JuneBug1868

A&P is tough, but it's not impossible. The hardest thing is, it's ALL memorization, you have to have time to study! Actual nursing programs differ from this, in A&P you have to memorize everything in order to learn it, but nursing programs are actually applying what you have learned. It's tough but you can do as long as you think you can! :) good luck!

Not as funny as some of these, but on the maternity unit I work on the Dad's get a wristband too. When one of them asks me why they have to wear a wrist band I reply, "If you leave and come back show us your wristband we get super annoying if we can't figure out who you are." They usually laugh and roll their eyes at me.

It stinks that you were put in a situation like that... A few weeks ago we had a couple of people laboring, delivering, and getting ready for a c/s in TRIAGE.. no good! We felt so bad for them, but there wasn't much we could do. I work at a small hospital, about 160 beds, and only about 20 on maternity including the triage beds. We were full that day, it was unfortunate, but nothing else we could do. The woman that labor'd and delivered in triage was fine, she didn't care what was going on.. my guess was it had something to do with the amount of pain she was in, but even the family was happy. However, the woman having a c/s (which was planned) was not happy. When she came for our tour they told her she would have a private room (and in 99.9% of the cases you do... we are not usually full) but it didn't work that way so she wasn't happy. We had the choice of leaving her in triage until the c/s team was ready or taking her to our PACU we figured she'd be happier in triage.. PACU is freezing! Guess we were wrong? Sucks, but nothing we could do... we felt bad but she didn't think we felt bad enough.. she wanted us to kick another patient out.. Sucks when things don't work like they normally do

I was a patient in the hospital and there was a frequent flyer that was in the room down the hall from me. He wanted someone to take him to smoke a cigarette every two minutes and he would walk around the unit looking for someone to take him. Sometimes he would wander off and one of the nurses would have to go looking for him, usually he went outside. One time he wandered off.. it couldn't have been for long, but no one noticed right away.. well a few minutes later a woman came up fully dressed for the OR with the patient. Over heard them talking at the nurses station, he wandered off and ended up in the OR. Apparently he made a wrong turn.. Oops!

Oh boy.. that ones even better!

In the maternity unit I work in on the night shift if we have a c/s in the middle of the night we have to call the resident, in order to get the resident in the middle of the night we have to call the house officer. We have a board that has the doctors for each office that delivers at our hospital that is on call and the name of the c/s assist. Next to the c/s assist one night it had HO for house officer. I was the unit secretary this night, but I was not at the desk when the c/s was called and no one could find a number for Dr. Ho. An over head announcement came on telling Dr. Ho to call Maternity. I didn't think anything of it until someone came looking for me to ask how to get a hold of Dr Ho. I asked what they were talking about and the said "The board says Dr. Ho is on for c/s assist" I almost peed my pants I was laughing so hard. I'm thankful that this was not an emergency c/s because I laughed so hard that I couldn't get the words out of my mouth. Moral of the story-- the board now ALWAYS says house officer instead of HO I'm still wondering why the operator paged him over head because they know who all the doctors are and where to find them... silly people :)

I am a student nurse and a secretary in a hopsital unit, I felt the same way when I read some of the thread in here. My biggest question was Why do I want to be a nurse when all of these people hate what they are doing? Then I realized that this is a place where seasoned and not so seasoned nurses go to vent about the problems that they face day to day. The people here are not trying to stop you from being a nurse they are trying to vent so that the patients that they take care of do not get treated unfairly because of the wear and tear of daily life. They vent so that they do not face the chance of treating a patient badly because of the burn out of daily life as a nurse. Don't worry about the bad things said about the career that you've chosen. Your going to be nervous about your first job everyone is, but don't listen to what other people think about the job, just worry about what you think about the job. Good luck and congratulations!

In the hospital I work in the positions are one in the same, however I think the biggest difference is the CNA position is a Certified position while in most places a Nurse Tech does not have to be certified. Where I work both are certification required positions. As for pay differences I'm not sure since they are the same at the hospital I work at. Hope that helps some!

This has made me think. Next time I work I'm going to have to ask this question... I'm not sure what we do if the mother refuses to supplement a baby with glucose issues. If the baby has glucose issues first the mother/baby nurse asks if we can supplement, if that doesn't work the nursery nurse speaks to the parents, the next step is the neonatalogist speaks to the parents, but I have never heard of anyone refusing past that step. I don't know what we do.

In the hospital I work in we have our own OR, if there is an emergency and we have to use the main OR normally the problems are pretty extensive and the patients stay on med/surg floors for telemetry. It's unfortunate, but we also do not allow those patients to see their baby. If our babies leave the floor they are not permitted back to the OB floor. Our babies go to the nursery qshift for vitals and the risk of infection from one baby to another is too high if a baby leaves the floor. However the father is always allowed to go with the patient to recovery. Is there another hospital thats closer that has a special OR for the c/s patients on the L&D floor?

I would definately take a tour of the hospital you plan to give birth in. I am a secretary on a maternity unit and in our hospital the policy is as long as the baby is fine at the time of birth the baby can stay with the Mother. The labor nurse is usually in the room with the patient for 1-2 hours after birth doing her charting and all the vitals that have to be done so if there is a problem with the baby it usually comes up before the labor nurse can leave the room for a extended period of time. When a baby does go to the nursery we make note of when the baby needs to feed and whether the baby is a breast or bottle baby. If the baby is unstable but able to be fed and a breast baby the mother is asked to come to the nursery to feed if at all possible, but will not be supplemented without permission. If it's a bottle baby and the parent wants to feed we usually try to get mom into the nursery unless it is a.) a bad night or b.) Mom is REALLY tired and needs her rest, but we try to get permission to feed with all of our babies

I would totally recommend one of those foot bath's and some foot soak powder to put in it. My favorite thing in nursing school was coming home and soaking my feet in mine and studying. It was a great way of relaxing and felt great on my feet that I swore were going to fall off!

In the hospital that I work in the rule of thumb is if you use the restroom or can see something dirty on your hands wash them with soap and water. If those two do not apply use the hand sanitizer. I've never heard which works better, but I have heard that soap and water are better for the person using it. When you use hand sanitizer you kill (almost) everything including the bacteria that is suppose to be on your hands. When you kill the good bacteria its easier for the stuff that the sanitizer doesn't kill to grow and make you and/or other sick