smackRN

On an intuitive level I feel like I know what you mean, but do you mind being a bit more specific?

Lord have mercy, that is SO wrong.......

Good for you! Sometimes I think that the game they play is to see how much you can stand......

I bet you do. In our small facility, floor nurses are regularly pulled to ER -myself included. BTW you will almost NEVER find an ER nurse pulled to the floor here. Maybe that's why it doesn't seem to bother them to send multiple patients at shift change. Now having said that I'll tell you that I love our ER nite crew.They do all they can to go with the floor flow and make you feel at home when you do get pulled to work with them.

Under stress, you might not be as accurate in finding those pressure points especially if the patient you're trying to control is moving around a lot and maybe trying his best to evade you. I don't advocate Krav Maga as the system to use in a patient care setting but in our "lone nurse at night" with potential exposure to outside threats, I'm glad I know it :)

Under stress, you might not be as accurate in finding those pressure points especially if the patient you're trying to control is moving around a lot and maybe trying his best to evade you. I don't advocate Krav Maga as the system to use in a patient care setting but in our "lone nurse at night" with potential exposure to outside threats, I'm glad I know it :)

This is a really interesting thread. I work nights in a small hospital where at times you can be alone on the smallest patient care area. Many times ppl out of the ER come wondering through for this or that. The nurses station has only one way in and out-bad place to be trapped. Administration is "aware." I have been taking Krav Maga for over a year.It's a very straight forward system based on natural instinct/responses and defenses are very similar. It does not take years to be effective. We work defenses aginst knife and gun as well as chokes, headlocks, etc. However, I wouldn't call it "gentle." Some of my fellow students are in LE and I have learned a lot about the continuum of force but haven't yet figured how it applies to nursing, at least not specifically. Some of our patients have psych or drug issues as secondary dx (or undiagnosed) and we have no set protocol for any types of physical threats. You are right, it is a largely ignored problem. No we don't want to harm our patients but if it comes down to us or them.........better to be judged by 12 then carried by 6!

Just make sure they're responsible. And wouldn't it be nice if they had doggie daycare at your work place like they do for children sometimes?

So do any of you resent doing this with minimal preparation and compensation? It seems wrong. Call me crazy.....

Hmm, so what extra orientation, if any, did you all have in preparation for this?