JessicaSN

I think I am pretty good at drawing blood and starting lines on adults and young kids but I'm not so good yet with the little ones. There are 3 main problems: 1. Their veins are so tiny! I always go for the AC site but even still sometimes I don't fe...

A guy came in last night because he ate a piece of moldy bread. Wasn't having any symptoms, just "wanted to get checked out". YIKES.

Oh, by the way, the ER physician did not believe MULTIPLE registered nurses who re-checked the manual blood pressure. We used different size cuffs, both arms, etc and the physician still wanted different people to re-check.

I work in the ER. An older lady came in complaining of nausea, headache, and upper back pain. She had not had her Clonidine (0.2mg TID) in over a week, along with her other daily meds. Her blood pressure was over 300 systolic (that is the highest our...

A young woman, 7 months pregnant, came into the ER because the skin on her breasts itched due to NORMAL swelling/growth from pregnancy. AAAAAAAND what are we supposed to do about that?

Our ER has a 2 hour wait time after someone is discharge before we will CONSIDER calling a taxi for them if the bus is not running. And am I a big ole meanie if I say I kind of enjoy telling the "abdominal pain x 4 months, came in by squad, btw I nee...

Yes, the CCRN is for ICU nurses. I think studying for the test and eventually passing would be beneficial for ER nurses though. It is a goal of mine to pass the test :)

I'm assuming you already have your ACLS certification. TNCC - Trauma Nursing Core Course CPEN - Certified Pediatric Emergeny Nurse CCRN - Critical Care Registered Nurse Certification

Part of our triage is getting a height and weight on everyone. I weigh all children; I don't trust the parents to know how much their kid weighs. We get estimates from the adults.

Are you familiar with SBAR? It stands for Situation, Background, Assessment, and Recommendation. Here is a website about SBAR: SBAR - Situation - Background - Assessment - Recommendation - NHS Institute for Innovation and Improvement And here is a PD...

If someone refuses the gown or blood work I flat out ask them, "Why don't you want to put on a gown? Why don't you want blood work/an IV?" Sometimes it's because they don't want to be cold (so I get them plenty of warm blankets, pts loooove them). So...

We don't do gastric lavage very often in my ER, but the doc wanted it done on a young lady recently (swallowed multiple types of meds 30 minutes before arrival). We tried out the "garden hose" tubes without success and ended up placing an 18 French. ...

There is no way this *hasn't* been said in this thread, but it bears repeating: We don't get any kicks out of calling report before/during/after shift change. When a patient is assigned a bed is totally out of my control. It happens at all times of t...

I don't have much foot or leg pain after working (thank goodness) but I can definitely tell the difference between the nights I wear my compression socks and when I don't. My feet feel much heavier and my lower back hurts more when I don't wear them,...

Emergency RN: Oh, they got you good :) I have made many embarrassing mistakes during the whole 1.5 years I've been a nurse. I guess the funniest one was I had just come back from taking a lunch and I had a new patient (I work ER). I was told in the b...

In my ER there is a designated person who is the "scribe" on every shift. It is written on a dry erase board that also shows who has what rooms. I am scribe a lot because I apparently do a good job (so I've been told). We have trauma paper work and s...

We have an online system called Micromedix that will allow a nurse to enter multiple medicines and see if they are IV compatible. There are only 2 that I regularly mix: Dilaudid and Phenergan. It really doesn't take that much more time to flush in be...

If you still choose to see this doctor as your PCP, I would definitely not bring up work related matters at your appointment. What goes on at work should be dealt with at work.

After you dart the needle into the deltoid muscle, you should pull back a little on the plunger (or aspirate) to see if the needed is in a vein. You can tell because blood will flow into the syringe. This technique is used with all IM injections, not...

Following your logic, it wouldn't be a big deal to call a teacher's aid a teacher, or a car mechanic an engineer, or a physician's assistant a physician, and so on and so on. I think it's pretty important to call people their correct title and I expe...

You did the right thing. How does the son expect you to "know" about a UTI? If someone cannot tell you where it hurts, and it isn't causing a fever (yet), it's not like you're psychic. Severe UTI's in elderly people can lead to sepsis quickly so you ...

Isn't this kind of risky? If this is your first time pushing it on a patient, how do you know how they'll tolerate it? I pretty much push everything slow.

Wow. I thought our job was to put "SAFETY FIRST". There would be no way in hell I'm going to dump water into someone's mouth so they can choke down 2 Percocets. Was she already too high to physically push the button on her PCA? Look, next time your p...

This was directed to someone else but I have some experience with this. My hospital is right in the middle of 2 great children's hospitals (one being Cincinnati Children's) and people still bring in kids for a variety of problems. From sore throat/br...

Yes, it was in that letter. I renewed mine about a month ago and had to dig out my letter from the backseat of my car.