JohnnyGage

The company I fly for routinely does interstate transport. Because the company is licensed in Minnesota, and we as nurses are licensed in Minnesota, we are covered. Basically, while the patient is under your care and covered by your protocols, orders, etc., they are considered to be "in your state" until care is transferred.

Congrats! As for this... I have two words: Rotor Blades.

While I am quite comfortable with chest tubes and the questions you've raised, I don't think I could adequately answer the questions in a forum like this... I'm much more of a hands-on teacher and for something like CTs, even more so. However... Have you thought about contacting the company to see if they could arrange for one of their education reps to do a hospital inservice? Most are very willing to arrange for this type of education seeing it as a cheap and easy way to keep customers.

Overall fitness is key. A good fitness program will include flexibility (especially back and hamstring stretches), strength (we all know about the increase in "bariatric" patient populations), and definitely endurance. Not only that, but important components in my opinion are also spiritual and mental fitness, however you achieve those. Personally, I have been in training for my first triathlon. It has helped in every one of those areas.

They died as heros. May they rest in peace.

What parts are you having trouble understanding?

We waste every time unless we're "actively treating or titrating". Basically it comes down to: if you feel confident enough about your patient to leave the bedside you should waste. That is, if you're actively treating chest pain or acute agitation and you wouldn't want to leave the room, you can hang on to and re-use the syringe. A lot of the older nurses think that wasting is wasteful, but one of our NMs posted a little tidbit of drug cost to the patient vs. court costs for a potential lawsuit and it opened many people's eyes.

When the creative commercials for Listerine Strips give you ideas of how to deal with "neuro breath".

flyeeng and wurking Trahma prety much rooned all of my dangrus hobees. I still luv to rok clime, tho. I never rid motercykles and sertianly wont ever. Spelling purposely changed out of spite.

Sounds good. Just remember to tell them if you feel more orientation is needed! However, also remember that orientation is not to make you a "great" nurse, just a "competent" nurse. The "great" is up to you and your work ethic.

I never give IMs any more, but when I did, I always changed needles. Mostly for the fact that going through the rubber on a vial will slightly dull the needle and I always wanted to give my patient the sharpest needle possible... less pain that way. I figure, why not? In the grand scheme of things needles aren't very expensive. I guess my question is why wouldn't you change them out?

Hard to say, but I would guess: CVICU is a surgical unit taking open heart patients, probably also any aortic surgeries, possibly thoracotomies (ie cardio-thoracic stuff). CICU is probably a cardiac medical ICU taking critical coronary cases on vents, IABPs, CRRT, etc. CCU is most likely also a medical cardiac unit that acts more as a stepdown taking coronary patients that are on simple drips like NTG, amiodarone, diltiazem, etc. but not dealing with the machines they work with in CICU. Most of the MIs probably end up here, along with most of the post-intervention cases. If the heart recovery plan is typical, this is also where the open-heart patients complete their recovery after they transfer out of the CVICU.

Well, it seems to me that "advanced care" is just another name for "step down" or "progressive care". One more term to throw into the mix to make the public think that it's innovative. Yup. Our hospital's got 'em. Don't know why there isn't a forum for it, though.

What does an "advanced care unit" consist of? Is it the same as stepdown or "progressive care"?

Never strip pleural tubes. As I mentioned before, we strip mediasteinal tubes to prevent clotting and tamponade. Yes, it can bruise the heart, but what's your other option -- death?