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My philosophy is that I'm a nurse and not a drug rehab counselor. If the patient claims to be in pain then I give pain medicine. That being said I also work at a hospital in an area that leads the nation in heroin addicts. If the quantity of pain medicine is reasonable then I don't question it. If the patient is receiving very high doses of pain medicine then I have to take into account that if that person is an addict then he/she needs a certain amount of narcotics to reach baseline then you start treating the patients' pain. We gave one alcoholic 800 mg i.v. ativan (yes, 800mg, not a typo) in a 24-hour period to get him over the DT's. The amount given comes with experience and not becoming the jaded, cynical nurse.

Worse than ignorance is denial. A hospital I was in had a rash of acinetobacter patients as well as C-Diff. It was frustrating to see a room full of residents without one of them wearing any isolation gear. To make matters worse administration was coming down on the nursing staff because of the high rate of isolation patients and completely denied the possibility that the residents and med students could have anything to do with it. Glad to be out of Cincinnati!

How about The Ass-umer. "You're a MALE nurse? You're either gay or couldn't get into medical school."

Here in New Mexico I've been pulled over 6 times in the last year (once by Santa Fe police, once by Los Alamos, three times by BIA) and given a warning every time. Each time I was either on my way to or from work and in my scrubs. Let me emphasize that I rarely speed there are just some weird areas where the speed limit drops abruptly then goes back up. p.s. BIA = Bureau of Indian Affairs

Love the idea of a "Murse day." Only had one shift where the entire nursing staff was male and I warned the oncoming shift that we spent the night raising the toilet seats.