chapril

One has to wonder, Where is Utilization Review when really needed?

As a student nurse, I had experienced a lot from techs - from positive, like showing me the ropes, eg, how to deal with quirky equipment - to negative, like showing how to do a disappearing act in 10,000 ways and still get away with it. Coming from a different discipline, my first impulse was to look closely at what incentives there were for techs to deliver, and deliver well. Hardly anything, I guess, aside from a smile and a thank you from the RN. How adequate this is for the tech is anybody's guess. At one hosp where I rotated, techs get a chance to get into an on-site RN training program. I believe this is the way to go to provide them visions of a better future in their job. Besides, hosp management has to design a way to screen the techs who deserve further training, and so somehow monitor the performance of techs; thus the burden of managing techs no longer rests that heavily on the rns, overloaded as they are. But how many hospitals have this kind of program? 1 in 10 as my experience suggests. At the end of the day, it looks like it is up to us to find the good side of every tech we work with and how to do this and maintain quality of care AT ALL TIMES remains a challenge. It would be real nice if the folks who do the hiring and the firing of techs take the time and effort to make sure the techs deliver their end of the employment deal.

Thank you for your question, hope you found the answers as helpful and insightful as I did. May I ask where in the world you were given 12 weeks of orientation? So far, I have found facilities that provide only 8 weeks at most, and 3 workdays at least to new RNs. Thanks much.

COngratulations to you; I have met a couple of nurses who were New Grads at UCLA but went on to other places before I managed to ask them - How are the wages? Will someone commuting from OC, for example, survive the gas expenses? Thanks for any tips and suggestions.

hi, thanks so much for the help, really appreciate it.:bowingpur

As a student nurse, I caught a would-be med error of the RN I was shadowing at the NICU; she pulled out the wrong (concentration) bag, and I am glad that I always copied the MAR entries for the day - thanks to the millions of CarePlans we had to submit in school- into that little notebook I carried around in my pocket. The nurse hinted that I maybe copied wrong, but I insisted it best that we go back together to the MAR to check. Lucky baby that was. Point being, student nurses can do more than "assist and observe" . April

Hello, I am doing the F&E chapter of Saunders, 3rd Ed, and noticed in the pyramid terms for hypercalcemia, hyperkalemia, &c on p83 that certain lab values are not the same as the lab values I got from the NCSB review site. For example, NCSB normal K values are 3.5 -5.3 mg/dL while Saunders' normal K values are 3.5-5.1; NCSB normal Mg values are 1.5-2.5 while Saunders' are 1.6-2.6; NCSB Phosphates are 2.5-4.5 and Saunders' are 2.7-4.5; and NCSB Calcium values are 8-10, Saunders' are 8.6-10. Does someone have a newer Saunders (copyright date on mine is 2005); if so, can you please tell us how my 3rd Ed numbers compare with yours? I was thinking the difference is because I have an older Saunders; anyways, since B in NCSB is "Board", I am reluctant to not heed their numbers. Thanks, April