danielleRN76

We have 5 SANE nurses at my hospital. We have a calendar that we sign up for the days that we want to take call. We generally take 24 hour shifts, but sometimes take 12 hour shifts. We get paid $3 an hour to be on call. Being on call means being able to arrive to the ED within one hour, no ETOH, etc.. When we do get called in, we get paid time and a half even if not over 40 hours. We sign up for shifts that we are not already working, because when it comes to doing a SANE case, they want that to be our only focus. So, we get called in from home, from the mall, kids sporting events, etc.. It seems I only get called at dinner time or when my husband and I finally get the kids in bed to start watching a movie! :) I'm glad that I do it though. It feels good to be able to help someone through a crisis like this, especially when I know how hard it is for them to come forward and admit that something like this happened to them.

Way to go for following through. You'd be surprised how accurate our gut feelings really are. I hope that she isn't being abused by her father, but something sounds not quite right. Nurses are in such a great place to be able to help others, not only you, but a friend and another nurse picked up on something with this girl that the rest of the people she comes in contact with daily apparently didn't...

OOOh, I have a few good ones back from my years in LTC. This one cute little lady, I got her washed up for the night, into bed, and I pulled the covers up nice and neat over her, she looked at me so seriously and said, "now don't forget to butter it!" Another lady would sit in her wheel chair and make this motion with her hands as though taking something from one palm and throwing it accross the room. When asked what she was doing, she yelled "are you blind, can't you see I'm feedin them chickens??":D

OOOOh, yesterday... Hypothermia 7 y/o Mom states she has had a fever for 5 days, tonight checked temp at 0300 it was 96.8 so I wrapped her up in warm blankets and brought her in.. um hello, maybe your child is feeling better????????

Today, no lie... Pimple, center of forehead. clearasil $1.99 ER visit $100.00 nurses laughter, priceless!

Our documentation system has a pull down menu where we can see all of their visits and notes from each visit after 2004. we have a FF who came here last night for her 37th visit in 2007, plus we found out about 16 visits to a hospital about 15 miles from here and some to the city hospital too. Her eyes got real big when we asked is this the same thing you were seen for 2 nights ago at CSH?? Then there is our funny FF who comes in with a non rebreather intact, sitting up on the stretcher gripping his travel mug, asking which doc is on. When he finds out he signs out AMA and returns at 0700 for the next doc. This guy is here at least once a week, sometimes more than once in 24 hours! He's always in agony.. and needs his dilaudinum. LOL he's so rediculous though that he is almsot cute.

ESFJ, I'm an Emergency Dept RN.

I would still work, but definately not full time nights! I love being a nurse, can't imagine not doing it at all, but not feeling the financial stressors would make my life so much better!

That is really sad. it says a lot about what things are coming to in our profession, HOWEVER>>>> HAPPY EMERGENCY NURSES WEEK!!!!! Have a great one!:balloons:

Teamwork, autonomy, you get to know the docs pretty well and variety!!

Where I work there are a variety of shifts. In the in pt units it's a mix of 8 and 12 hour shifts. Usually if you work 12's you do 3 a week for 36 hr full time. I had a hard time at first adjusting to the 12's but once I did, I love it!! The in pt shifts are 7-7 am or pm. I am an ER nurse and we have wacky hours available because of a pod system that we use. we have 7-3, 7-7, 9-5, 11-11, 5p-1a, 3-11, you name it. I do 12 hour days and later this week change to 12 hour nights. Our night shift has 15% differential plus an extra $3 an hour, plus if it is the weekend, you get that plus another 5% shift diff, so the pay is awesome.

A lot of places will require you to be on a rotation of some sort. Most will accept a day eve rotation. Most hospitals that I amfamiliar with actually have a harder time filling evenings than nights so that might be a big plus for you. I have battled with depression since the age of 12, pretty severe at times, but I have never really talked to any employers about it. My MD knows and that's all that needs to as far as I am concerned. There have been times I have felt "burned out" at work and had to take a few days off to regroup but since I have been working more (used to be per diem or a sahm at times) I have been doing pretty well. Good luck to you. Let us know how you make out.

When I worked on the telemetry unit, we used it for all our order entry, Emar, labs, basically everything except the bedside notes, and bedside assessments. The admission was through meditech and the hospitalists entered their progress notes on it too. It was fine. I had never used a different program for that extensive amt of use, so really not much to compare it to. It's alot of F11 and F12, F9 for lookup, etc. But you get used to it fairly quickly. Now that I am in the ED, we use meditech for order entry and moxing (email), eveything else goes through the computerized T system. Problem being that info from T system cannot be tranferred to the meditech. So when they leave us to go to the floor, they do the admission and have to hand type all the 100's of meds they take, after we just typed all the same stuff in the ed. I think some things should be able to be transferred, or copied and pasted....

There's a nurse that I work with that tells us in report that a pt is alert and orientated times three. Makes my skin crawl!!! my other pet peeve, is heighth. Oh look we are about the same heighth! AHHHH! Not too many come to mind from patients though. It's usually my coworkers that drive me nuts.

The triage nurse took the hx, I was just kinda observing for this one since I am still on orientation. We went into the room where the pt was crying and stating she had been bleeding huge dark clots at home, much much worse than a period, so the nurse drew labs, and started an IV. It wasn't 5 minutes after we entered the room that the MD was in to see her. (kind of a slow evening) If she HAD in fact been pg, I am sure that she would have been considered emancipated, but the fact is, she wasn't pg, but told us she had been in the past..... So if a 13 yr old was pg, had an abortion, does that mean that she can give her own consent when she is 14 and no longer pg, or a mother? I guess I am just confused. Thanks for your replies though!

We have a computerized system for documentation and labs, etc in our ER. The only problem I have is that it is not directly linked to the computerized program the inpatient units have (meditech). You can read the ER notes and such from inpatient, but cannot send, for instance the list of home meds from the ER chart to the admission form. If they are on 57 different meds, you have to retype them one at a time. and ask the pt the same questions over and over which frustrates them to no end.

I just transferred a few wks ago to the ER from telemetry. I had a pt come in claiming to be having a miscarriage, she was 15. In her hx she stated having an elective abortion in the past. She was brought in by her 16 yr old boyfriend and his dad. The other nurses said that because this girl was pg that we did not need parental consent to treat her. Well, upon her further explanation to the MD, her 1st day LMP was 7/5. Meaning she wasn't even due for her pd for August yet. She said she felt the same way she did the time she had the abortion, and took a pg test the week prior and that it was pos. Well, the hcg came back neg. So she must have been just having her pd right? so were we wrong to treat her without parentl consent?? Upon arrival we started an IV, drew labs, and did a type & screen.

I love knowing that my job is important, and that I can impact and change lives. I am proud of a profession that challenges me, changes me and helps others. I never know what to expect. I love the fact that I am never done learning. If I could do it all over again I definately would.

I think that new grads would be okay only if given a very, very exensive orientation. Some ED's have separate sections for acute and subacute in which case a new grad could move into critical situations over time. My ED is a pod system, with a mix of acute, subacute, peds and adult, so a new grad could get thrown a pt having a very critical issue and if the other staff was extremely busy, they may not get the help they would need. So I have mixed feelings. I was an LPN for 6 yrs before getting my RN, then worked on a tele unit for 2 1/2 yrs, the last yr as a charge nurse, then transferred to the ED, and I still have a lot of questions! It was actually hard to go from being one of the best nurses on a hard telemetry unit to being a novice all over again in the ED! (I think a big plus for ED is tele certification, ACLS, comfort with IV starts, stuff like that...)

1 nurse and 1 tech for 6 beds. Generally with this pod system they try to assign a good mix of acute and non acute pts, but that doesn't always happen. If you are the only one with beds open, you get whomever. It works out pretty well for us.

That would be really tough, how could you make dr appts or anything? we get ours about 4 weeks at a time..

My advice would be to take nursing school out of the picture for the moment while you decide. It sounds as though you are facing a huge change in your life no matter what... Trying to tackle school full time while settling into a new state, with a fresh divorce and young children sounds like a lot to handle. I was single and living with my parents when I went to LPN school and it was tough enough. I went back for my RN 7 yrs later with a supportive spouse a per diem job and 3 kids, 2 of whom were in school most of the day and that was enough stress! I think you should figure out what is best for you and your kids, then fit nursing school in maybe next year. You need to put yourself and your family first. Maybe the time it would take you to get accepted in the other state would give you time to take a few prerequisites and get your life settled in the process. I hope it all works out for you!

No, no tele pt is allowed to leave the hospital to smoke. If they have demanded to in the past they have had to sign out AMA. It has only happenned a few times at my hospital that I am aware of. Usually it's the ones who really need a beer that are desperate enough to sign out AMA.

I'm gonna say a murmur, and "j" waves.. Danielle

Employee morale is a big plus. If you want to be in NYC eventually anyway, I would start there, that way you won't have to deal with all the changing state licenses and everything. I think a hopsital's reputation is a big deciding figure. You want to be in a happy, safe environment when you are first growing in your new role. Just my .02.$ Best of Luck!