Scotty

Clear the air. It's obviously bothering you so you can't forget it yet, even if you try. Let your co-worker know you feel bad about it, but explain why at the time you didn't sort the IV for him/her. And tell them what you told us about them being a great nurse. I second the candy bar idea. Hugs may be appropriate. Hopefully then you'll both feel better.

Thankfully I no longer work in places where this crazy writing up occurs. We do have adverse occurrence reports, but they are supposed to be blame-free and to highlight problems and improve future practice. I do wonder how long they are held and whether they will ever bite us in the a** when blame-free is no longer fashionable. Years ago I worked in a place where the writing up was so insane that we just laughed about it. My good friend and IMO very good nurse holds the record for getting written up 23 times in two weeks :chuckle I think it had a lot more to do with her being pretty, blonde, popular and married to a doctor, than to any poor nursing practice. I was 'phoned at home and written up for binning the faeces ingrained underwear of an unkempt alcoholic who probably hadn't been washed since the last time he was discharged from hospital. I wish I'd left the foul smelling things in the unit manager's office with a little note saying I was unsure of the policy for dealing with these and could she advise me.

He's out of hospital now. :)

He's still doing well. Thanks so much for your support. He thinks the staff in the hospital are wonderful and he's tickled pink that nurses from all over the world are wishing him well.

He's had a Grade I subarachnoid haemorrhage. The CT showed a little blood, but the local hospital didn't see that, so he had a LP which showed a lot of blood. He's now been transferred to a specialist neuro centre that can do 3D radiology. I know it's a good place. I worked there during my crit care course. He's on triple H therapy. He's for angio tomorrow and coiling then or later. He's still GCS 15 with no deficits and still totally my darling with his usual wicked humour, albeit with a very sore head and neck and I am very grateful for that. I am just getting through the next two weeks one day at a time, hoping for no re-bleed, vasospasm, brain swelling or sludgy CSF. Sorry I took so long to get back to you - I was dealing with family. Thanks so much for all your kind thoughts and particularly to those of you who told me to take him back to hospital. Scotty x

Thanks so much to all of you, Hubby saw three more docs, then the consultant said he should have a CT scan and a lumbar puncture in case it is a warning bleed - what I'm fearing (He smokes, he's 42, the pain came on suddenly after he moved his bowels.) Most likely (and hopefully) the results will be fine and I will feel like a fool for putting hubby through this. He is having the CT scan now. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks, Scotty

Thanks for your replies guys. I am just trying to get him up because he is scared to move his head. I will let you know how I get on.

10 hours ago my usually stoical husband complained of very sudden onset of the most severe headache he has ever had in his life. He does not usually get headaches, and has had none recently. He took paracetamol/ acetaminophen. After half an hour there was no relief from the pain whatsoever and he had said to me ten times "I've never had a headache like this in my life." I took him to the emergency department. The doc sent him home with ibuprofen saying it is probably a tension headache. His temp, pulse and BP were normal. The pain is now a litte worse despite regular ibuprofen (He normally won't take pills). He is photophobic and has neck pain. He is lying in a darkened room. Temp is still normal. He is obviously still GCS 15 with no obvious neuro deficits, or I wouldn't be on the internet! Should I take him back to the hospital and make noises about a head CT scan and possibly LP or am I just being a neurotic pain in the derriere?

Todd, I thought the bedmaking class was patronising in the extreme...and I fully appreciate that I have to make beds. I make my patient's bed at least once a shift in the ICU.

I don't believe in ghosts but..... 10 years ago on nightshift in a surgical ward a bath tub tap gushed water just seconds after I had checked bathroom lights were off etc. No-one could have got in or out of that bathroom without going past me and I assure you no-one passed me. I explained it to myself as an air lock in the pipe, or an empty water tank just filled up etc. Maybe one day I'll ask a plumber. I worked in a hospice and staff told me about call bells going off in empty rooms on night shift. I didn't believe them, but then it happened when I was on night duty, a few times. Once it was crazy - lots of buzzers going off repeatedly and all together etc. Although I don't believe in ghosts I wasn't brave enough to investigate those empty rooms myself. I told the security man who found nothing untoward. I've blamed it on electrical or equipment faults (despite no fault found by maintenance) or mischevious unknown others. I've thought maybe it was homeless people who sometimes used to sneak into the unocupied rooms in the hospice (one time I bumped into one of those and he gave me a hell of a fright - probably worse than seeing a ghost -despite being utterly benign and just looking for a place to kip. In a medical ward on night shift, infusion pumps and feeding pumps would alarm in empty rooms, or go on hold repeatedly, despite no-one touching them etc etc. Those of us who worked nights were getting a bit spooked by this. One night an infusion pump that was not in use or even plugged in alarmed. It was in the room of a patient who was comatose and dying. The pump was still not plugged in but was alarming because it was on hold! I was so spooked by it that I started to think maybe it was a sign that the patient didn't want to be alone, or in the dark or something. I did everything I could think of to ensure the patient was comfortable and sat and held his hand for a while. Eventually I had to leave to attend to other things. Later I was at the nurses' station alone and a freaky creep of a patient approached me with handcuffs and a policeman's torch and told me he really cared about us girls and would always make sure we were safe. It was a real cringe and laugh moment! Anyway, something twigged. This creep was a frequent flyer and when I checked his admission dates they coincided with all of these strange night time occurences. I sort of spied on him after that, and eventually caught him turning a patient in bed, who was begging to be left alone for the nurses to attend to him. That turned my stomach. I think I'd rather it was a mischevious ghost than that creep. One morning at 7am Iwas driving to work and a psycho truck driver nearly killed me. It is the worst driving fright I have ever had. I lost control of the car, but somehow it came right again. I was upset all day at work. I'd had such a fight or flight rush that I was jittery all day and desperate to 'phone my husband, but I didn't do it, because I knew he would worry about me driving home. I was terrified driving home. When I got home my husband gave me presents of a new perfume, body lotion etc. I didn't tell him about my day, but asked what he had done wrong what the presents were for etc. Eventually he said that he had a horrible nightmare and woke up at 7am with an overwhelming feeling that I had died in a car crash. He couldn't get rid of the horrible feeling, so at lunchtime he had bought me gifts. That is my favourite perfume now!!! I do believe that some patients choose to die when the relatives are not present, despite an almost continuous bedside vigil, maybe because the patient wants to protect them. I've seen that happen quite a few times. Sometimes I do feel honoured when patients die when I am present. Lots of colleagues have told me spooky stuff, but I just can't give any credence to what I have not seen myself. So, I still don't believe in ghosts........but then again, I can't explain everything.

I wonder if you will get paid more than E Grade for that? It does sound like a great career option though.

Thanks guys. You're making me feel better

Night Owl that was a rough one. I thought the whole point about incident reporting was that it should be about a blame free culture and reduction of clinical risk. I made a shocking error last night. I work in ICU and when I was changing my patient's ET tapes. I accidentally cut through the ET cuff tubing. Had to extubate the patient, manually ventilate him and get the anaesthetist to re-intubate. His O2 sats were 96-99% throughout and thankfully he was an easy re-intubation - Thank God or I would be heading to the library with a silver revolver. So yes I did fill in an incident report. The charge nurse was really supportive and kind and said the report could be anonymous, but I just put my name on it. I also spoke to the patient's relatives in the morning and explained what I'd done. They were fine about it, just glad he was OK. All of my colleagues were supportive to me. I called work a short time ago and spoke to the nurse I handed over to this morning. The patient is OK and his relatives are still fine about it. The consultant anaesthetist then called me and told me not to worry about it on my days off and enjoy my days off, we all make mistakes and everything is fine. I am so lucky to work there. The nursing assistant last night cracked me up. She said the last person who was perfect got crucified anyhow!

It depends on where I'm working and what the "incident" is. In some institutions I was certain that senior staff would use incident reports to threaten and bully the nurses. Once, against my better judgement, I filled one in over several med errors during a busy time. Clearly the normally competent RNs had too much to do to pay attention to any one task. Did we get extra staff? No. Did my friends and colleagues get disciplined? Yes, and in a very unpleasant and humiliating way. Were any patients harmed? No. So I certainly regret that incident report. In places like that I generally tried to sort things out by other means, i.e. sorting it with the doc, then having a quiet word with the staff member involved. I currently work in a supportive environment with good management so am more likely to write incident reports. I have less of a problem writing them if it's me who's made an error than if it is another member of staff. I do still worry that at some point they may be used to punish staff. I think that some issues are better resolved with diplomacy or education. And for some I would go for the heavy ammo, i.e. unions, statutory government health and safety bodies. The most bizarre incident I ever had was when an apparently immobile patient, who had been admitted with a CVA, got downstairs and outside from the 4th floor of the hospital, into the security officer's car, which had been left unlocked, with the window down and keys in the ignition. Due to his CVA he couldn't drive properly, so he drove in a circle and collided with the hospital neon sign. The patient was unhurt. I tried to report the incident - honestly I did - but the doctor and the nurse manager wouldn't believe me and when they came to see the now placid patient he told them: "she's making up stories about me." I don't think the somewhat embarassed security man put in an incident report about the damage to his car.

This certainly got everyone fired up. Maybe in another 40 years' time the perceptions of nurses as being after docs, or not bright enough to be docs, will be such a thing of the past that we won't even deign to reply to the likes of the original insulting post here. Stevierae I laughed and laughed at your "jerk" story though.