swifty1031

Same here in TX... I work a tele/step down and we have 4-5 and sometimes 6 on days with 5-6 and rarely 7 on nights. Lots of sick pts and post heart caths. I once had a "seasoned" nurse tell me that the pts on tele use to be ICU and the ICU pts used to be "gone"... not pleasant but probably pretty true, shows how far we have advanced...I think!

The scariest thing I can remember was when I was a brand new nurse we had a psych pt on our unit who didn't like blondes. No one knew this until after we started our shift that night. He wigged out when I hung a new bag of IV fluids. He jumped up so fast I really didn't have time to react and had me pinned against the wall with IV pole and his body. I stayed calm and thankfully someone heard the noise and defused him. The supervisor moved me to another part of the unit since he attacked and threatened to "cut me into little pieces and hide the parts". He tried to find me later that night but had a guard at the door that wouldn't let him out. He was shipped out the next morning. Very scary stuff!!

Sometimes you have to let others do some things. I know it can be hard if you are a person who does everything for herself (I tend to because I know it will get done). My director has said on more than one occasion that a hospital is a 24HOUR facility... meaning pass on things you can't get to due to time. That certainly doesn't mean leaving everything for next shift, but occasionally you have to leave something if you are overwhelmed (which clearly you were)!!

TX Pasadena Queen-Does Texas Tech have any problem accepting EC? I know you (like me) graduated from there last year:yeah: I have a a BS in another area. Thanks:p

We were required to carry cell phones at a hospital I once worked for. It was very annoying. The secretary would put through family members that just wanted to check on pt but didn't have time to visit, doctors with tons of questions and of course you had no chart with you, and the most annoying call of all the tele secretary calling to say "there is a lead off in room 2". I know these are all important however like most nurses I am not sitting around with my feet up waiting to be called into action. Thank goodness we don't have them at the hospital I work at now:)

I waited about a month to get a date and then had exactly one month to my test date. I took a cancellation date and called daily. I finished in Feb. '09 and graduated in April '09. Good luck!

That sounds like a great idea... if only! We usually get the "be glad you have a job in these hard times" speech when we are asked to work short! Oh well, as long as we continue to cover for the administration, things will never change. In fact I heard last week that since we are currently taking on more pts (at first 4-5 on tele unit, then 5-6) the matrix will be changed to 7!!

I have found that the best is cran-grape. Most of my pt.s seem to be ok with this, it does smell horrible. One time a friend of mine opened the vial and it flew all over her! She smelled horrible. She had to go get scrubs from OR, I don't know if she ever got the odor out of her scrubs!!

You would think that would be the case, however on the unit where I work the per diem are being forced to work more holidays than full time. I haven't quite figured out where the fairness in that is yet, but we were told that in todays job market we are lucky to have a job and to "just deal with it". It will be interesting to see how management "deals" with it when the job market picks up again (and it will).

I so agree with the poster that tis problem is not limited to LTAC. I work on an acute care floor with occasional med-surg pts. I just want to scream when we get that concerned family member who can't push the button on the bed to raise the head but can walk all the way to the nurses station to complain that the nurse did not come in to sit dear old mom/dad up so they could eat. This past weekend a lady came to the station(I was charging) to complain that no one showed up to feed her dad and she had been sitting there waiting on the nurse to feed him and his food was cold. I explained to her that if the nurse sees an able bodied family member sitting in the room with the pt she assumes that the pt has help. She said well I can't believe if this is the kind of service we are going to get then I am going to take him to another hospital. It took every ounce of professionalism I have to not respond!!! Just one more... my friend had a pt walk to the nurses station to complain that no one had come to put her on the bedpan! There are so many more, I could write a book:)

Basically the same thing in the hospital I where I work. We are no longer testing for H1N1, if the patient does come back positive for flu, then they are placed in isolation, but we only get standard surgical masks. In our unit meeting today we told if we can get an N95 mask we are to keep it for the entire shift (of course). The big thing is if. We are being encouraged, but not forced to take the new vaccine. I personally have known several people with the flu, but not confirmed H1N1, that have had respiratory complications. Kind of scary, but it is the nature of the business.

We opened a new unit in January of this year and our theme has been "The Climb". I think nursing school is like that... you finally reach your goal, but there is so much more out there when you are finished with school. You will always remember the hard work and great friends you make in nursing school. You will always "climb" as a nurse. Congrats on your your graduation!!!

You must work at the same place I do!! I am currently wanting to transfer... it will be interesting to see the responses.

i would love to say... even though you don't visit, care for, feed, etc mom/dad, you now want me to jump through hoops and bow down to your every demand (check bs every 30 minutes because we found her unconscious and her bs was 32 in ED-actually had family say this and became irate when I explained we would check her on schedule and at times when necessary since she was now stable)(this same family didn't know when mom ate, took insulin, how she got her food, etc). This isn't a hotel and despite the uniforms we are not your maids/servants! One of docs told a pt this, I almost fell out! I wanted to kiss him.

i am precepting a nurse who has hearing aids. he has a specialized stethoscope and is very capable of doing everything a nurse with no aids can do! he is very comical and when he greets a pt who is HOH he makes a joke about both of them. The pts love him:)