mfdteacher

Don't memorize...KNOW your ACLS! Find a good mentor, know your EKGs, and for a while, just keep silent and observe. Soon enough you'll realize that you have it together and you'll be fine.. Remember, every patient could be your mother, father sister or brother, so treat them that way...even the frequent flyers.

Nursing is a GREAT Career! The rewards you get from your patients are truly mind boggling. The skills and ability to help someone at one of the "worst times" of their life will stay with you always. There is a but....hospital nursing is usually a pretty crappy job, not always, but unfortunately most of the time. Do you want to do what you love, great. Are you in it for the money, not so great. The rewards can make it all worthwhile. Looking back over around 40 years in ICU/ER tells me that given the chance, I'd do it all over again.

For the record, when I was asked to be on the board, I had at least 30 years of bedside nursing (ICU and ER) on my resume. We did have one or two of the "admin" types on the board during the six years I served...

Unfortunately I couldn't agree more. It's all about the "corporation", patient care is way down on the list.

Just for the record...I served on a hospital board for three years and then became the chair of the board for three more years. My aim was to advocate for nursing. However, the corporate office had final say on every board decision..guess where that left nursing?

I would suggest a look at what the term "Confirmation Bias" means and how we all apply it to our lives, opinions etc...

One thing seems to missing here...There have been numerous studies that show that 12 hour shifts are more prone to errors and detrimental to your patients and yourself. Most centered around critical areas such as ICUs and ERs, but they routinely show that nurses start to lose focus after about 6-8 hours. Perhaps we shouyld address this...

I remember being floated years ago from my ICU position to the "special" unit. My duties that evening basically involved making drinks (etoh) for the GBS patient and his girlfriend. I've always cringed when I'm told, "The service here is really good." I am NOT a servant, I am an educated experienced professional Nurse!

I have over two decades on you so being retired is where I want to be. I do miss bedside nursing and challenging patients very much but I do not miss the administrative handcuffs that come with it. I understand how you feel that you must work after spending your savings for your son's medical care and just how unfair that is. I would probably do the same in a similar situation. My greatest fear along those lines is spending my pension, social security, and 401 on my own or my wife's elder care. For now, we are healthy and living in our own home and hope to end our lives here.

I agree that unless you absolutely hate nursing that you will be a nurse until you die. Friends, relatives, and situations will dictate you bringing up your nursing knowledge and sharing your experience. Someone once told me that being a nurse is like being in the Mafia...once in, you can never get out. However, once you go inactive, retire, or whatever you want to call it, you do lose part of your identity. I was a nurse for 40 years. It was my calling, my being, my work, and my identity. Although I will never work at the bedside or precept, or teach again, I am still a nurse. A happily retired nurse, but I am still a nurse and proud of my career. I have found other ways to occupy my time and enjoy my life but at my core, I'm still a nurse and always will be.

After many years working both ER and ICU, I feel that (at least in my day, no on site intensivists), ICU nurses had much more autonomy and had to be pretty quick on their feet. We made critical decisions and acted on them on a daily if not hourly basis. I agree that in some ER situations, if the docs trusted you, you could initiate care at a level that required action now and not wait for the doc. But the doc is also always there. Bit of a difference.

To clarify, I am a retired ICU/ER RN, thus an old fart! I always preferred narrative charting simply because when asked to testify (a few cases over 40 years), I could look at my notes and recall the day so much better. And I could use patient quotes as well. I have worked with EHRs but none of the systems seemed to have the "right" check boxes and I would always end up using as much narrative charting as possible...which did not endear me to admin types. One other advantage was being able to read other nurses and physicians notes and get a much better picture of the patient's care. Just my two cents.

Labordude, I believe one of the states was Alabama but I was in grad school in the 80's. I couldn't cite the reference now if you paid me but I assure you it's true and I was flabbergasted to say the least. And there were a few more states. Personally, I always hated floating to any other unit but my own but even if it was "my turn" I was NEVER floated to OB. In regards to the preamble added to the article, I too was frequently mistaken for the doctor and questioned as to why I would be "only" a nurse. I agree that there is some degree of male privilege and was consequently treated better than my female colleagues except in my academic programs. There was always a hint of "you don't belong here", sometimes subtle and sometimes quite overt.

Indeed, a lot of the assumptions are dated. While a student in my BSN program, we few males were never taught to cath females and were limited in every day care scenarios (beds and baths). Later in grad school trying to do research on Males in Nursing, I was heavily criticized for looking into this subject. I did find states where males were not allowed by law in labor and delivery, "the woman chooses her doctor, but not her nurse". Further on in my career, I worked with a large municipal fire department teaching paramedics and EMTs. Many of the paramedics voiced interest or actually completed a nursing program with no concern for gender issues. The one issue that seems to remain is concerns about touching patients in appropriate ways. Female nurses tend to be allowed much more freedom to use compassionate touch than males. I find this more pervasive in the "Me too" era and seemingly based on some sort of inherent distrust of males in general. Just my two cents from a retired old RN proud of his profession.

In my 27 plus years I have mainly worked Critical Care and ER. I still do a little ER on my weekends off. But after being sold 5 times, being treated like chattel by various hospital corporations and seeing patient care go by the wayside in favor of the almighty dollar, I got out. I have spent the last 8 years working for the Fire Department where patient care, not profit comes first. I teach Paramedics and EMTs, liason with the hospitals and transport companies, work with state and local authorities to define scope of practice, and multiple other things. My experience is valued, my bosses regularly compliment and thank me for my work, I can work from home, punch no clock, have covered parking, weekends and holidays off, and if I even contemplate a 12 hour shift, someone straightens me out quick. And yes, I do go out with the firefighter medics and run calls etc. Can anyone tell me why I would even consider going back to the hospital routine? Anyone out there doing the same or similar work?

I have to agree that litigation looms large over the males in nursing. I have witnessed quite a bit of inappropriate behavoir from female nurses and I've had my bottom patted more than once by my coworkers or heard comments directed at my anatomy or sex life. Doesn't bother me a bit, I know it's all in good fun butif I did anything like that, I'd be risking sexual harrassment penalties. When I was in school ( a state university) males were not taught to cath female patients ("you'll allways have someone to do that for you"). I was chewed out for taking my pants down to low for IM injection practice. I thought we were supposed to be professionals and perform any task or procedure without regard to gender, unfortunately that's not what we were taught. And how many of the female nurses ever uttered the famous line, " I think male nurses are great but I wouldn't want one taking care of me"? Now as an old man of fiftythree working in ER I wonder about the adolescent girls that I have to cath or assist in a gyn exam. From some, not all, I see some discomfort at the bearded guy doing these things to them. I've found the only way to get around it is to just be confident and assured in whatever you're doing and it generally goes okay.

Katmandu224, I must have mislead you. I am well aware that not all nurses work in hospitals, but I'd bet that is where the majority of nursing positions are. My wife (also a nurse) and I both choose to work as nurses and not in a hospital, but we are both treated with respect for what we do, have reasonable hours, reasonable pay, good patient contact, and are bosses regularly compliment us on our work. I still do some registry shifts in a busy ER on my off time. So I am also still aware of the hospital side of nursing and all I can think of is "How in the world did I do that for so long, these poor staff people are getting beat up on a daily basis"?

Hospital Administrators, Nursing organizations, and Nursing schools are all well aware that there is no shortage. Nurses are working in other fields everywhere, they just refuse to work in hospitals. Short staffing, cost cutting, being bought and sold by "hospital corporations", being berated about the budget, productivity, and "Oh, by the way, can you work overtime", all contribute to nurses leaving hospitals. What about 12 hour shifts which have been proven in umpteen studies to contribute to errors and poor care? Do the hospitals really believe that we don't understand that two 12 hour shifts means paying one less set of benefits for the third shift that would work 8 hour shifts? We do not need foreign nurses, we need to address the problems imposed by the system currently in place. As long as the dollar is more important than the patient, we'll never go back to the hospital.

Oh yes, I understand the staffing issues. On my off days I work in a large metropolitan ER. I do it to maintain credibility with my guys, but also to keep up, and because I really like patient care. Unfortunately, the guys can't understand our staffing issues. We have waiting lists miles long to get into the fire/ems service and they don't have to put up with half the crap nurses do. Why do you think I'm in this job? I have wonderful benefits, make my own hours, never miss lunch, my boss regularly lets me know I'm valued...I am trying to get them to see the other (our) side but it will take time and patience. I only can hope they will get some empathy out of me so the RNs, LPNs, CNAs, and caregivers won't have to take much from them. But I also hope the system isn't so broken that what we have now isn't the only thing they will see in a career in EMS.

I am a RN working for a large municiple fire department. Part of my duties are to train paramedics and EMTs. One of the reasons that field providers do not like RNs is because we often attempt to help but have no idea what the field providers can and cannot do. How many of us were taught how to hold C-spine on a trauma victim? This is not a nursing function and we don't get things like that in school. Yet in good faith we will stop at a accident scene and try to take over becuase we are a higher level of care. Medics and EMTs cannot function like we do and we cannot function like they do. Can you put in an IV upside down, at night, or intubate a patient? When it comes to long term care facilities, a lot of them are not staffed by RNs or even CNAs, just caregivers. The medics go to these places on a regular basis and would rather just do their thing than try to listen to someone who does do a difficult job but really doesn't have the background and is part of constant staff turnover. Medics are trained to be aggressive and not wast time and yes they can be arrogant bastards. They will mistake caregivers for RNs and will just be stupid at times. But I don't think we RNs can tar them all with same brush anymore than they can us. Nurses need more education on prehospital care and I am doing my utmost to facilitate this, I even have nursing students doing some clinical time with me to help. Medics need to understand the long term care system and the personnel involved and I'm working on that as well. We all need to be just a bit more tolerant of others and maybe see if we can't compliment each other rather than fight.

Tatoos, piercings, what is the deal with all this self mutilation? Some one said it's their way of expressing themself. I wonder how many of those expressing themselves would choose this way to do it if it wasn't the latest fad or craze. Get real, it looks lousy and it takes a real big intellect to find self mutilation something to aspire to. We claim to be professionals and we fight for it constantly, but then we come to work with chunks of metal haning out everywhere and wearing t-shirts and clogs...real professional appearance! I would be satisfied with neat and clean and no t shirts. But I realize that doing your own thing is more important than the profession as a whole.

No, you do not need to be a EMT to be an ER nurse. But since I come from an ICU and Er background (about 20 years) and I now work in ERs on weekends for a registry and my full time job is at a fire department EMS office, I feel qualified to speak. ER nurses are woefully underinformed regarding what goes on during scene calls. The medics and EMTs work their butts off and do the best they are ALLOWED and then get hassled at the ER. I see it all the time. A lot of nurses expect more than what is in the field providers scope of practice and some just get angry with the crews that bring in more work(patients) and then leave. Some times I wonder if some nurses really believe that the medics and EMTs set their alarms for three am just to go out and find a drunk or something to bring in and hassle the ER staff. ER nurses need to take another look at what their field providers can and cannot do and how they do it. And yes, some of the field providers need to be a little more charitable to the nurses that accept the patients from them. Thanks for the space for my voice.

We really don't need to confront these idiots by forcing them to accept a caregiver that they don't want...but we don't have to allow them to use the facility either. Administration should have simply told them that this hospital cannot meet your demands and show them the door. Their choice. Maybe after being shown the door enough times, they might learn something, if not, at least you wouldn't be a party to racist idiocy.