Chayo1989

I worked at a Davita facility for several months and I really enjoyed it. They were a great company to work for. I'm actually planning to reapply there recently.

our hospital started using aquapheresis for about a year now. i've taken care of 3 patients on it. the iv access is the biggest challenge. we have gone from peripheral lines to central lines thinking central lines may work better, but how wrong we were. the last patient i had iv therapy placed the chf solutions dual lumen iv access port and that seemed to work pretty well. the only downside was the site oozing as the catheter size is pretty big and the patient is usually on a heparin drip. the other thing that i've noticed is that patient's bun/cr usually trend up after aquapheresis. only two cardiologists are ordering this therapy, so it does make you wonder why others hesitate. this therapy defenitely needs to be tweeked.

This is obviously an issue with very strong opinions, you either agree with it or not. As nurses, we are supposed to have the patient's best interest in mind. Instead of saying that having family members activate the RRT is dumb and stupid, shouldn't the cause of why they are asking for those things be explored more (ie, bedpan)? Maybe that floor is so short staffed, and that patient isn't getting those simple things taken care of. As silly a request as that may sound, if we were in those patients shoes, wouldn't that matter? My facility uses RRT as well; and not all the calls are warranted, but we shouldn't make those floor nurses or family members feel like they shouldn't have called us. Its been my experience that a lot of ICU nurses think that they're better than other nurses. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. Instead of bashing this idea, we need to find ways to make it better. How is answering an RRT call that's "not worthy of our time" a waste of our time? Is that call keeping you away from sipping your coffee or gossiping? At least, that's been my experience. Fellow staff, (the more experienced staff), get annoyed when asked for help because they are too busy reading the paper, magazine, drinking their coffee or gossiping. Bottom line, patients come first; and whether we like it or not, family members do know the patient a lot better than the nurse at times.

My favorite session at NTI was my preconference class on neurotrauma. The speakers were great and I learned a lot! :heartbeat Neuro is one of my weak areas and it was worth taking that class.

I've only given insulin during cardiac arrest once. The patient was known to be hyperkalemic, and i an effort to decrease the potassium the patient was given an amp of D50% and 10 units of regular insulin iv. This was implemented in addition to ACLS protocol.

I've only given insulin during cardiac arrest once. The patient was known to be hyperkalemic, and i an effort to decrease the potassium the patient was given an amp of D50% and 10 units of regular insulin iv. This was implemented in addition to ACLS protocol.

Unfortunately, in nursing, we seem to be our own worst enemy. In my hospital there are also cliques, it does remind me of high school, but I have learned to not expect anything from anyone. I try to do my job the best I can and not worry about belonging to a clique or not. It's been my experience that older nurses, whether experienced or not, are better received by the old school nurses than the younger crew. I don't work in the healthiest work environment by any means, but I try to stay focused on the patients and just do my job.