AndyLyn

Well, this won't be popular, but a lot of the problem comes with the assumption that "pain is what the patient says it is." That statement completely leaves out the practioners' leeway in negating so much of what is common sense. When a patient is ...

Do you KNOW that you're going to be happy being a nurse? Nurses, especially new nurses, work crazy hours and crazy shifts, weekends, holidays. It's stressful, and hard not to take the bad moods home. I'd seriously consider things before I left a 9...

I had an 8 month old last night that couldn't breathe. Both parents smoke. Both grandparents that help care for the baby smoke. They all love the baby very, very much. Until I spent a good 15 minutes talking with them about how harmful second hand sm...

I work in a small, rural ED and love it. It's the best job I've ever had. We take good care of our patients, and it's like a big family there. I know all the docs, all their little quirks, and what I can order to help speed things along. No job i...

Congratulations! Welcome to the club!

I agree with you 100%. I get tired of all the Debbie Downers posting on here, about how much they hate everything... it's nice to know there's people who love their work as much as I love mine!

It's not just family, tho! We had a weird thing happen one night, so administration called a little meeting to discuss what had happened - and they scheduled it during the day! Really?

Respectfully disagreeing... I'm proud of my ever-expanding skill set. Love my work. I'm happy to help train new nurses. Even declined to apply to a MSN program, because being a nurse practitioner isn't on my list of things to do with my life. I le...

Don't try and be SuperNurse. Ask for help if you need it. Any experienced nurse worth a hoot can tell when a coworker needs help, and knows how to ask for it herself. We never try and work a cardiac patient alone - I've been a nurse for 12 years ...

Our patients are met by a registration clerk who does a "quick reg", gives the stickered chart to the triage nurse who does a "quick assessment", and places the patient in a room, if possible. Then the patient is "full reg'd", the chart is up for th...

Are we having the discussion of is it OK to smoke pot and care for patients? I'll give you a choice. Nurse A: Well qualified, experienced, intelligent, caring. Nurse B: Well quallified, experienced, intelligent, caring, stoned. Who you gonna let ...

Congratulations! It's a great feeling, isn't it?

Ours is similar in size, we have one nurse that does triage, and then 3-4 in the back. We do have assignments, tho. The chart can be picked up by any one of the nurses if there's a med or treatment that needs to be done, and we'll discharge each ot...

Our current design is a plexi-glass windowed room, where the triage nurse is the first person an incoming visitor/patient sees. However, we're in the process of moving triage into a more private area, with registration being the first person they se...

Ours have the patient's name, birthdate, reason for visit and primary care dr.'s name. Registration takes the sheet and generates a "short form" from it that produces all the stickered pieces of the chart for the triage nurse. We're in the process o...

So, I'm on a committee that's going to be making some changes in our ED. I was wondering what kinds of changes (small or big) have other departments made that have actually HELPED, and have been integrated into the department without causing alot of...

Going into the meetings, I didn't know what the direction of the changes were going to be. But, this week, we've talked about resurrecting our Fast Track system, pulling those minor emergency patients out of the regular flow and using a smaller "car...

I don't understand why you WOULDN'T use a filter needed. You have to draw it out with a needle, it's just as easy to grab a filter needle out as a standard one. Not using one is just being stubborn. It's saying that just cuz I can't SEE the glass,...

I just took (and passed! Hooray!) the exam on Wednesday, and used both the Emergency Nurse Core Curriculum and the CEN Exam Review book that has 5 written exams and then 2 more you can take online. I took the tests over and over again, really studie...

I took the class in June and really felt like it helped alot. It focuses on an ABCDEFGH method of trauma assessment, so if you can get the book ahead of time, spend some time studying the early chapter that talks about that specificially. The tests...

Could your blood sugar be low?

I hear ya. I work in a similar situation, although we do get our fair share of critically ill patients. I joined ENA and have been studying to take the CEN exam. It's given me lots to think about, and I try to work in what I've been learning with ...

It's hard when you're new. It takes a while for people to warm up to you, both when you're working and in your personal life. I wouldn't take it personally. I don't mind switching with nurses that I trust, it's just that we've all been burned by t...

Med Recs. Every patient that comes through our ED needs to have a computerized med rec done, with spots for last doses, too. It's a ridiculous time-sucker that aggravates me to no end. Double charting. If the computer is so magical, why can't I put...

That's ridiculous. Not only have they not had their MSE, they're not monitored, med recs haven't been done, and I bet you a billion kazillion they elope with their saline locks intact! No thanks, no matter how much admin thinks it'll improve patien...