RedZeppelinRN

This appears to be a good way to reduce medication errors.

I had a similar experience. Had an arthroscopy of my shoulder. Surgeon absolutely perfect. It was supposed to be an outpatient surgery. My heart rate was high for some reason. So my doctor sent me to the floor to be observed for awhile. I am a small person and when I called for help to go pee, guess what, the cna told me that she could not help me up and offered a bedpan which was not useful. Finally after awhile, a traveler nurse helped me to the BR. My only concern was losing my balance, I had no other limitations. I called a nurse friend and we told the charge nurse "we are gone." After a long wait this same traveler nurse came and started to remove my IV and got another call and left my partially removed IV dressing dangling. I finally had to take it out myself and chase down another cna get me a clean dressing. I had gone to the nurses station about 3 times and each time I was rudely told "I'll tell your nurse." Know that health care is becoming dangerous. The corporations are getting rid of experienced nurses, bringing foreign staff here. They are also breaking the jobs that nurses were trained for into bits and pieces of "tech jobs" so you really don't know what you are getting. May your father recover and heal from this nightmare.

Bless your heart. Great that you had the insight about adrenaline rush.

sorry to bother you.

Hi Buck: I am an RN. I have go for cautery endoscopy every six months for a rare disorder, AVM of the stomach or "watermelon stomach." I started out with this about 2-3 years ago when it developed and had severe anemia. The condition has been well controlled but is something I have to have for life. My concern now, does a doctor have to be present when conscious sedation is given? My concern arose when one of my last endoscopies, 2 nurses, I assume gave me my sedation medication and I started having s.o.b. Although they claimed my sats were 100 % and just pushed the rest of the medication. They apparently did not tell the doctor, and I forgot to tell him under the influence of the sedation. I did, the next day, report this incident to his nurse. Assuming any doctor wanted to be told of any problem, he became angry and defensive. Apparently he ordered an extra dose of 50 mg IV Benydrel that had caused my reaction. His nurse referred me to the manager of the endoscopy center. We talked and ended it by asking that the doctor to be in the room when medication was given. He was very sullen and there was no discussion with him the next endoscopy. Only a nurse stating "you won't be given any more IV Benadryl." Today, I was left in a very cold holding area for 1 hour and 45 minutes before they even took me in for my procedure. I was so cold I started to cry and called for a nurse. I could not find my call bell. When I was finally taken in for the procedure, I was told by 2 staff members, that they were "techs." 2 staff members who did not identify themselves showed me syringes of medication. I never saw the doctor any place, but of course he could have been standing behind me, so I could not really prove he was not in the room. I am thinking that I would try to get another doctor to perform my endoscopy cauteries. But I started thinking how difficult this would be with the years this doctor had been treating me. Even with another "corporate" hospital, they would have to have my history as documented for treatments. Would it be a good idea to get a copy of my medical records and read their documentation before I looked for a new doctor so I would know what I would be up against. Even though I would try for another hospital corporation doctor, I am sure they would want to know why I wanted to try and change doctors. As is well known, doctors all protect their own. I don't want to get into any legal entanglements. I would only want to drop this corporation and go to another. Any information you can throw my way, I would truly appreciate. Regards

Sharp is not the only hospital. SDSU, Alvarado, Scripps, Kaiser, Kindred. Rare to find a Caucasian nurse in nursing homes. There is a strong non-caucasian group that are deemed a "protected class" and new or Caucasian nurses have left nursing altogether because of it. I would ask for a tour of the area you are applying for and see for yourself. This group is very powerful and if one of them needs to be disciplined for poor patient care or other dangerous situations, it can be extremely difficult and stressful to report any wrongdoing. All I can say is, don't take my word for it. See it for yourselves. Caucasian minority is an understatement. Ask yourself why CEOs go to another country, sponsor them, and bring them here.

My first job in nursing was a teaching hospital. Green that I was, when I had witnessed and participated in so many codes, I realized these were terminal patients and this was a teaching hospital. Felt a little deflated at first thinking I was really not doing anything for the patient, I realized many people are alive today because of these teaching hospitals.

Dishes: This is very good advice. I have attended a job interviewing and resume writing class. They stress that volunteering is a very good place to network. I did this at a hospital years ago, and subsequently renewed my nursing license and was hired in the hospital I volunteered at. I am planning on volunteering at one of the hospitals emergency rooms shortly. But I think you have to pack a gun. Just kidding. But I believe volunteering gives both the job seeker and employer a chance to put yourself out there and let the employer see what you can do for them.

If you live in CA, San Diego specifically, SDSU has a program for new grads. So if you are an experienced nurse, forget it. I also had a recruiter at another hospital tell me I would I would be competing with new grads. It seems you can't win. All I can say is never give up. You never know when another alternative will come up. Just happened to me in another healthcare related field. Best wishes.

Good point, Leslie.

I don't know how they could make an approximate estimate if you have taken time out, raised kids, did not work in nursing for certain periods of time. It is just a curiousty. I really have no intention of refiling again. It is known around San Diego to be "Little Manila." A protected class I am told that seems to reign in all the hospitals.

No. But I believe date of graduation could easily provide a close approximation to age.

This question always comes at the very last of your application. Your resume shows your work history.

Just curious. In the past when I have posted resumes with UCSD, at the end of the application, it asks for the year you graduated as an RN. Is this a way to get around age discrimination?

What is a nurse intern? Is that like being a CNA, or is something liking being preceptored?

I really think the company's are shooting themselves in the foot. I also feel they are taking advantage now because of the economy and probably pushing those nurses that are working now over the edge. But I believe when the nursing boom comes around, these nurses that are staying employed, will flee when the baby boomers start coming around.

Here in CA they are asking for BSN's for nursing homes(?) I am an RN and can't get a job because I don't have "1 year recent acute care experience." I am taking some courses to get into other than hospital jobs. At UCSD in San Diego, they are hiring new grad nurses. I don't know if they are both LVN and RNs. But I can't get a job there. They have a program only for new grads. Probably at a low salary. So I am just taking courses for now, and waiting for the "big Baby Boom" to come around. Right now they are only hiring advanced degree RNs, mostly nights and 12-hour shifts. Good luck.

Right on Jay. We need more of you.

I would call Jack Kevorkian before you could send me to a nursing home. Here in CA the governor vetoed a bill that the State DHA would have stronger oversights on patient care, abuse, dangerous or neglectful care. Some people are killed in nursing homes, and if you doubt this, pm me. Besides, the State DHA only give slaps on the rest for violations of patient care. I believe since the advent of Corporations taking over nursing homes, a great number of the nursing homes actually kill patients. Also, I guess you know, it is very hard to sue these corporations, because they have many ways to diverse and divide ownerships of these corporations so it is very difficult to prove who owns what. I am so tired of that trite, tedious phrase, "you don't manage your time" to justify the slave labor and the pursuit of $$$$ to justify the greed at the expense, not only of the patients, but the danger of the responsibilities placed on nurses.

Well, it sounds interesting. Love your cat. Keep us posted! Best wishes.

DeLana: I, and I am sure many other nurses are hoping this will be an exception for you and wish you the best of luck. But I was wondering, isn't oncology strictly oncology? Not just a med/surg unit? Best of luck to you. Please let us know how you do. All our fingers are crossed for you.

Bless your heart. You expressed it better than I could. I swore up and down like you I would never go back to nursing. Now that I am a little bit saner, here I am again, probably not having learned that I shouldn't try it again. My God, I just thought, WHAT AM I DOING? It brings back all the trampling on my body and soul! You know what, I am so glad this came up. But you know what is so scary, is being a patient yourself. I saw things at this hospital and the treatment of patients that made me want to cry. The 2 worst things I remember was an 80+ year old woman who had just had a hip replacement. The surgical dressing had not been changed by the surgeon. I happened to go past her room and saw 2 CNAs getting this woman up to the bathroom with the dressing hanging down her leg with surgical site bleeding. Another patient I had was a young military mva with multiple wounds with staples from the neck to the coccyx. I went in to change his dressing and the wound had green discharge from probably never being changed. I immediately went to the nurse manager to look at it. She said, "does it glow in the dark?" What was even more of a shock, was when I picked up my Sunday paper, and there was about a 4-page (short paper) of nothing but a tribute to nurses and this nurse managers face smiling face. I really feel something very bad is happening in this country. It was brought to it's knees by wall street and corporations. There were no ads or anything else, just a "tribute to nurses." Curiously, almost 99% of all the pictures were of white, american nurses. Do you think the tide is beginning to turn against these groups, or are the hospitals paying the newspapers, who are sorely suffering from the recession and many going out of business? I am starting to get sick thinking about all of this. I remember asking my union rep about a particular hospital who was always rated in the newspaper for being a good place to work. He said it was not a good place to work, same problems. They paid the newspapers to run these "best place to work" ads. Now that I am thinking about this, I am starting to get sick. Even my GI doc who does my endoscopic procedures, said you don't want to go to a hospital. This doc belongs to the largest hospital chain in this city. These particular hospitals in this chain made the newspapers for being reported to the public health administration by many nurses for dirty conditions, dangerous patient care, poor equipment. Strangely, in the last several months, the have been designated as "magnet" hospitals." What do you think, is this our country anymore, is this America? Help!!!!!!!!

Excellent, excellent post! However, when I was fired, a "protected minority group" who refused requests to do certain duties listed in her job description, and was a member of a strong clique that management would not deal with, I was at a loss. Bottom line, it was a strong, in control group of ethnic cnas and ethnic nurses. I did the same thing you did, talk to the cna privately, but was just laughed at. They did not fire me for being a "non member" of the clique, but took some different tacks, like staff continually interrupting me when I was pulling my meds, cnas telling me what to do, you name it. So I was fired for "med errors" on the pxysis, which was kind of dumb because of being able to do documentation from that and various documentation about the new system and all the errors made on the pxysis by other nurses which was investigated by my union. It cost me a lot emotionally, but filing a grievance I was monetarily compensated. Also, the union returned my separation status as resigned instead of fired. But this strong hold by groups that are in control are all too common in the hospitals in CA. What the heck can you do? Right now I am taking telemetry courses, etc. and trying to find some other nursing alternatives.

Thanks for your support. I had not thought of the antidiscrimination the lazy supervisor used to avoid the problem. Appreciate that insight. That is why I am going back to school to get a certification in Emergency Room Nursing. It is at a local university and the program is awesome. It gives you just about everything you need to enter into other areas, such as ambulatory care, which I really liked while I was in my refresher course. Sometimes I think about total care nursing, but I didn't think that was such a good way to go either. The last patient I had weighed 236 pounds, and she could not get up to go to the bathroom until she was evaluated by physical therapy. No way did this woman fit on a bed pan, and she peed, and she peed, and she peed. The Charge Nurse did help me once with her. I seriously was planning to quit when they fired me. Not only was I compensated, but HR records were changed to reflect that I quit. What would I say to this CNA? I would ask her to go with me to the NM and have her job description pulled, and follow it up. Of course, I was treated as a whistleblower. But that has not hurt me, probably because the settlement agreement was pretty strict. Confidential with no "bad language about me and records changed to quit, not fired." I know the job market is tight right now, but by the time I finish my certification, things will be better (I believe) and along with that the baby boomers will be coming. As I said before, I am glad you gave me the hint about the lazy nurse manager and discrimination. This will give me a "heads-up" to be more aware of NMs leadership. Thanks so much.

From one virgo to another: Your post, I just loved. WALK a little in our shoes.