yankeecamper

Also, you should consider that if (God forbid) there was ever a negative outcome for a patient that went to a lawsuit, you would be judged against the standard of care for your particular practice.

Milking Chest tubes is not a recommended practice. It increases pressure and can cause tissue damage.

I work with surgeons who wait for a circulator to sit and then ask for something ridiculous like the "otis" elevator! I try to watch the field, but I will sit when I know they have what is needed and the procedure is going smoothly. Of Course, I keep my ears and eyes open for the unexpected.

Wow, I am surprised at how few people responded to this in two years time. Our surgical services dept. has a preadmissions dept. It is staffed with 1 full time, and 3 part time nurses, and a nurse's aide. They do ALL the preop nursing H&P's, ordered lab work, and EKG's. They have anesthesia guidelines to follow for the appropriate diagnostic testing. On average they see 12 - 18 pts/day. The PAT nurse's have a huge problem with receiving doctor's orders from the surgeons prior to their visit. Do you have the same problem? The nurses spend a couple hours a day on the phone chasing doctors and office staff for the things they need in order to get a chart ready for the day of surgery.

Thank you to acnorn. Some of your ideas are in place already. I like the one about working with someone in another job class. How true the old cliche` about walking a mile in someone else's shoes. I also like the idea of all job classes attending the same staff meeting. I will attempt these. :)

I need some advice. I am a new manager and my RN staff is, for the most part, pretty wonderful. My receptionist and aides, on the other hand, feel abused and and unappreciated by the RN's. From what I am observing and hearing from the ancillary staff, I think the RN's are so close knit and cohesive that they don't realize they are ignoring the receptionist when she speaks to them. I also see that each RN forgets there are 16 other RN's asking the 3 aides to do things and don't realize how busy the aides are. I have an RN staff meeting once a month with minutes recorded, because only half the staff is usually in attendance. The ancillary staff used to meet once a month, but the former manager stopped meeting because it became a B#@%* session. Any ideas?!