enigmaticorange

The other day another nurse and I are on the way out of the hospital in the parking garage. The smell of rotting eggs is suddenly hanging in the air. The other nurse says "Ewwww, what the heck smells like Mucomyst?!?" LOL. Us nurses are changed fore...

After working nights in tele, I finally got my dream job in the cath lab! I am a person who always wants to know as much as possible about any new environment. I bought a text book and have been studying the Wiggers diagram and hemodynamics- things i...

Thanks! Ive been in there a few weeks now and the advice given is spot on! I really, really get now why critical care/ER experience is usually required. Ive been in codes before, but what Ive seen and treated now? Whoa. What an amazing job, and I hav...

My behind would be is big trouble if i told a family we had staffing issues. It is a hospital, not Denny's. You tell someone there is not an adequate number of people to care for patients....they don't take it well. Even if they have no idea what we ...

When i told my pediatrician that I would not have my son circumcised, (and this was before i was a nurse) He said to me: "Well at least we have ONE informed parent in the world!" This surprised me quite a bit, especially since this doc tends to be co...

No, med/surg is general medical problems while a post surgical unit is specifically for recovering surgical patients unless they are Ortho. (We have a separate ortho floor, you might not) The surgical floor takes lots of bowel resections, amputations...

I am on a 33 bed tele unit, and we are expected to give bedside report always. It is always a PIA to change, but really, bedside reporting can be great when 1: staff is properly trained in reporting off, and 2: Staff is scheduled to match groups as c...

I work nights on a cardiac floor that of course includes lots of admits for chest pain. I often get this scenario: Patient admitted at 1am from ED, chest pain was 10/10 on admit to ED, recieved MONA, etc, pain relieved by the time patient is admitte...

Altra- That is a very good point you make. The push for 100% patient satisfaction has turned patients in to monsters sometimes. I think a ginger ale should do the trick once in a while instead of pushing zofran. Once a patient has had a clear cath, ...

Assuming that I am the nurse actually admitting the patient, our ED nurses dont handle admitting orders. Their job is to stabilize then ship them up or out. Our ED docs don't write orders for admitted patients. All ED orders are null and void once th...

The first time I gave birth; I was 17. My boyfriend at the time (now my husband) was also there. I was treated HORRIBLY by both nurses. It was an uncomplicated delivery and im not even sure why two nurses needed to be there, allowing my entire family...

if the issue was tachycardia and the patient was able to tolerate a systolic in the 80's (and many are) then I would not see the problem with this. The opposite is true as well- Ive notified docs about BP's that are 180/100 and in a CVA, this is OK.

Aside from the FB stuff- do you feel comfortable actually working in this setting? When I am orienting a new nurse, there are limited opportunities in orientation for he/she to practice as many skills as possible. That being said; if my orient was un...

lol. mmmmm. Dopamine pie.

I flush a foley anytime I am concerned with output -along with a bladder scan, repositioning, and deflation/reinflation of the balloon. Ive only seen a doctor have a fit about a foley once. A pt with Hx of prostate/bladder CA had his foley removed a...

How about you stick to troll.com for your obscure advice giving and us nurses take care of each other. k?

As an ACOA- I know that I am probably a great nurse because of my life experience. My mother struggled her entire life with Alcoholism/depression/psychosis which led to an accident causing her paraplegia. She later overdosed while drunk on medication...

Get a belly belt right now. A full support elastic back brace from motherhood maternity or babies r us. Best thirty bucks I ever spent after running around my tele floor. (I am due 03/05!)

If doctors are around, we welcome them to join us and have a chat for our holiday potluck gatherings. Some do, some don't, some seem uncomfortable taking from the nurses. Why would a doctor ever owe me a gift?? Do you buy gifts for you CNA's? They b...

I am a cardiac nurse, so I give BP meds to nearly all of my patients. It always depends on the patient, and you have to learn what this means through experience. I have patients who maintain a BP of 90/65 and the doc still wants beta blockers given. ...

Compressions should be occurring at first sign of code blue. These should continue until a defib is indicated. (v-fib/tach) Asystole should never be shocked. The point of a shock is to slow a V-tach and possibly convert to a perfusing rhythm. If you...

You may want to look up more information on the disease process of a burn. This alone should explain a lot, including infection and differentials as well as hemoconcentration/dilution.

Burns cause a very dangerous fluid shift from the vascular space into tissues. A person may sustain a burn that may even appear mild, yet have deadly effects on the body. The Parkland formula is the fluid resuscitation formula I was taught in nursin...

That sounds like my tele floor.. It is usually no problem because we all work really, really well together at night. One night I started with a combo amiodarone/cardizem drip, another cardizem drip on TPN with an NG tube and just about every other li...

My huge pet peeve: Watching any trained medical professional walk out of a C. diff isolation room...., take off the gown, gloves....then stroll right past the sink sitting right in front of them. Please people. Wash your hands.