn't touch your shoulders theres no problem, but some do. My hair was and still is super long but I would always make it look cute with pins and stuff like that and I loooove those thin headbands. Try a few styles at home. If your instructors have a problem with that then you will just have to deal though, but usually instructors differ in how they enforce their own dress codes. Just make sure you iron your scrubs! I hate when people roll into work with wrinkled scrubs, to me it signifies laziness. You can also try different makeup styles, like new liners or shadows, to make you feel a little bit better about the strict dress code. Just make sure not to go overboard! You can look neat and polished without looking frumpy, just find ways to add your own personal style without breaking any rules. I also think patients appreciate seeing a pretty face who looks put together rather than someone who rolled out of bed put on a pair of scrubs and pulled their hair back.

I would say ICU nurses do quite a bit of it compared to others. We have no UAPs on our floor so we do all code browns and any vomit, plus in many GI cases we measure gastric contents daily. Patients get bathed everyday where I'm at and we have to do all this too. We are responsible for mouth care and any would care (I work trauma, so we get some really nasty wounds from car wrecks, gunshots, etc) You can't be worried about getting dirty, but thankfully you get used to it! Basically as an ICU nurse, we don't get to delegate ANY care, we take care of everything from hemodynamic montoring to wiping butts.

10000% agree with you on this one. I can't believe they don't spend time on more important things. It kind of annoys me, there are a million things to learn in nursing school and this is something they obviously want you to know? Next time I have a pt with an AAA rupture I'll say "quick, whats his WBC!" lol see how many blank stares I get.

It is one thing if you are too busy to do CNA duties, but your post reads that you don't want to. Let me ask you this, would you be angry if someone told you "I don't want to do LPN duties, I'm an RN" I also think a 5-6 patient assignment is pretty good. I work in ICU and we never utilize CNAs or LPNs, all those duties are mine. Granted, we only have 2 patients, 3 at most, but I am responsible for making it work. It is my duty to my patients to make sure they have care completed for them, which includes at least one bath a night, poo duty (lots of critically ill people get tons of lactulose), oral care, q2h turnings, and many other duties that can be completed legally by a CNA I also think if you find youself drowning and do not have time for all your duties, then you should work as a team with your RN and maybe you can come up with a solution to make sure all the work gets done and patient care isn't compromised. If you feel that this wasn't what you signed up for, then resign. I think the snarky comment your made to your DON was also unnecessary. If you had an issue about staffing you should have brought it up in a tactful manner.

I really don't mind meetings. I like getting first-hand information about new policies coming soon or near-miss events that we should watch out for. These topics are usually always a part of the meetings and need to be discussed. I think they are extremely important, especially for night shifters that don't see their managers much and don't get up-to-date information. I also like the minutes being sent to us in mass email form if you do not get to go to the meetings and they are posted in the bathroom and around the nurse's station if you don't read the emails. Plus, we always get free food and sometimes there are interesting presentations. I actually enjoy mine!

I do think there is a higher incidence of depression among nurses. First, there is a proven relationship among people who work odd hours and depression. Secondly, there are more women diagnosed with depression than men, and as we all know, nursing is a predominately female profession, therefore there are more nurses diagnosed than in professions where there are more men or it is more of a mixture.

The ICU is a tough place to hang for a new grad, but my question is, how is the acuity of this ICU? In some places, having a 3:1 isnt a big deal because the patients aren't so sick. I would personally sit down and talk to you preceptor and make some goals of where you want to be at the end of your orientation. What are you nervous about? What are you not getting? What are you not doing fast enough? Make a list and talk about how you can accomplish those goals. You will be lost sometimes and you will want to feel like quitting, but I think quitting is a bad idea unless the conditions are completely horrendous and people are asking you do unethical things or giving you assignments no one can handle. I'm sure they want you to succeed at what you are doing but you do have to take some initiative into making it known, specifically, what you need experience with. I am sorry about the experience you are having. Being a new grad in the ICU is extremely difficult and it's a rough transition no matter who you are/where you work. I hope all works out for you one way or another. :heartbeat