PrimaFacie

I strongly agree with JZ_RN. About 5 years ago I took a night RN position in LTC. I had always done ER & OB and was pretty efficient, but in my 'old age' I wanted to try something slower pace. I found very quickly that LTC was not slower pace. Med pass was overwhelming. 40 pts/nurse. The nurses who knew the residents well had a huge advantage. Trying to identify residents by their photographs in the med-cardex was a joke since hardly of them looked like their picture and they were all over the place when i needed to pass meds....dining room, etc and many didnt know their name. I got very frustrated with other nurses advising me to take unsafe shortcuts and I gave up when I found a bunch of pre-filled insulin syringes on the insulin cart. (pre-filled by another nurse, who apparently thought this was quicker than properly doing the sliding scales that were ordered.) I reported that as part of my resignation letter, but my understanding was that this was not so unusual there. I hated every minute of my LTC experience. If a resident was really lucky, they got 10 minutes of nursing care per day. BTW, how much is Medicare paying for that 10 minutes? $300/day? Because of this experience, when my mother was in a rehab for 2 weeks before she died, I stayed with her every minute so she would not be neglected/abused. I know some, or even most are not like I experienced, but I was so traumatized!

Why do they even know she has it? It's not on any public record that you have MI. Get it and don't tell anyone except your attorney, when/if you need to use it.

That too, but other actions which ignore IC measures help spread ick all around. Jewelry, pins, headbands, badge holders, nail polish, fake nails........all these things that some nurses seem to not be able to live without sometimes....all carry germs around. And not only patient to patient but home to your family too. Maybe I'm a germaphobe, but I always thought my patients safety was more important than my need for bling and bedazzling.

And this attitude is why MRSA is an epidemic.

But aren't you missing the point? How is it displaying your own personality when you wear the logo/art of some company? All you are doing is advertising for that company. There is no individuality displayed in this action....on the contrary, it is a sheep mentality that wears logos.

is it really your personality portrayed, when you snap on an item with logo/saying/artwork of some company? rosie the riveter is a cultural icon of the united states, representing the american women who worked in factories during world war ii,[1][2][/url] many of whom produced munitions and war supplies. how is that your personality or even anything related to nursing? if you want to be unique, or authentic, make it something about you.

i've seen so many cutsie type things on uniforms that could potentially harbour bacteria and i just don't get why a nurse, who is supposed to be advocating for their patients would choose to endanger patients and themself just to be all b[color=#00ffff]edazzled at work. maybe i have a stuffy, not-so-fun attitude about it but if you have to ask if it's ok, it probably isn't. dress for work professionally while considering safety.

I'm never ok with lying, even if the job market is bad. But the OP said they were making financial cutbacks....so a truthful statement here is: They were making cutbacks and I was the least experienced nurse on the unit.

This is a tough situation. It won't be constructive or helpful to criticize your school or your new grad program for lack of preparing you. From reading this board lately, it seems many new grads are not ready for the real-life world of how hard nursing really is. But, that said, I would have thought that a decent preceptor in your new grad program would have taken advantage of the slow time to run you through extra tasks that would have help prepare you. Low census = great teaching opportunity. What was it about the "complex" patients that was difficult? Comorbidity's? If you could explain what you mean by complex, then it may be easier to assess what you need to focus on to improve. Make a list of your nursing strengths and weaknesses. Post it here and see if the wise nurses on this board can help point you to a good solution.

Esme, whew, thank you, because I was starting to feel like some in this conversation thought I invented the practice, and was being blamed for it. I do have a few last thoughts on this, but I'll keep them to myself and hope that the topic can go back to the original discussion.

A lot of patients/residents are fearful of staff treating them with predijuice if they report anything....so possibly the investigation bombed when they interviewed the resident. Recently, when my mother was in the hospital, I got my own lesson on this. I had a nurse call the house sup in a hospital because I wanted to report sub-standard care and several pt care breeches I had witnessed during the care of my mom. (Lovenox syringe + needle left in the bed, nurses telling moms visitors that she had appendicitis - she had stage 4 ovarian CA - why did they tell them anything though?....not answering a call bell for 45 minutes when she was fresh post-op....etc) Supervisor was nice and we stood outside the room while I politely read her my list of issues. Then she said, lets go in so I can meet your mother. My mother was a very gracious elderly woman, who promptly said to the house sup; "This hospital is just wonderful and everyone is so very good and professional." That took the wind out of my sails for my complaints and after the sup left, I said why mom?....she explained that she was worried they would treat her worse if she complained....that they would have a grudge. It's not that outrageous a worry either.

A deficiency in human decency?? Because someone has different ethics than you about something that does no harm, does not make them a lesser human being. For people who are so up in arms about something that still exists today in medical schools, let me ask you; do you ask a physician before letting him treat you or a family member, if he learned procedures on corpses? And were any of those corpses unclaimed bodies? Would you refuse to use that physician if so? Who is harmed by this process of using dead, unclaimed bodies to train medical professionals? I remember one fabulous doctor who was also training on such bodies to perfect a skill in reconstructive mouth surgery, and now is one of the foremost cleft palette surgeons in the world, doing hundreds of free procedures a year for children who's parents can't afford to repair that defect. Does he have a "deficiency in human decency "? Did you miss the part about the bodies being dead? I take issue with the testing/experimention on live bodies. For example, in todays news, these victims of forced sterilization: North Carolina Sterilization Compensation Plan Blocked | TPMMuckraker or the victims of syphilis testing: Tuskegee syphilis experiment - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia In those two examples, people were harmed. The learning on dead, unclaimed bodies is also used for crime scene training. They are allowed to decompose on "body farms" to teach CSI workers about stages of decomposition. This leads to better investigation and solving murders, which can help to remove dangerous people from general society where they can cause harm. Is it not more humanly decent to strive to protect and help the living? I truly believe that any of those unclaimed bodies, (in their spirit sense), would have been thrilled if they were able to contribute to helping society through the use of their body, which they no longer needed, and were no longer using. (similar to transplants) I take extreme offence to your scandalous statement about "a deficiency in human decency" and hope the guides remove your comment as it is beyond insulting and is extremely hostile.

"On October 25, 2004, the members of the American Association of Colleges of Nursing (AACN) endorsed the Position Statement on the Practice Doctorate in Nursing. AACN member institutions voted to move the current level of preparation necessary for advanced nursing practice from the master's degree to the doctorate level by the year 2015."

Strange....this is a nursing forum, and nurses aren't allowed to diagnose, so as a nurse, why do you need an unofficial/armchair Dx to "know where to start"? Seriously, you are treading in dangerous, unethical and possibly illegal waters trying to diagnose someone. I am not 100% sure but I believe the scenario can blow up on you......It can cause someone psychological trauma by telling them they are such-and-such psych diagnosis, and they can sue you for mental anguish, and your BON can discipline you for practicing outside the limitations of your license. If this is a friend/family member, then it is even more unethical to do this.

What I always found much more scary, on nurses endangering themselves, was how so many disregarded or only halfway used precautions in rooms where pts had MRSA. Then they would inevitably say; "we are all colonized anyhow." Bulls***.

Sorry, didn't mean to put you on the spot, but thanks for the clarification. I'm a little sorry for the new grads of today because they get less experience, yet twice the hassles from admin, and at least 5x the worry of litigation and/or co-workers throwing them under the bus. Nursing is difficult enough without all the new worries.

-Yes, it is very sad that they get very little hands on experience. -I'm not sure why you say what you do about Diploma grads. The only drawback was the additional length of time to complete the program, but the hands on clinical experience was unmatchable. Diploma grads came out as competent, skilled professionals. -I haven't been out of nursing, just not in a position where I see new grads.

Thank you......Nursing school and hospitalizations back then was a world apart from how it is now. (except for the stress level) I don't get any exposure to recent grads in my current path, so that is why I was quite shocked to see nurses graduate now with so much less practical experience.

The food and drink at the nurses station is an OSHA rule. When I went to look it up to cite it for you, I found this funny article by a doctor who was ticked off by it: Why Is Food and Drink Prohibited At The Nurse's Station And Other Hospital Work Areas?

How horrible for you! I agree that some units are just awful and the manager usually sets the tone for how the rest of the staff treats stuff like that.....but if you are all (or several) in disagreement with how she manages the unit, why not discuss it with her? It sounds like a staff meeting with some brave voices is called for. It is probably protocol to go to her supervisor if you don't get satisfaction talking to her, but realistically, hospital corporate types love managers like that, and probably wont see any fault in it. When you say write ups, do you mean something goes in your HR file, or just that she sends an annoying email?

Everything ms.chia. said is correct. Let me just add, I see people transferred to our base all the time and it's not a glam assignment, so they are very unhappy (until they get to know us). You will probably have little to no choice where you will be assigned. If your recruiter says sure, Germany, you could still possibly end up in Iowa or Texas, or Guam. The only other thing I would add is that if it's travel you want, why not do travel nursing a year or so after you graduate? Military nursing isn't a free ride on Uncle Sam for tuition. It takes a lot of dedication and adherence to a system of specific routines and protocols and a lifestyle that is extremely different than civilian. And if you are in and you decide you don't like it, it's not like you can just call mom to pick you up. Also, it's not that easy to get in anymore. With government cutbacks, recruitment is way down. And Veteran care at bases is gradually scaling down to mostly just clinics, with acute care outsourced to community hospitals. That said, its a great choice if you want a military career, with some of the best and most dedicated professionals you could ever find.

It is growing tiresome responding to you because you twist things, ignore the points, neglect to read the links I provided, and generally don't understand or are refusing to understand that something just is as it is (or was). First of all, I didn't invent the concept of using corpses for medical study/practice. Some here are offended by it, but does that mean we should pretend it didn't happen? The only reason I brought it up is, and let's get back to the original topic by the OP.....I gave an example of how real time practice was obtained while in school. Secondly, you asked what I felt personally about if it was my family member. So my response was to that, not towards the other situation of strangers. I can not assume I know the belief system of strangers, unless they tell me what it is. I assure you that my school of nursing was accredited, and though the nursing diploma program no longer exists, (as most diploma programs do not) the affiliated university remains to this day, one of the top medical schools and medical/research centers, in the country. You will just have to take my word for that. indignant: expressing strong displeasure at something considered unjust. cognitive dissonance: used to describe the feeling of discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs. I have no conflicting beliefs. Why do you say animals are treated inhumanely to obtain fur? For some types of fur they may be, but many other types, they are not. You can't make a general assumption. Educate yourself. The cows that are hung with throat slit, and bled out right in front of their calves, while still alive, to make your Burger King/McDonald lunch are treated much more inhumanely. Many people will cringe at fur while wiggling their toes in real leather shoes. Do you think synthetics are more humane to the environment than a fur coat that has been passed down and used by several generations? Think. Not everything is so black and white.

that was interesting. again, i have no idea if people admitted to the hospital signed something that would have covered that event. it's likely that they did, but i wasn't aware one way or the other. i'm sorry that this is such an "unsavory" thing to so many of you. please see the articles i quoted in my post above though....this is how it is and has been for many years. approval of an accredited facility? what do you mean? it is a very well known, major medical/research center. one of the top in the country.

did i read this article wrong? isn't [color=#38393c]united healthcare workers west (seiu-uhw) the union the nurses belong to? why would they lobby against the law?

Where I work we get 1 hour for lunch and to be honest, I would rather take 15-30 min and go home earlier. I asked if I could do that and was told no.