Spitfire1500

I currently work around 60 or 70 hours per week most weeks and I can tell you that it is not sustainable. I have been doing this for around three or four years and have come to realize that it cannot be done week after week after week. I have to take periods off of my second job to kinda "ddetox" from nursing. Another problem that I see is your plan to work ICU right out of school as a new grad. There is a lot that you have to learn with regard to critical care. I have been out of school for 16 years and so do not know exactly what they are teaching now, but I actually learned critical care on the job over several years. I really don't think that one year is enough time to prepare one to do travel nursing ICU since you may be placed in situations that you are unfamiliar with which could compromise patient safety. Just my two cents.

Yes, I agree that you should always document that no new order were rcvd. Case in point: I was working ICU one night and had a 400 pounder that was tanking with no BP. Called the doc for some orders and he gives me a 250cc challenge. I rolled my eyes, gave the bolus and had the doc back on the phone within 5 minutes. I made no less than six calls to the doc, hoping to get some pressors on board. I documented EVERYTHING, including every single vital sign, assessment finding and lab value that I had given to him along with his exact response. Finally the consulting nephrologist comes in very early, so I grab him and drag him down to the room. He started to get angry at me asking why I had let the patient deteriorate to such a point. I explained to him what I had been going through with the attending and he really went ballistic. There was a phone on the wall outside the patient's room and he called the attending and really blessed him out. The next morning I was in the DON's office having been accused of not relaying vital information to the attending. I retrieved my notes from the night before and showed them to the DON and the hospital CEO (who had gotten involved by this point). They both agreed that the physician was in the wrong and was trying to cover up his own inaction. I got an apology from the DON, but never got one from the attending. He avoided me like the plaugue from then on.

I was really tired after a very busy er night shift. I had to drive about an hour home and after about 15 minutes, realized that I was in no condition to drive so I thought it might be a good idea to take a little nap. I pulled into the nearest parking lot that was empty, locked the doors and let the seat back for a 15 minute power nap. I must have really been tired because I awoke to the sound of someone beating on the car window. It was my wife and boy was she mad. I had unwittingly pulled into the parking lot of a strip club. When I hadn't shown up at home by noon and had not called or wouldn't answer my cell phone, she got really worried and got on the road to find what ditch she was sure I had run in to. She saw my car in the parking lot of this strip club (by now it was open), pulled in and didn't see me in the car and so assumed that I was inside. She said that she stormed into the club looking for me and was offered a job dancing by the establishment's manager (my wife is quite attractive). That really didn't help matters. That was about two years ago and I'm still living it down.

I used to work 2 different agencies in addition to my full time job. I started noticing that one of the agencies always had shifts for me, but then I would very often get cancelled for the shifts. Found out that the agency would call me and schedule me for a shift even though the hospital had not called in a need. That way he had me locked in just in case they did call a need in. When they didn't, he would simply cancel me. I would turn down shifts with my other agency (that did not pay as much) because I was already scheduled. We finally figured this scam out after I had conversations with several other nurses with the same agency that had the same problem and then speaking with the staffing coordinators at the individual hospitals involed.