Erin 321

Latest Activity

1. Mandatory float to ICU?

   Erin 321 replied to Larry77's topic in Emergency

   Holy....that would definitely be enough to have me refusing the job. I think one of the most insulting things I ever heard a doctor say was "A nurse is a nurse", referring to this sort of situation. This attitude completely disrespects the amount of ...

2. Informed Consent Dilema!

   Erin 321 replied to ecat81's topic in Emergency

   Obtaining informed consent is the responsibility of the person performing the procedure (in this case, the surgeon). You truly are just witnessing a signature when you ask someone to sign a consent form. It's a tool, but if it ever went to court, you...

3. who is responsible

   Erin 321 replied to nurseforfun's topic in General Nursing

   If you give a medication to a patient who has a documented allergy to that medication, you are the one responsible. No sense looking for the allergy information after the fact.

4. Dying Pts who are still full codes.

   Erin 321 replied to NurseyPoo7's topic in General Nursing

   If it actually came to a code, at this point, as others have said, the code would be handled as per usual and the doctor would decide how long to proceed for. The thing about these cases is you gotta think that if the patient really understood what i...

5. Scary baby near-code

   Erin 321 replied to Erin 321's topic in General Nursing

   Thanks, everyone, for the support and great advice. As an update, I've notified my educator and supervisor of the situation. My educator says she will focus on some pediatric education and better equipment availability next and my supervisor wants ev...

6. Scary baby near-code

   Erin 321 posted a topic in General Nursing

   I work in a smallish (26 bed) community hospital ER that has the fortune/misfortune of being very close to a large specialty hospital. What this means is that trauma and peds go to the big hospital and not us, which is fine by me, but of course there...

7. MD/NP in triage?

   Erin 321 replied to Dixielee's topic in Emergency

   We use an MD at our triage, five days a week from 10 till 6. What happens is we complete our usual triage assessment (generally without interference from the MD) and then after the MD will review the chart, possibly speak with the pt for a moment if ...

8. NPs and PAs

   Erin 321 replied to Erin 321's topic in General Nursing

   Interesting. Okay, thanks everyone. That thread mentioned above is HUGE - I'll go read it now and that should take care of any more questions. Thanks for the help.

9. NPs and PAs

   Erin 321 posted a topic in General Nursing

   Hi! I work in Canada and while nurse practitioners are commonly seen in practice here, we don't yet use physician's assistants, although we're starting to hear about them more. I was wondering if anyone could tell me the differences between these two...

10. Medicine vs. ER

    Erin 321 replied to Erin 321's topic in General Nursing

    Thanks for the good ideas, everyone. I particularly liked the thoughts about courteous transfer times, a flow nurse (that's a really interesting idea) and the stuff that Roy mentioned. That's very helpful, thank you. One post mentioned a reward syst...

11. Medicine vs. ER

    Erin 321 posted a topic in General Nursing

    I have a meeting to go to in a couple of weeks and I'm hoping some of you can help. The meeting is to help facilitate a good relationship between the medicine units and our ER. Things have gotten a little strained over the past few years - we get fil...

12. Hypochondriac Patient? How to deal with the unknown?

    Erin 321 replied to CanuckStudent's topic in General Nursing

    Until recently, I have always taken her complaints very seriously, as I feel one should when they are dealing with anyone in their care. I would be offended by my coworkers, who called her a "hypochondriac" and say that she was simply addicted to Tyl...

13. Running KCL without knowing the pt's baseline K

    Erin 321 replied to Erin 321's topic in General Nursing

    I don't think this doctor's an idiot at all and it was never my intent to suggest otherwise. It's not that labs hadn't been ordered, just that they hadn't yet been drawn and so the bolus was ordered with no regard for the results, which were received...

14. Running KCL without knowing the pt's baseline K

    Erin 321 replied to Erin 321's topic in General Nursing

    Ok, thanks, everyone. I agree, it's not that the pt was likely to be harmed, but it just seemed like sloppy practice. Anyway, I appreciate the info. Next time I'll be able to more confidently make my point.

15. What nursing skills do you use the most?

    Erin 321 replied to Gigglesforall's topic in Emergency

    I know what you're saying. Of course working in ICU, you'd have developed awesome assessment skills. The big difference between ICU and the ER is that ICU is a controlled environment and the ER is not. If you struggle at all, that'll be why. It's j...