maythen

I work in a small rural hospital in Northern CA. My facility decided to follow the staffing ratio laws (sort of, since it's relatively toothless). They also decided that the nurses don't need any help (at night particularly). Night shift functions...

I'm a relatively new nurse (a little over 1.5 years) working at a small rural hospital in Northern California. I work med surg night shift. We have no ward clerk, 1 aid (approx 40 pts) and one respiratory therapist for the entire hospital (ER, OB, ...

I had no idea how critical these pts were untill after report. The day shift RN was relatively flippant about their status. By the time I came racing out of my resp distress pts room day nurse was long gone. Because we don't have a step down unit,...

cyberkat asked : Does your hospital have no way to send out critical patients that your hospital can't handle? Why not? We have transport available. Our sister hospital has a helicopter (which has been used several times this week alone). We also h...

I've been on Z coils for little less than a year. Really hard shifts leave me sore, but I'm not waking up screaming in pain anymore. (scared my husband half to death). They're expensive, and in my case didn't last too long. I've already had to g...

My husband had a kidney transplant in high school and his medications supress his immune system. I tend to be a little overly concerned about tracking germs around. I have a large towel that I use to cover my car seat after work (which I keep in a ...

My husband and I don't plan on having children, but we both LOVE weird names. I'd love to name a boy Vladamir and call him Vladdie. I'd love to have a girl and string along several names like Freya Winter, Twilight Dreaming, or Pyretta Blaze. I kn...

I work in a small rural hospital, and we see a great deal of welfare Moms too. I feel guilty about the way they make me feel. I will never be able to have children because of medical issues (both mine and my husbands). Then I see a 14 year old gir...

The protocol for handling these issues is to write a "Quality Controll report" that gets sent to admin. Unfortunatly the result of these is always a note back on what *you* did wrong, with occasional "helpful suggestions" which are usually impossibl...

Thunderwolf, Those are really great suggestions. But the problem is... most would need staff to implement it. My hospital is VERY small. It's not uncommon for a single nurse to have the whole hall. There's only one aid for the entire facility. M...

At my small facility this type of behavior isn't uncommon and, unfortunatly, is tolerated. In this community our pts tend to be elderly, homeless, or have substance abuse issues (sometimes all three). Several months ago we had a homeless man that w...

I've been a nurse just a little under a year now. I also work a diverse med/surg unit, 5-6 pt with no aid or other staff (night shift). There are nights I drag home in tears, certain I've made the wrong choice. Weeks when I ache so bad inside and ...

I work for a Catholic hospital, and I happen to be Wiccan. I've only been employed a little less than a year and we seem to be working on a basic "don't ask don't tell" policy. I don't feel the need to push my religion on anyone else, and I don't d...

At my facility we have smokers all the time. We're actually expected to "find someone" to take our smokers out. Nicotine patches are rarely offered and need a MD order (and boy are you going to get ripped apart if you have to call for one). I've h...

I've always had trouble with red, cracking skin. Right now I'm getting nasty rashy looking areas, especially at my wrists. I'm using Glove Potion Number Nine from the Bath and Body shop at night (cotton gloves too). On my days off I keep a little ...

I'd be stark raving terrified to take on 15 or more patients. I'm a new grad (since december) and I work on a med/surg floor. We get everything from telemetry, to GI bleeds, to fresh post ops. My max load has been 7 patients of my own and working ...

1. What was the hardest part of nursing school for you? The hardest part is easy for me to answer, my instructors. The first two years of the program I went through is filled with instructors that feel it's their personal duty to "weed out the unde...

I live in a pretty rural area. Out of the three local facilities two are owned by the same company (one of which I work at) and they both have the same policies and managerial tenets. SO changing to the other one wouldn't change anything for me. T...

I'm a relatively new grad and have only had a handful of pateints with epidurals. But in my facility they come with a foley in place and continuouse pulse ox. Vitals are every fifteen for the first two hours, every 30 for two hours, every hour for ...

For me I feel like I wasn't emotionally prepared for what I was getting into. I tend to get the "problem patients" because I'm the new girl (graduated in December). So I get the super high acuity patients and frequently admit high acuity patients t...

EMERALD NYL wrote: Maythen, where the heck do you go to school??!! THAT'S ABUSE!!! There's absolutely no excuse for behavior like that and you don't have to take it! ******************************* I attend a community college in Northern California...

I'm a nursing student who's also graduating in December, and I share your frustration. The hospital my class is in was undergoing some really difficult times (an FBI inquirey, charges of medical fraud, and charges of unneccessary surgical procedures...

I'll be graduating this December as an ADN. I've discovered that I enjoy psych nursing and seem to have an aptitude for it. My teachers have been encouraging me in this direction as well. However, I'm worried that my personal belief system would l...

I have no desire to try to convert anyone to my belief system. And I'm not the type of person who desires to discuss my personal life with patients or my co-workers. While my psych experience has been limited, I felt at the time that discussing the...