bugvw70

Minneapolis, LTC LPN 1 1/2 yrs experience 17.03/hr plus $1/hr evening or $2/hr overnite, extra .40 for weekend shifts

As a new grad LPN in LTC in the south end of the metro Twin Cities area I started at 16.50 or so last year. Just over 17/hr right now plus shift differentials. The hospital that my LTC facility is affiliated with (across the street) also hires LPNs but I'm not sure what they are paying there.

I know I'm a little late on this one, but you implied that the clinic is owned by a hospital, right? If so, then it might actually aid you in getting to that hospital job. You may be able to get preference in future hospital openings as a current employee. I am an LPN currently and went from working as a HUC in the hospital to working as an LPN in the hospital system's affiliated LTC facility because I keep my seniority (I've been a nurse for about 18 months but I have 3.5 years seniority) and when I do go back ofr my RN I will have an easier time as a current employee with seniority finding a hospital position.

Absolutelty. I have cried with the family at the bedside after their loved one has died. I have cried when just walking past the ER room of a young mother who had just lost her 10 month old son d/t accidental suffocation while he had been at daycare (my son was almost exactly the same age and I ran to the break room to call my son's daycare and check on him...just because.) I have cried by myself and with my coworkers after particularly stressful events while in the ER. I have cried after leaving a shift at work where I just knew that due to forces outside of my control I hadn't been able to provide for a suffering resident as well as I thought I should have. In LTC my residents are, of course, a professional relationship but when you work with the same people every day for weeks, months, and years you get to know them and even if they are "residents" to you, you are often "family" to them. Sometimes you are the ONLY "family" they have or know. When one of them goes you can't help to feel some pain and I believe that most family members take some solace in that. They often have misgivings about having to place their loved ones in a facility anyway and, from my experience, they are often relieved to know that you took your job personally enough to actually care ABOUT and not just care FOR their mom, dad, spouse, etc... Never lose control to the point that the patient or family feels the needs to comfort you- it needs to be the other way around, but surely we can't be expected to put aside our humanity and if I ever find that happening in myself I will find a new line of work.

This was actually a new grad nurse in training at my facility... I'm in a hospice resident's room giving meds and trying to get her comfortable. The trainee comes into the room and asks me "Can you come look at so-and-so." Very collected, no urgency. In the middle of repositioning my resident I reply "Sure, just hold on a minute." My resident began to say something to me and I stopped to talk to her for a moment. Meanwhile the trainee is starting to look a little antsy. "I need you to come look at so-and-so." Me: "Okay, just hold a a second while I finish up with my res." Trainee: "Can you come look at so-and-so first?" I leave my resident and follow the trainee into the hallway. Me: "What am I going to look at, exactly?" Trainee: "I think she's dead." Sure enough, only 15 minutes after she had had vital taken and been helped to bed, there she was- very much dead. I think what got me most was the oh-so-roundabout way this poor new grad trainee had told me about it. Maybe afraid to say the word "dead"? I think this was his second day of training.

I am very pro- BF and educated myself very thoroughly during my pregnancy. After an incredibly scary labor where my son went into distress twice and had a code called on him before having an emergency C section, I delivered a 9 lb 14 oz baby boy with an insatiable appetite. I exclusively BF for the first 10 weeks while I was on maternity leave. On returning to work I pumped religiously several times a shift, reducing my productivity at work and putting myself at a disadvantage to my coworkers (commission based pay) Despite pumping frequently at work, feeding my baby in his sleep after coming home at 10 oclock at night and again in the middle of the night and in person during the day I still could not keep up with him. I took fenugreek and brewers yeast. I made sure that I was drinking 10-12 glasses of water a day. I gave up any and all caffeine. I was a wreck! I was constantly worrying about breastmilk. I was hungry all the time and I wasn't sleeping (despite the fact that my baby had started sleeping through the night I had to get up and feed or pump just to keep up anough milk production). I had to supplement with formula as my son would still be hungry after eating. Just before six months I had a string of incidents that caused me to lose a large supply of expressed breast milk. After the third instance in a weeks time I sat in the floor and broke down in tears. After alot of discussion with my husband we decided that it was time to switch to formula. I cried. I grieved for what I thought would be the loss of my bonding with my son. I felt like a BAD MOM. Within days I realized that instead of giving up, this was the best thing I could have done for myself and for my baby. I bonded MORE with my son. I finally had the time and energy to actually ENJOY my baby rather than just focusing on FEEDING my baby. I began to not feel tired, run down, and sick constantly. I was finally starting to go back to being myself, yet, somehow I still felt like a failure. Why, after giving my child a loving home and all of the support and comfort and care that a parent possibly could, did I feel like a failure? Because of self-righteous, self-important, know-it-alls. Because of that militant group of women out there who had long before conception decided what was going to be right for me and my child. Is breast milk best for baby? Absolutely, but what is even better is a loving mom who is able to make parenting work in her life as she sees her and her childs' needs. Better yet is when we have a society where moms don't have to worry about feeling "weird" BFing in publice because someone might look at them funny or about bottle feeging in public because someone might be around the corner ready to lecture us on how we are abusing our children by doing what we feel is best for our own families. Everyone's story is different and you don't need to know what their story is. Have enough respect to assume that they have one and that, if provided the proper education, that they have made the best decision for themselves and STAY OUT OF IT!

I appreciate everyones input. Unfortunately, this particular lady has since passed but I am wondering how to handle this more effectively in the future. I have even considered contacting our ombudsman for the region. I feel very strongly that what they were trying to do is highly unethical and probably not legal. Is there someone who I could give this info to anonymouslyand expect that something productive will be done? I don't believe anyone here had bad motives but I do believe they acted badly. Alll I know is if my mom is ever in that situation I expect that her wishes will be followed.

Hi. I am LPN who graduated last June and have been iin my LTC facility for exactly one year now. I have a 20 bed wing and have had about 12 residents paa away on my wing since starting. We don't have a designated hospice wing but I have had up to 6 hospice patients on my wing at any given time. Now, my question... I currently have a lady on hospice who has been declining significantly for about three weeks now. This lady has always been very independent and has been known to refuse certain medications and treatments for the entire time that I have known her. She was just placed on hospice about 2 weeks ago. She has some dementia but is fairly oriented, has no POA, and signed her own hospice consents. This is a lday who has certainly always made her own decisions and has expressed to myself and other nurses that she intends to continue to do so. On hospice, she was prescribed prn ativan, prn morphine concentrate, fentanyl patch, and haldol gel. She has repeatedly refused the morhpine, although not all the time. Occasionally she will acknowledge that her pain has gotten worse and will accept the morphine. She has, however, told the nursing staff that she does not like how the morphine makes her feel and would rather not have it. My thought is that she has every right to decide when she takes it and when she doesn't. We were always taught that the right to refuse was part of any med administration. My NM, on the other hand, seems to believe that she should be taking it anyway. She has placed in the resident's drink without her knowledge and has encouraged the nursing staff to drip it into her mouth SL while the resident is sleeping. The DON seems to go along with the NM on this. I work with this lady every day amd have for a year. She has very little family that comes to see her and I feel that it is unethical to purposefully not follow her obvious wishes. I believe that if we do this then we lose credibility and trust that we floor nurses have built up over the past year and that, since she has almost no family, that we should advocate for her wishes to be respected as a family member might were they here. At the same time, I am worried about continuing to push the issue as both the NM and DON have made it clear where they stand. I feel very torn between standing up for what I believe to be right and backing off to protect my job. Does anyone have any ideas on how to best handle this situation or similar situations that may come up in the future? Any thoughts at all are appreciated.