FlyingScot

As a Christian myself let me admonish you that when, not if, when you get written up for being disrespectful to a patient by refusing to use their preferred pronouns you had better not use it as proof that you are being persecuted for your beliefs! You are NOT being persecuted for your beliefs you are being punished for your behavior. Don't make the rest of us look bad.

I couldn't agree more. I had an experience as a patient that I think supports open visitation. I contracted pneumonia culminating in a left lung total whiteout. I was desperately air hungry and scared to death because I was teetering on the edge of needing intubated. Trust me, there aren't too many things scarier than not being able to breathe. My family and friends stayed by my side and helped keep me calm which I firmly believe kept me from ending up on a ventilator. The caveat here is there was only one or two people at my bedside at one time. They were quiet and respectful. There was one person who was the designated question asker so the staff wasn't bothered by a million questions being asked over and over. They made no requests for their personal comfort. Managed to find their own food and drink and used the visitor bathrooms. They were happy to sit in hard backed chairs and get out of them when the nurses needed access to me. All in all my family/friends were pronounced perfect by the nursing staff who wished all visitors behaved like mine. Most importantly though, their presence and support probably saved me from having my already bad situation getting worse!

And it's probably best that people don't call it the "good pop up" when it hasn't been confirmed that it's even accurate.

There is no good pop-up anymore. There is no bad pop-up anymore. The site has changed. When oh when will the madness stop?!

-Co-worker reporting me to management for stealing narcotics (which I did NOT do). -Same co-worker responding on hospital wide survey that I was not "safe" and should be terminated -Same co-worker accusing me to management of forcing an orientee to stay over her shift so I could "ram intubation teaching down her throat". This orientee asked ME to stay over to help HER. -same co-worker who accused me of "continuously smacking" and apneic infant on transport. Hard to do when I was doing the documentation. I got written up for each and every one of these things although I was able to prove that they did not occur. Managements response "well let this be a lesson to you not to do these things in the future". Duh. Since I didn't actually do them don't you think I already knew that. What was not bullying were her snarky comments, making me do all the clean up, general impatience with me and talking about me as if I wasn't even in the room. That just made her a miserable you-know-what.

I think you have a very balanced reaction to your situation and would love to precept you. One thing I wanted to point out is that when the preceptor turned your question back on you and made you think you were able to see what she was doing... helping you to be a critically thinking nurse. Unfortunately there are more than a few new nurses who would view this as refusing to answer the question and therefore... bullying. Yay for you!

No worries. Actually I wasn't all that bent out of shape about your post. I mostly (and apparently incorrectly) used it as a platform to try to explain the difference between respecting someone and being respectful. I'm pretty sick of hearing people say that respect is earned when there are certain situations that respect should be a given. I respect those nurses who have more experience than me when one tries to guide me in the right way. They don't have to earn it. Now if they act nasty they will immediately lose my respect and it will take a very long time to gain it back. But I'll still treat them respectfully. And you can bet I respected my parents. LOL!

There is a big difference between respecting someone and acting respectfully. There are many people I have run into for whom I do not nor ever will have respect but they'll never know it because I treat them respectfully. There are certain people you will meet in life that actually do deserve your respect from the get go and that includes people who are older, wiser and more experienced. Until they prove otherwise that is. Case in point. Did your parents have to earn your respect?

Tell us how that works out for you because I'm not alone in finding that many of these nurses have no interest in being mentored unless it means only being told what special little snowflakes they are. Case in point. I tell all of my preceptees that if I use the phrase " do you think you might want to" or " how about we" what that means is they are making a big mistake and need to stop and re-evaluate. You see my job is to teach yes but more importantly it is to provide care and protect my patients. I'm not there to abuse, bully or humiliate the new nurses. So imagine my dismay when one of them in response to one of my gentle warning phrases looked me straight in the eye and told me, in front of the patient, that I don't know what I'm doing because I am "old school". When I spoke to her later about the incident she became angry and blamed me for her not doing the procedure right despite the fact that I had explained it and run through it with her several times using several different teaching styles. I'm really over the eye-rolling, huffing, sighing and it's-everybody-else's-fault-I'm-failing attitudes that are becoming pervasive. I WANT to mentor new nurses. I WANT them to succeed. I WANT to be a good role model but good golly these people are making it difficult.

One of my friends took her very elderly aunt to visit her (the aunt's) even more elderly husband in the hospital. They sat by the bedside and chatted for a few minutes. Suddenly the man looked at my friend and demanded to know who "that old lady is" referring to his wife. She said "Why Uncle Charlie that's your wife, Edna"! He looked at her and said "What did I do, pick the first one I saw on the street? What am I going to tell my father?!" Fortunately Edna was off in her own little world so no hurt feelings. I nearly peed myself laughing when she told me what happened.

Of course there is a reason to incorporate my faith into my nursing job. My faith is not something I wear just on Sunday it is part of who I am. However, incorporating my faith into my job as a nurse NEVER means forcing my beliefs on anyone...EVER. I'm tired of people assuming that this is what it means based on interaction with a very small sample of people. I incorporate my faith by praying that God will guide my hands when I'm doing a difficult IV stick, I pray that God will grant me the grace to put aside my feelings and show mercy to the patient that has spent the entire shift referring to me a a mother------- b--ch. I can assure you if I responded out of myself it wouldn't be kind. I pray for patience when dealing with staff who JUST DON'T GET IT after explaining something to them a million times. I, by nature, am an impatient person. Not something I am proud of but it's the truth. I am a very flawed human being with strong opinions and a temper to go with them. I don't always need help being kind and caring but sometimes I do and that is what my faith is there for. It helps me when things are just too much for my human side to handle. If you don't feel the need for it...good for you but do not denigrate me by implying that the fact that you don't need it makes you somehow better. All my patients know at the end of the day is that they were cared for by someone who was willing to go the extra mile for them and that's what matters.

May I respectfully ask why the patient is being admitted to your hospital if there is no one with experience treating these types of babies? Please don't misunderstand me, I am not in anyway denigrating your facility or the care you provide to infants which I am sure is top-notch. It's just that these infants are very, very complex and will consume a lot of your resources.

Can I share your worms?

I got RSV and Mycoplasma pneumonia while working in the PICU during the infamous RSV season. Waited too long to get treatment. The ER wanted to intubate me, I refused on the grounds that I was still mentating. Spent a week in the hospital and nearly 6 weeks off of work. Now I have severe asthma related to the damage done to my lungs.

OP...you asked a legitimate and well thought out question. I checked your profile and saw that you are a student. I admire your ability to "see the big picture" in questioning different aspects of pediatric fluid boluses. This is a big part of the critical thinking you hear so much about and will serve you well as you start your career. I truly hope you were able to wade through the nonsense answers you received and got your question answered...the answers were actually there. Please do not let what happened here cause you to think twice about coming to AN to ask questions (unless they're homework, we really don't like that). I also assure you that the vast majority of nurses will take your question seriously and will give you the correct answer...not some psuedo-scientific BS because they need a laugh. When in doubt about an answer look at the poster's profile to see where their expertise lies. Good luck in your schooling!