clc123

Thanks, the reason I asked is because when I was employed in my hospital I was under the impression that I was being tested to know that if I started out with a negative test and then converted to a positive test it would be assumed that it was an work related exposure. I am near the border of mexico and I was told there was a high incidence of TB in this area and there were always many TB patients in my hospital. I was led to believe that the hospital was going to help me if I converted. Well, I just happened to check my TB results from last week and...you guessed it. I converted to positive on the new blood test. So what did my employer do? I am on call tonight and I asked if I needed to have a chest Xray or anything and I also said I was kind of upset etc. They basically told me I was over reacting, it is no big deal, I can be on call. I had no clue who was going to order the Xray. I happened to see the pulomonlogist in the hall and I told him about the conversion and also about an incident when I was dializing a patient in the ICU and the other pulmonologist said "Oh, I think we better test this guy for TB, I don't know why he was not tested before this" (I had been dializing him in his room with no mask 2 hrs that day and three hours two days before that) So I went and got an N95 mask. I don't remember the pt. name and I didn't think to do an incident report. Anyway the pulmonologist said " you can't prove you got it here, lots of people in the community have it too. and healthcare is a dangerous field."So now I am in a fix. I called my doctor and he gave me an RX for a chest Xray and I may need months worth of antibiotics even if the Xray is clear and I have a severe problem taking anti biotics they make me seriously ill. I guess all this is going to come out of my pocket.

Hi Can anyone tell me why nurses have to get a TB test every year?

Thanks so much for your replies. I appreciate it!

Hi I am fairly new to Dialysis, I work with only travelers at my hospital and they all have different ideas regarding this issue. I had my patient say he used "special needles" so I called the outpatient clinic and the RN charge told me that he has a buttonhole. I told him we don't have any special needles so he said do not use the buttonhole area go above or below the area with a regular 15 g fistula needle. Since that time we have had a few more and the travelers are using the regular 15g fistula needle in the buttonhole. Is this o.k. to do? P.S. if anyone knows of a job for an acute RN in San Diego I would be interested.. Thanks, Cindy

The docs are pretty good about not running someone in the night unless they really need it. We probably only do between 3 and 5 patients a day and they only call about once or twice a week at night or on Sunday. I think the most patients in a day were 8. We basically only have one nurse on at a time. It is a pretty small hospital but the winter does get more busy because of the snow birds. There are some Fresenius clinics in town, that is where I worked last for about 7 months. (Had a few surgeries, long story). Anyhoo, they decided that Fresenius charged too much or something so the hospital does it them self now. No, I don't take any shortcuts and the travelers that we have now believe that there is nothing more we are missing..except regular staff. lol. We started putting every one on the monitor since we are in the old ICU because of the advice of one traveler who stated that that is what many other hospitals do. It is nice in a way because we can arrange things any way we want. The boss above me does not know anything about dialysis but she is really great and takes every ones suggestions. She gets things done very fast and spends any amount of money we need to make sure things are getting up to par asap. So all in all, I feel pretty blessed. I have a great boss and we can do whatever we need to do to get the patients cared for and make our own schedule! It is frustrating sometimes because it is harder to learn this way and I am taking on a lot for being so new. but you got to take the bad with the good! When we get fully staffed there will be much less call and they eventually want to expand the program with SLED and other such things that I will also have to learn..LOL Thanks for the replies! Any other advice is appreciated!

I have never heard of any problems like that. There are 3 machines right now and we have a large room (old ICU) where we usually bring one or two from the med surg unit. then we take the machines and go upstairs to do the ICU patients. We have 2 7-7 nurses and one 3-11 nurse. The only drawback right now is that each 7-7 nurse has to take call on the days they work from 11pm to 0700. but we get $4 per hour for being on call and time and a half or double time for coming back in.

Thanks for the update Steve! And to the poster looking in this direction, the pay is based on experience and then there is a $4 added per hour for dialysis, so for me I have 6 years nursing experience and then I get the extra $4 so that brings me to $32/hour. The hospital is owned by the city so we are govt. employees and we get a pension. let me know if you are interested, and you can look it up online and apply to El Centro Regional Medical Center. Thanks again@

Hi All, I have begun a job in an acute HD department in a hospital. The previous supervisor left unexpectedly along with his girlfriend who was the only other nurse in the dept. I am trying to take over and am having problems with finding out how often to do LAL testing and cultures of the R.O. water and the dialysate. I have thus far been doing them both once per month and they are coming back fine. Could any one tell me how often they are to be done? I am ordering some AAMI standards but they are expensive and have to go through a process to get the funding. I am also looking for nurses to work. I am in El Centro, CA (close to San Diego) The pay is great, the docs are wonderful and the hours are very flexible so it is a great job! I just need to get the place back to a reasonable level of function since the leaving of two at once. I am fairly new to dialysis and I am working with all travelers right now from different states etc. and have different ideas of how to do everything! Thanks!