nursegj

First, let me say I'm sorry this happened to you. However, the current nursing trend makes this all too possible. Unfortunately, new grads are no longer required to "pay their dues" before going into specialty areas. Whatever happened to being required to work Med/Surg for at least a year before going into a specialty? You worked Pediatric Oncology and now are applying for Cardiac ICU without ANY Med/Surg experience?? At least you should have first worked on a Med/Surg Pediatric unit. If you think you got all the basics of Med/Surg in nursing school, you are mistaken. I know a lot of nurses will disagree and many go right into specialty after graduation. They are shortchanging themselves and their patients. Working Med/Surg is no joke. A year under your belt there gives a new nurse a better foundation in which to step into specialty. The two specialty areas I worked after Med/Surg were Labor & Delivery and the Operating Room. Those months in Med/Surg made me more prepared to care for those patients. Please think twice about the Cardiac ICU. It sounds glamorous, but are you really ready?

This is a pet peeve of mine, nurses working in silos. That's what this sounds like. There are a couple of problems here. First, the RN was IN the patient's room when he asked to go to the restroom. So she had to LEAVE the room, go to the nurse's station to ask the CNA to help the patient. She was IN the room! The time it took her to go get the CNA, she could have taken care of the patient's needs herself. Secondly, since she did go to the CNA for help and the CNA refused, I would have suggested that we do it together (teamwork). I would talk to the supervisor about the patient's inappropriate behavior toward the CNA. This way, the nurse shows she's not "above" doing the dirty work and the CNA feels supported.

We've all made errors. What is unforgivable is covering it up. Trust and nursing ethics have been compromised. I am surprised that Nurse Beth says "It seems the husband who made the complaint is reacting out of proportion". His wife was given the wrong medication and it was covered up. He should be furious. This could have had serious, even deadly consequences, so I don't think he was over reacting. This is obviously part of the culture on this unit if the senior nurse is telling her colleague who made a narcotic error, not to report it. As a nurse educator, this makes me wonder how nurses are being trained. One of the things we try to instill in students is the "nursing conscience". Ethics and critical thinking should be so ingrained that nurses have the guts to admit and face up to mistakes. We are nurses for one reason - that is the patient. I understand panicking, but even in panic we cannot betray the trust our patients have placed in us. If this nurse was afraid of a law suit, there is more likely to be one now than there would have been if the mistake was reported in the first place. I have seen nurses make errors and the patient or family did not sue because the nurse was honest about it.

Wow! This is a good one. It's time to talk about the "gender elephant in the room". Almost everyone makes a valid point here. Having been a nurse for over 40 years, I've seen almost everything. The saying "nurses eat their young" is primarily based on the history of unwarranted competitiveness among female nurses. For example, I have seen an O.R. nurse withhold vital information from her relief nurse so she could hear "Thank God, you're back. That other nurse didn't know what she was doing". As the male "disgusted with female nurses" eluded to, I've seen back stabbing, sabotage, and more among female nurses. Hospital romances between male doctors and female nurses have almost always, in my experience, resulted in the nurse getting fired or having to leave and the doctor keeping his job. So while things have gotten better, the "good old boy" club still exists. The male nurse is right. We don't stand up for each other - at least, not enough. It is not enough to say "this is our world and we know it well". We are three million strong yet we have little political representation. We are a female dominated profession, yet men make most of the healthcare decisions. The writer is right. We need to do better - for ourselves, for our patients, for the future of healthcare.

As a nurse educator, I cannot tell you how fulfilling it is. True, the pay does not compare with acute care but if you love teaching, this is the way to go. I love "making nurses"! I love witnessing when concepts become clear and students have that "AHA" moment when it all comes together for them. Most of all, I love hearing from former students how I have influenced their careers and made a difference in their lives. When you teach, part of you goes with every student under your tutelage. That means your teaching influences care and outcomes for patients you will never meet. That's awesome!

Good old fashioned corn starch works well in many cases. It is not talc based. It is derived from corn. Alone or mixed with baking soda, it can serve as a deodorant or applied in shoes to cut foot odor. It's simple and inexpensive. One teenage boy asked me what to do about what he perceived as excessive underarm sweating. I recommended corn starch, he tried it and that seem to do the trick!

One of the great things about nursing is its diversity of practice. Although you may feel "lost" in another specialty, sometimes its worth looking at nursing from another aspect. Re-training is always an option. It sounds like time off is more important than money to you. I would suggest looking into academia or school nursing which both give you the entire summer off. The pay is not great but may fit more with your desired lifestyle.

Every time I go to the doctor I wait for them to ask "Are you sexually active?" so I can say, "No, I usually just lie there!!" That is hilarious! You have a great sense of humor! I went to a LGBTQ training and was surprised at the use of the term "queer". When I questioned this I was told by the presenter (who looked about 12 years old) that young people preferred that term. I'm a Baby Boomer and was always told that calling someone "queer" was offensive. Although I was corrected at this training, I still am uncomfortable calling someone a queer. However, I respect their right to decide what they want to be called.

It is perfectly within your rights to think I am not "sorry at all", but I can tell you I really am. Additionally, just as everyone has a right to a difference of opinion, I have that right as well. I do not agree that monetary bribery is a viable nursing approach. As nurses, we are to be the patient advocate first. I would like someone to explain how monetary bribery, which is at best a temporary or situational solution, solves a problem like medication adherence. How is bribery putting the patient in the position to achieve a permanent positive outcome if keeping them compliant depends on a bribe? My question was, and still is, what happens when the bribe stops? If receiving the money was the patient motivator, why should the patient comply once that is taken away? What happened to educating the patient/family as to the importance of medication adherence? Teaching the patient and having them learn the rationale for taking a medication is more likely to lead to positive clinical outcomes than paying the patient $20 to take a pill.

Those of you who support this, are you nuts??? What part of this is unethical don't you get? All the excuses!. To the person who said "We get bribed to go to work" (seriously?) I teach nursing ethics and what is described here is unethical. Period. What happens when the budget is tightened and the bribe money runs out? What happens when the patient leaves your environment and becomes part of an environment where monetary bribery is not an option? You get them to comply only while they're in your "care". As long as you can afford the bribe they'll take the treatment. Is that nursing? If you think so then those of us in nursing education have failed you and I'm sorry.

I am a nurse educator at a university. We did not receive anything but were able to give our nursing students and faculty something worthwhile in the form of a nursing conference. It was an all day event, complete with guest speakers, breakout sessions and the opportunity to earn CEUs. The highlight was we put on a History of Nursing Through Fashion show. We had nursing figures such as Florence Nightingale, Clara Barton, Mary Eliza Mahoney and many more! They were played by faculty members and in full costume of the period. Each spoke in the first person and gave a little bio of their character. It was a great way for students to learn nursing history. We covered nursing fashion from the 1800's to the present day. Everyone loved it! We also presented nurses who worked in non-traditional nursing roles so students would learn there are opportunities beyond acute care for nurses. Included were: a fire department nurse, a disaster nurse, a movie set nurse, a school nurse, a legal nurse consultant, a nurse research and nurse theorist. It was great for our nursing students. We served lunch and even had a cake to celebrate Florence Nightingale's 197th birthday! We were fortunate to have the budget and support from our nursing honor society chapter to put on this event.

I'm a diploma grad and now a nurse educator. The difference between then and now is BIG! As students, we were responsible for covering all three shifts. For OB training, we were assigned a patient at 32 weeks gestation and followed her through everything. We accompanied her to prenatal visits, and we were on call and had to meet her in L&D no matter what day or time she went into labor (My patient went into labor at 2:00 am on a Sunday morning). We stayed with our patient through labor whether it lasted two hours or two days! We stayed until she delivered and took care of her and the baby until they were discharged. Students don't get that kind of training anymore. We also had an extensive OR rotation where we observed a procedure, then scrubbed and circulated. Most students today don't even get an OR rotation.

Salaries are usually quoted by hourly wage. Check your nursing journals, when employers advertise, the hourly rate is often quoted. By your measure, a nurse who works full-time should have a higher hourly wage than a nurse with the same credentials who works part time since the part-time nurse works less hours in a year. Seriously? I have not heard of part-time nurses getting a lower hourly wage because they work less. Their total take home is less because of less hours but the pay rate should be the same.

Did I miss something? This should not be about who takes time off for family or anything like that. It should be about equal salary - period. If two nurses, one male, one female have the exact same credentials (i.e. both hold the same degree with comparable work experience) and are hired for the same position with the same responsibilities - they should get the same salary. Those other factors do not apply. If their credentials are different, say one has a higher degree or one has more documented experience, then the salary difference is understandable. As to the post by Electric Cabbage, I would hope nurses are more intelligent than to be out of the workplace, for whatever reason, and come back expecting to make the same salary as they would if they did not have an interruption in employment. To suggest they "come back to work and complain" about salary is really insulting.

Hopefully, we all went into nursing with one goal in mind. That is, to help the sick and injured. The patient is and always should be our bottom line. I am a nurse educator and have provided education to prelicensure students as well as those studying for advanced nursing degrees. Care at the bedside is the foundation of what we do. I've had students who clearly did not have patient care as their focus because they were so focused on becoming an administrator, or worse yet, primarily looking for the "good salary" they anticipated that comes with nursing. It breaks my heart when I encounter this and I urge these students to re-evaluate their motivation and decide if nursing is truly for them. I am an old diploma grad and believe it is the nurse at the bedside that makes nursing what it is - the most trusted profession in the United States. I know my role is as an educator is to help "make" new nurses who deliver competent, compassionate care - at the bedside.