BUTTERFLY63

I work in pcu. What is your nurse patient ratio? In pcu it is 4:1 or 3:1. depending on accuity. We are required to take critical care classes through our hospital. We are also required to be able to charge and work in icu if needed. When we float to other units we are task nurses and don't take patient's in case we are needed back in critical care. We take patients on cardiac drips, insulin drips, and bipap. When they have to be intibated we send them to icu.

I am the youngest although my brother is 9 years older than me and my sister is 7 years older. Father drank heavily I guess a questionable alcaholic and a bipolar mother who would never get help. I know one of the reasons I became a nurse is because as a nurse if something happens to the patient you can fix it and you have control of the situation as a child my family life was chaotic and unpredictible a situation I had no control over and I couldn't fix it. Maybe it's what makes us good nurses:rolleyes:.

Hell no! I work on a med-surg unit we mainly do oncology , post-op with alot of ortho patients, and pedi's. We don't do tele. We are the only floor that doesn't. Nurse patient ratio is 6:1 on days 7:1 on nights. The tele units are considered a higher acuity. Since we don't do tele are techs are constantly getting pulled to other units. Escpecially on nights which would leave 1 tech for a 36 bed unit. Ortho patients are alot of work and the chemo certified nurses are the charge nurses and they are expected to do chemo and charge at the same time! I have been at this facility for 5 years and nothing has changed and that's why I am leaving.

Yes! One of the benefits of working at a hospital you know what doctors to use and the ones not to use!

The cpne is the most intense experience I have been through! I passed all my labs the first night so I was feeling pretty confident going into my first pcs. My care plan passed and I walked in the room and maybe lasted 5 minutes! I failed to identify the patinet against the kardex. So the second one I wasn't feeling so confident but the CE was terrific and I passed my 2nd pcs. I got through the 3rd one who was the sickest patient I had. I felt terrible. I know she didn't feel good but she allowed me to assess her and she partook in the pcs. The one thing that happened is that I had abdominal assessment and I was listening to her abnomen and she didn't have any bowl sounds (she so had an ileus) so my nerves started coming out while I was listening to her abdomen (1 minute each quad!) and I started breaking out in flop sweat:chuckle The CE didn't say any thing but I not that she noticed. My last one I did fine it was a patient with cholilithiasis and I used pain management as my poc. But of course she rated her pain at a 3 so I couldn't use it. I breezed through my critical elements because she was basically a negative assessment, she was eager to help me, and she was ambulatory. While I was doing the last phase I started freaking because I couldn't use pain management I spent at least an hour trying to figure out what to do because if I failed this one I failed the cpne! I was looking for other diagnosis to use etc. Then I realized that I could change my pain management diagnosis to at risk for pain (DUH:bugeyes:). Just goes to show you how your nerves can get the best of you! The ce's and the ca's were wonderful and very very supportive. My best advice is know your pneumonics inside and out. Make your grid it's your guide,when you walk in the room work through your nerves and just be the best nurse you can be for your patient! NCLEX OR BUST!

I was an LVN for 8 years and have recently finished college for my RN. I have worked med-surg for 8 years and since I am an experienced nurse what should I quote as an expected salary. I am not going to stay on the unit I am currently working. I feel that the place I do get hired on at will be getting an experienced nurse and I should be paid accordingly. Thanks for your input.

I applied in November for Plano and I still don't have a date for cpne yet. Good luck to you all!

I can't believe all the posts on this subject. I think all hospitals are going toward this same program. We have been doing hourly rounding for about a year and we have to use key words like "very satisfied" I don't do it because it doesn't sound genuine. Some of our patients get annoyed with the hourly rounding and ask us not to do it. Because they are trying to get some rest. I am shocked that nurseing has come to this. The ceo's and upper management don't have a clue what it is like to be a floor nurse. The expectations they have of us are unrealistic because they don't have a clue.

This sounds an awful lot like my hospital! It is impossible to accomplish all the things upper management wants us to do. It is all about patient satisfaction scores. We aren't a hotel and I didn't go to college to be a hostess. The only answer I can come up with is to change nurse patient ratio. Of course upper management won't go for it because it would be more money out of their pockets and they wouldn't get their bonuses. A question I think they should ask patients on their stupid surveys is would they rather have a nurse with 4 or 5 patients or a nurse with 6 or 7 patients! I know I am a good nurse and I love being a nurse. So when upper management comes up with all this patient satisfaction and hourly rounding ******** I smile and nod my head in agreement and just keep doing what I always have been doing!

I have been an LVN for 8 years and I am getting my RN through Excelsior College. I I am done with classes and waiting on my clinical date. The RN is just a title. What matters is knowledge. I have worked with RN'S that don't have a clue. It all comes down to knowledge and experience. Hell I precept RNs to work on my unit. You do get the occasional bully nurse. It doesn't matter if their an RN or LVN they just like to try to intimidate new grads or new nurses. Which I think they do it because they feel threatened. In my experience it is the unfairness of the pay. I work on a med-surg unit and the RNs got 2 raises this year and LVNs didn't get a raise at all. We do the same work and are held just as accountable. If I was you I would go right for my RN. Good luck!

to explain again....I didn't accept or delegate the dressing change to the tech. I went through my chain of command and conferred with the charge nurse....right after the incident happend. While conferring with the charge nurse the surgeon showed up to assess the dressing.

It's hard to be perfect! Even for nurses! You did the right thing by going to your manager. it sounds like she is on your side and understands what happend. Try not to beat yourself up about it. What is the night nurse like? I know we have some nurse on our unit that try to thow their weight around and intimidate the new nurses. Don't let her get to you it's what she wants.

we have had a couple of incidents on our med-surg unit with 2 of our techs. one which involved me! i had a patient that was in for dehiscence of a surgical wound. i walked into the patients room and the tech said "you don't have to worry about doing the dressing change i already did it." i said "did you reinforce it or change it?" she said that she changed it. we walked out of the patients room and i asked her if she changed the packing and she said yes!!!!!!! i told her only nurses can change dressings and especially packing. she said "i know" i told my charge nurse what happend. in the mean time my patients doctor (surgeon with a god complex) shows up. removes the dressing and it was not packed correctly and we had specific orders to pack it with dry gauze not wet. and he wanted individual 4x4 packed in it not the 4x4's in the boat because the individual 4x4's are more fluffy and absorb more . i know, just giving you an idea of what i was dealing with. so the surgeon/god threw a fit and i told him what happend. i wasn't going to take the fall for that tech. anyways the tech got suspended without pay for 2 days and is on probation. the tech is not a new tech. she's been working as a tech for more than 10 years so she knows better. i have no idea why she thought she could get away with doing that. i haven't seen her since this incident. another incident with a different tech happend and another nurse. the nurse got a post-op patient. she didn't know they came up for surgery. the tech walks in the room and sets them up with frequent vitals. the recovery room nurse starts giving her report and they assess the patient and go over doctors orders. the tech didn't inform her that she was the tech or let the nurse know the patient was in the room! so the nurse walks by the room and sees the patient in the room. she introduces herself and asks where the recovery room nurse is. they told her the nurse amy (not her real name) was already in here and took report from the recovery room nurse, which made the real nurse feel stupid and made her look like she didn't know what she was doing! the charge nurse talked to the recovery room nurse and said the tech didn't identify herself as the tech or say that she would get the nurse. she took report! so this tech is in trouble for impersonateing a nurse. this just happend so i don't know what is going to happen to her! scary....huh!

I Took Care Of A Schizophrenic That Thought He Was Married To Allanis Morsette. He Even Went By Her Last Name! Does This Count?

All Of You Have All Made Such Great Points! We Are All Trained Professionals That Have Gone To College. We Get It From All Directions. The Patients, Doctors, And Upper Management. The Hospital I Work At Has Started This Patient Satisfaction Drive. There Is A Person That Goes To Each Patient And Finds Out What They Like And Don't Like About Their Stay And How They Are Being Cared For. So We Get Told Weekly How Well Were Doing And How Much We Suck! Upper Management Has No Idea What We Go Thorugh In A Day And They Don't Consider The Source ( The Patient). Our Patinet Satisfaction Scores Were Actually Up And We Got A Cake. I Wonder What Kind Of Bonus Management Got?