AmericanRN

I have also been accepted to Loyola New Orlean's BSN-DNP program. See you all in New Orleans April 30th :). What is the name of the fb group?

Depends on the tribe you're interested in working with. Big difference between say Cherokees of Oklahoma & Navajos out in Chinle or Lakotas in PineRidge. You're indigenous too you won't have a problem if you're a Pacific Islander..(I'm kinda joking kinda not joking) again it depends on the tribe but overall you probably fit in better then someone who was white. And that is no slur against anyone white. Were you raised traditionally? Biggest problem I see with people who don't fit in is they don't shut up long enough to learn anything. Are you Samoan, Tahitian? Now I'm being nosey :))

Did it occur to you that its the site who sets the rules for rotation and not the fact that your instructor has been "only licensed for three years?" Do you honestly believe that if they had 30 years of experience that you would be allowed to do more? Many sites don't want students in their facilities to begin with. With this economy those who do let students in are routinely demanding the students be given CNA duties. Its win win for them, they can send half their CNAs home, let the students do that job for free and get paid to even let the students in the building. Yes thats right in my area the "good" hospitals are PAID by the nursing schools to take students which is another reason why tuition costs keep climbing.

You're:up:

I'm sorry I know you're disappointed. Now review what you are weak in, get your nerves under control and get back out there and do your thing. The next post from you will say "I PASSED" We'll see you in about 50 days, time for you to take a 2 day break to lick your wounds and then back to studying you go.

Wrong I always assume my life is in danger when caring for any pt with the exception of a NICU pt & with them I wouldn't put it past an upset,overwrought parent to take someone's life. Reality is I don't know what anyone has going on in their heads but I do know that cancer, renal failure, losing a job can all make people snap. I appreciate what you do and your understanding of mental illness but I have seen far too many people injured because they thought a person was "safe." Cruel of me to say but everyone who met Ted Bundy felt he was a charming and charismatic man, his # 1 tactic was to feign injuries or to pose as an authority figure. He approached every single person he murdered in a public area.

I work in an area where people speak every imaginable language but English. I understand what you are saying as far as practicing English but that is really a political opinion and its fine & dandy if they're out socializing. I would prefer my patients NOT practice their English or attempt to master it while they are in the hospital. Thats a recipe for disasters. Maybe you thought she understand everything you said, but the fact that she had her child discuss already previously discussed topics with you is indicative that she feels she missed out on something you said and used the child to clarify. Don't assume that someone understands you just because they are nodding yes or even repeat back to you what you just said. Many people nod their heads to relay to you that they recognize the fact that you are speaking not that they actually understood anything you said.

As an addendum don't stop in good areas of town either, call 911 for them too. I grew up in the hood & trust me when I tell ya I've always noticed people in nice areas gets lulled into a false sense of security. If I was a thief or axe murderer I would go to the nice areas because I know people aren't as likely to be on their guard nor do they tend to have finely honed street smarts. Besides nice neighborhoods own better quality cars, stereos, jewelry etc who better to mug then an oblivious person? Just my

I don't think your supervisor misunderstood anything, she sounds obnoxious but tomorrow is another day. More like a powertrip. I think she needs to let the power tripping go before you end up the next rapid response code in the facility. I don't think that you should be taking smokers outside when you have asthma. People who smoke or don't mind smoke are the ones who should take the residents out, not an asthmatic or anyone who may be vehemently opposed to smoking.

Excellent question and glad you asked. The other nurses already answered the census question. You and your class will also be affected by a low census. If the census drops hospital wide the hospitals will send clinical groups home, then start sending their nurses home since there would be no unit to float to. There can only be so many types of students on a floor at a time per licensed discipline eg: nurses, physicians, respiratory therapists, etc. So there are nurse : pt ratios, student nurse: licensed nurse ratios, student nurses: per clinical instructor, medical student: doctor ratios. In my state no more then 12 nursing students can be assigned to a single instructor for a clinical group. If the group exceeds 12 d/t rotation placement then the schools will sent 2 instructors to teach the one clinical group.

I don't think the OP is a nurse or in the medical field at all. I might be wrong but I thought the OP was the mother of a nursing student. If so I think the question was posed out of concern for her child going into the field not out of any type of willful ignorance.

Trek, I sent a message to you privately. Hopefully you will be able to access it. Esme I agree with you on MANY points. Our field is going downhill fast for many reasons. I am not sure how we can go about fixing this broken system we're in.

Oh shift wars between days and night are easily started with nurses, techs, and mds. No way is any of that related to anything you said. I did agree though that you should not have been left to get to the sink by yourself especially with that hx of low BP. I wasn't there but I do feel that every patient should at least have access to wash their face, armpits and privates and in that exact order I have some concerns regarding your memory issues with words that you mentioned in an earlier post. I know you have tools you use to see better but I am concerned that you forget what it is you were looking at so quickly after reading it. I am not the spelling police and please don't think I'm picking on you but it seems that many of your misspelled words appear to be more neurological in nature and not just a vision issue. Have you seen a neurologist and had a thorough neuro workup that included both CT scan and MRI of your brain with & without contrast? Have you ever been hooked up to an EEG for long term monitoring? I would like if you checked into getting this done if you haven't done so already.

your blood pressue was checked every hour? well then you must have been more unstable physically then you are aware of. As for low BP if you were my patient and your BP was dropping below your normal baseline of low BP you better believe I would be waking you to make sure you still had the ability to wake up and wasn't about to code. As far as your soaked bandages weren't you post op? Some surgeons don't want anyone but themselves to do the first dressing change so that might be why they mentioned needing an order for your bandages and a bath. Were they truly bloody or was it drainage of another sort? Perhaps your surgeon also said "no bath" or "no full immersion in water for 24-48 hours' or whatever it was that he or she wrote. I agree that your basin should have filled with water so you could brush your teeth and wash your face. That also would have prevented you from having to get up as unsteady as you said you were. That I have a problem with it as you could have fallen. I think it was an oversight more then neglect when it comes to that basin of water. I am sorry you had a bad experience but at this point you are nitpicking about the vs checks, meds and blood draws. I'm thinking you were asleep most of your stay and some point needed to be woken up to take your meds. We don't get to pick what time blood is drawn, lab needs it by a certain time and thats the way it is. Wouldn't you rather we be in there checking your vital signs and snapping you out of an overly sedated sleep then taking a chance that you could have dying in that room from some post surgical complication? You also mentioned many people were in your room on and off. That doesn't sound to me like they had necessary staff to be able to bathe you, sounds more like they were concerned you were going to be the next rapid response and were getting multiple sets of eyes in there to observe you.

I threw up in my mouth a little reading this. He is a lazy, moronic pig. He c/o of his back & butt hurting him from the bed. Too bad its "customer service central" and no nurse or doctor is allowed to give him the grocery list of what he really needs to do like lose weight, ambulate more then once a year and the back & butt pain will magically go away. I feel bad for his nurses hopefully no nurse had to have him on their assignment for more then a single shift. The poor nurse that he made fun of for looking like she had a stroke, she probably did from years of having to lift people his size who make no attempt to roll over or do anything for themselves. Notice how he thought it was amusing to push all the buttons, jerk probably rode the call light all night for BS things. Its high maintence whiners like him that suck up all the time on a shift while some patient who is suffering for real is put on the back burner. He is the eptiome of everything negative we nurses have to deal with in this field. Best damn day of thoses nurses lives were probably when they saw the order to d/c him home. Its people like him that make me DESPISE becoming a nurse.

Yes & I could care less what the patients or co-workers say when it comes to massage. The days of randomly rubbing people are over, its not a greed factor but massage is a separate discipline with an endless amount of modules within itself. It is indeed outside of our scope of practice massage if we are LPNs or RNs unless we have taken additional courses. I know for sure because my mother is an LMT. There are nurse massage therapists but I'm not one of them. If you were to massage someone with uncontrollabe HTN or a hx of blood clots you could could indeed be held lible if something went wrong or they threw a PE because you dislodged a clot with a little foot rub. I know for a fact that the place my mom works at does not accept walk-ins, if the person isn' referred by a physician who has given medical clearance they won't work on them. Even then the patients are distributed to different LMTs based on their physical ailments. A fibromyalgia patient would not be able to tolerate a therapist who was trained in Trager or Swedish deep tissue.

yeah get back to us in about 3 years

Congrats on getting accepted in the new grad program :))

The Amish don't do it on their own so to speak, they tend to bring in women that they feel are skilled to assist them. Sometimes those women are Amish, Mennonite or other sects of the AnaBaptist faiths. They will go to a hospital if it's a high risk situation and they will also bring in "outsiders" if they trust them. I have two friends who are former Amish themselves and they have shed a ton of light on their culture. Far as hospital bills the individual Amish family whose bill it uses their own money first to pay their hospital bill if the bill is too large then the community as a whole pays it off. I suppose they sign the necessary consent forms during hospital stays but the chances of being sued by them are slim to none. In fact there was a huge case involving a midwife in PA a few years ago, many people felt that judge & the PA legislature were trying to scapegoat a single woman in their quest to shut down all midwives. The public in many states backlashed against PA and anyone else who they thought was "anti midwife." Reality is many people do not hospitals/corporations and certain tactics that are being used to regulate midwives. The Amish who normally avoid attention & courts at all costs showed up in droves in support of this particular midwife, she had sucessfully delivered hundreds of healthy Amish babies throughout the years.

no i would not & this was my 2nd career so I didn't go into it blindly. Many years ago I wanted to become an MD but I realize they are just as frustrated overall as many nurses. If they aren't a neuro, cardiac or plastic surgeon they too get crapped on & fired easily for not meeting unrealistic expectations and "production quotas." They are burning out at the speed of light just like nurses. I'm at a stage where I would rather work at Circle K then to be anywhere near healthcare in any capacity. Its all about doing more with less resources & sicker patients. Even though that same expectation has happened in other fields its horrific in healthcare because people's lives and quality of life are at stake. Personally I would not encourage anyone to become a nurse, CNA or MD. Far as I'm concerned the CEO's & bean counters can go hire those trained monkeys they're always threatening everyone with to do all of the above jobs.

When I did LTC I was in a restraint free facility so usually we would keep that person with us at the nurse's station & give them things to do to distract them. One resident who used to be a nurse would calm down if she was allowed to wheel around and "write people up." We gave her paper, pen and let her write everyone up to heart's content. Now I'm in acute care our unit does not put a non combative person in wrist restraints. The only exceptions to that is if they are attempting to pull out a peg tube. If they are attempting to pull out IVs we wrap that site in kerlix, if they are going for a foley we will put a diaper on them over the foley. Then they go in a geri chair at the nurse's station. Snacks & drinks are a good distraction & its another way to make sure they are actually intaking something besides NS & meds while they're in the hospital. We'll get the ativan out only if everything else has been tried repeatedly. Moogie brought up a lot of valid points regarding making sure that there is not a UTI or something else that is making them so agitated. Usually I find that in the acute care setting the dementia patients are terrified because they don't know the nurses the way they do at the LTC, their routine is off and they are bored. There aren't any activities for them to do in the acute care setting. One of our techs keeps coloring books & crayons in her locker for dementia patients. They really like her & her coloring books.

I get pedicures all the time. The difference in them such as a full foot & leg rub along with the pedicure depends on the place. A lot of spas do pedicures and parafin wax treatments but they can be pricey. Ask people you know where they go. Drive around and go into a few places. A reputable place will have the business license displayed along with each nail tech having his or her individual license displayed in plain view at their stations. The place I go to cleans the tools where everyone can see so there is no question of cleanliness or professionalism.

I agree with all the previous posters. My facility is the same way, I"m pretty much counting down the days until I get fired for something, anything. I do the best I can by the patients but I realize that I'm in a toxic field where my best simply isn't good enough for admins & bean counters. And these employers wonder why the average employee isn't "loyal"

Everyone I ever met that says "wicked good" was from New England. First I thought it was just a Mass thing but I've heard people from Vermont, Maine & New Hampshire using it too. I don't make the attempt to say with this New York accent even though I like the phrase it only sounds cool when they say it I'm much better at words that start with "F"

Not true I work at 430 bed facilty and our ER regularly goes on bypass if the hospital census is at maximum capacity. What point is there in them accepting a bunch of people that will never be seen in under 10 hours let alone admitted to the floor? I can't speak for every ER but ours does refuse patients and they are allowed to do that legally as are the other hospitals in the area. When paramedics or the fire department is in route, dispatch notifies them as to which hospitals in the area are on bypass status. If OR and radiology are backed up more then 4 hours thats right ER is notifed to bypass anyone who is transporting a head injury or gunshot to a different hospital. The choices come down to come to our hospital on that day with those things and you will certainly die in the parking lot or get bypassed 15 extra minutes to a hospital that can handle it that day and get a chance to live. We are lucky in the fact that we have more then 6 hospitals in a 30 mile area that have ERs with another 10 in the two neighboring counties.