gam3rchic

I had a pt the other night named Wyticha.....still trying to figure out how to pronounce it as I never got the chance to ask her how

I believe she said she forgot to "put the vitals in" as in forgetting to put the vitals in the computer for charting, not forgot to take vitals altogether! Maybe the OP can shed some light on this?

All i got to say is, if i were thrown on probation when I was a new nurse, for every time I forgot to chart something by accident or misspelled something, I would never have gotten off orientation! Those were honest, simple mistakes, and NO ONE HERE can claim they NEVER forgot to chart something or misspelled a medication! Oh, and about the CP, if the doctor thought it was cardiac, he would not have ordered Toradol (unless he's a complete idiot, which he might be) and the fact that he yelled at you was completely unprofessional. There is no excuse for that kind of belittling, no matter what the mistake. If a mistake is made, it needs to be addressed professionally. That doctor should've been written up, not you. Also, no nurse here can say they've never assumed a route when taking a verbal order, and while I'm not condoning this, we've all done it! Mistakes are much more easier to be made this way, which is why verbal orders should not be made, unless in an emergency...he should've written that order for you in the FIRST PLACE. If I were you, I wouldn't put up with all the crap there, but if you really want to stick it out, good luck to you. I just think our jobs as nurses is hard enough without all this crap. You did not deserve probation for those simple mistakes...you sound like an awesome nurse. Good luck to you!

P.S.....wonder if there is script we're supposed to use when a family member steals from us..... :)

Oh, how I would love it if managers could do our job, for just ONE 8 hour shift! I would LOVE to watch that! To the OP, sorry about your incident, it is so unnerving and offensive to be stolen from. And for them to steal from the very people who are helping their loved ones get better!!!! THE NERVE!!!!! :angryfire

Ok, i know you are a new grad and it's hard to do ER right out of school, but some things seem kinda wrong to me: First, you said that you told your supervisor that you were not ready, but yet you were expected to carry the load anyways. I think since you've worked for so many years as a tech, they expected you to be able to jump right in as an RN, which is not fair! You told them you were not ready, and they should've listened. Second, your manager is saying she worries about you and that she doesn't want you to lose your license? What manager says those things unless you've done something REALLY WRONG? To me, this sounds like overkill. The only ones in danger of losing a license are those who've done really bad things, not nurses who need help with time management. Please, if time management was a standard on if you keep your license or not, I'd lost mine several times over in my first year of nursing. Third, the example you gave about the guy with CP....uh, I would've held off on my D/C too if I had a CP come back as well. If the D/C was that important, I would've tried to find someone that could've taken care of either my new CP for a minute or did my D/C. Instead of the charge nurse screaming at you, you should've asked if she could've given you a hand with one or the other, as it is impossible to do both things at once. Sorry, but what it sounds like to me, is that they did have high expectations of you b/c you've worked as a tech for so long and expect to much from you. I would do the new plan and see how it goes. What does your preceptor think? What do the other nurses think? Get more than one opinion on your performance b/c nurse managers can be wrong too. And also, cut yourself a break b/c you are a new nurse. Give it time. You'll get there :)

In nursing, but especially with codes, it's easy to fall into the "what could I have done more?" trap....don't do that to yourself b/c at the time you did everything you knew to do, and that's all you could've done. You did your best, now what will be will be. Since you are not a spiritual person, I really have no advice, except don't beat yourself up over it and don't think you'll ever become immune to the pain, unless you've become too cold-hearted to care anymore. Seek friends to share the experience with....sharing it here is a good start btw! :) Since I'm a spiritual person, that is where I draw my comfort from, b/c there is no other comfort to be found in such a tragic situation. Without my faith, I dunno how I would be able to deal with such terrible tragedies.

Yay! I'm so glad to hear it! Now, I'm starting on the ED next week myself, so we'll see if 3 weeks in if I'm as happy as you, lol!

That was my very first thought when I read the beginning of your post....I would be scared silly that I'd be sued for "fraud" b/c I didn't meet all their silly demands! :angryfire And no, you are not being "difficult" by any means! I don't see why we should have to worry about if our patients are getting charged correctly for stuff.....not while I have to worry if he's gonna live past his massive MI or something like that. Sorry, but us nurses have better things to do with our time! But you know it always comes down to money and someone somewhere doesn't want to suck up the cost of missed charges (which will always happen) and so it falls down to nurses.....again....

:lol2: LOL! If that was the case, then everyone around me could write me up and get rich quick!

Dayton, Ohio...just accepted a position at Miami Valley Hospital ER!

I've heard Kaplan and Saunders are both good choices, but I wouldn't know from personal experience as I didn't use either; this is what other students told me they liked. Good luck on NCLEX! Relax, you'll do fine!

Thanks guys, I'm gonna invest in some new nursing reading material to help me learn. I can't wait to start my orientation and get out on the floor! It just seems so exciting to never know what you are gonna get as patients.

Well, it's official....I'm now gonna join the ranks of ER nurses as I was officially offered a position yesterday ! Earlier this week they let me shadow in the ED for 4 hours and I absolutely loved it! I just thought I would share some of the things I saw in those short 4 hours I was there: Trauma comes in: 22 y/o male MVA car vs. telephone pole. I guess he had spilled his drink and was leaning over to clean it up and swerved off the road (:trout:). Anyways, he came in with only minor abrasions and c/o pain in abdomen and left hip area. As the trauma team rolled him on his side to check his back and spine, he screams out "quit touching my f***ing hip!!" over and over again. Nice to feel sooo appreciated in the ED . In short, all xrays were negative....he was fine....just needs to relearn the first rule of driving: don't take your eyes off the road! Ambulance brings a patient in: 55 y/o male with liver CA receiving chemo. Just received a treatment 2 days earlier. Chief complaint from family....he's sleeping too much! Well, whaddya expect with someone getting chemo! :trout: Ambulance brings in another patient: 58 y/o male who OD'd on valium and ativan because "he wanted to get high". He basically was given a room to sleep it off. There's actually more, but I thought those were the most amusing of all the cases. I bet this is stuff you guys see everyday and I can't wait to start ER! The ER I'm gonna be working for seems really well organized and the nurses get along well and work well with the doctors too. The patient to nurse ratio is 3:1 except in the area with the really minor stuff (stuffy noses, etc.) and I'm gonna get at least an 8 week orientation (I'm not a new nurse and have previous ICU experience so I think I'll do fine). Anyways, I learned a lot from reading the ER forums here and just wanted to give a general "thank you" for all the input and support nurses give on this forum. What can I say, we nurses rock :w00t:

Well, other posts answered your questions pretty good so I'm just giving you some support :biere::yelclap: I bet you're nervous! It's hard enough being a new nurse, let alone in a new country! I think you'll do great and :welcome: to nursing and the U.S.!

my heart goes out to you b/c i had a situation where i worked for an employer that didn't like me and basically, didn't want me there. sometimes there is no rhyme or reason why a certain employer doesn't want you....the place i had an issue with, i just didn't fit in, even though i tried to, my nurse manager wasn't interested in giving me a shot to try to fit in. she had it out for me from the get-go. i hate these petty, self-absorbed, hateful people who act like children. she made up all kind of reasons why i was an incompetent nurse, even though i did nothing wrong according to my peers. they even could see that i was blatantly being picked on. trust me, this is for the best for you to move on. i know you don't wanna seem like a job-hopper, but you were there for over a year, which doesn't look like a very short employment period to me. as far as agency nursing, i never did it, but as a previous poster said, i've worked on floors where coworkers did have disdain for the agency nurses and were given little to no orientation and expected to function. but then, i've been places where we liked certain agency nurses and wanted them to come on board as staff. just depends i guess. whatever you do, good luck and sorry for you're bad, back-stabbing experience. hope your venting helps

The only drug and alcohol addicts I feel bad for are the ones that are actually trying to break their addiction....not the ones that continue on destroying their lives through their own free will. To break that cycle is very hard and a life-long struggle...you are never free from the bonds of addiction...that's why I feel sympathy for the ones fighting the good fight trying to get better. Other than them...no...not one ounce of sympathy for the ones who don't care.

You can do OB right out of nursing school, though some people will tell you to do a year of med-surg before you specialize. There is arguments for both sides, it really depends. I've never worked maternity so can not speak for how difficult that particular specialization is right out of school. Maybe someone with OB experience here will chime in

:welcome: to the wacky world of nursing! There's nothing like it . Ok, soon, NCLEX-RN (national council licensure examination - RN) will become the most dreaded word to you, because that's the nursing licensure test you will need to pass to get a license to practice. I dunno what HESI is, so it must be something that I didn't need to be a RN (at least, I hope not, lol ). Ok, after your clinicals are over, then real nursing begins, lol! The only test you need to take and pass initially after nursing school is NCLEX. Other tests and certifications come over time if you choose to take them. None of them are mandatory, but nice to have if you decide to specialize (like a certification in emergency nursing, for example). Like I said, none of this is mandatory. The only test you need to be concerned about at the end of nursing school is NCLEX. But don't fret, if you do good in school and pay attention, you will pass, no problem!

It's for this reason I dunno how nurses who've been doing this job for 20+ years keep up with it....I'm really at awe at those nurses, they really have some serious fortitude! I've only been a nurse for 2 years and am feeling the effect.....dunno what I'll look like in 20

SVT is just a broad term to describe any tachycardia that originates above the ventricles. PAT, then, is another name for SVT. I found this particular website helpful: http://www.webmd.com/heart-disease/tc/Supraventricular-Tachycardia-Overview It describes different types of SVT, causes, treatments, etc. Sinus tachycardia is just tachycardia with normal electrical conduction from the SA node. Heart stuff can be kinda confusing at times

Well, I'm not an ER nurse (yet) but I would say that nursing in general will give you tough skin. People are rude, crude, and will say nasty things to you no matter what specialty you're in. In the ER, I would imagine there would be a lot more of this as a lot of "riff raff" comes through those doors. For me, tough skin came with time. I used to get upset when a patient would call me a f***ing b****, now I just laugh it off. Don't take anything a patient says to you personally (they don't know you and you don't know them), just do your job and don't get too attached. I do care about my patients very much (I wouldn't put up with all the crap nursing gives me if I didn't ) but I keep my distance emotionally as well.

YEAH!!! :biere: :yelclap: :w00t: CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!

Amen!!! I would give anything to have them walk a mile in OUR shoes!

Thanks all for the encouragement....I've heard that it takes at least a year to get anywhere comfortable with ER so I figure I should give it at least that long to see if I like it. As far as IVs go, that's not one of the things I'm nervous about! I worked as a phlebotomist before I was a nurse and actually worked at a plasma center and am used to putting big needles into people (15 gauge anyone?). The part I'm worried about, as one poster said, is the juggling act. I know prioritization isn't my strongest point....I'm not terrible at it, but not the best either. Sometimes I get soooo caught up on stuff and when I start getting swamped, I get frustrated because I'm the kind of person to like to have EVERYTHING done and caught up....I hate being behind!!! I've gotten better at realizing that sometimes I'll never be caught up and accept it, but I'm working on it! On the other hand, nurses have told me that I'm a very confident nurse...and I am....if I'm ever unsure of something, I get help and ask questions...otherwise, I do my thing! Anyways, I'm rambling again . Interview is in a couple days....I'll let y'all know how it goes!