Blanche

Ya know what Lawyers are really good for? Scaring official idiots when you say i'm calling my lawyer and give his name as you pick up the phone. The person you are addressing starts sputtering and takes what was said back. But you need the name and number of a good lawyer, one you know, for this to work.

Our system is archaic. The Nurse recieves the order, she faxes the order to Pharmacy, the Patient Care Provider enters the orders, The Nurse enters the Med orders on the MAR, The Nurse checks the orders in the computer. The nurse hopes the orders are correct. The Nurse goes to the Pixis and finds the Pharmacy has not entered the orders. The Nurse calls the Pharmacy and finds out that the medications are not available and will not be until the next day. The Nurse writes not available on the MAR. The Doctor reads this and yells at the Nurse. The Nurse is taking care of her patients with her PCP who entered the orders incorrectly.The Nurse Manager is yelled at because he is at the nurses station. The nurse is then yelled at again. The We will soon have a new system. JAHCO is requiring in 2005(? I think the date is) A paperless system for safety with bar code readers in each nurses hands, a bar code on each patient's wrist, amd bar codes on each indivigual medication packet.We will be gearing up for this system. I hope it works like it should. I keep thinking of the numbers which each person will be required to wear in Revelation. Then I think of the numbers tattooed on each person in the Nazi concentration camps. Those Tattoos worked well, but at what cost to the freedom of the person who wore those numbers. Our patients are more important than the system. They deserve accurate care. They also have the right to refuse at any time. The Doctors a in a hospital to serve the patients just as the nurses are there to serve the patients. When this system becomes manditory, don't forget we are there to serve the patient, not the system. We need to meet the needs of the patient, not the doctor, or the pharmacy, or our own needs.

Well said, I think that just about covers everything. Nursing is a good career, a liflong effort, a progresing and progressive profession. It also needs you to love it, and be able to let it go when you are home with your family. Nursing like medicine is an ART as well as a SCIENCE, as Florence Nightingale said.:roll

1. The education needed is an Associates Degree in Applied Science. That should take 2 years but usually takes 3.years There are Diploma programs in hospitals They take 3 years, or Bacholar of Science Degrees, 4 years. Nursing courses may say they are a 9 hour course (18 hrs of study per week) But are more like an 18 hr course(36 hrs of study required per week) And reality shock is significant. Nursing is an Art and a Science. If you aren't in LOVE with nursing you'll never stay the full course. 2. Salary, unlimited. There is a severe nurse Shortage. (for the above reasone) Many offers will be made before graduation. Listen carefully and DO NOT take the first offer. It has to be a good fit or the nurse is miserable, not able to work at maximum capacity.Nursing is not just another job, it is a profession,with all that implies.

Hi! I live in Harlingen, Tx. Which is on Hiway 83, at the turn to the south enroute to Brownsville. We are at the crossroads to every where. You have to go through Harlingen to go to South Padre Island, or to Brownsville and Matamoros, Mexico.I work at Harlingen Medical Center, a MedCath hospital. Most of the Medcath Hospitals are Heart Hospitals but this one is the only General hospital in our system. We give patient-focused care, and we love the patient contact. We are ready to open our 4th floor which will be surgical/Ortho. We now have the 3ed floor fully open. YES we are a brand new hospital with all private rooms and we are not assigned more than 8 patients. and most of the time when we are busy we have 6 patients. We need permanent staff for the 4th floor. We staff with RNs and Patient Care Providers(PCPs) This is not quite Paradise but ,ITS CLOSE. Please if interested call David at (956)365-1000,our switchboard. If you are hired tell them Phyllis sent you. This is real. Come on down. If you need to check this out, look for our HMC site. or the Medcath site.

we used this pledge at graduation. every school of nursing has different traditions. we had a capping ceromony and lit candles in a dedication ceromony before we went to our first clinical. it depends in how old your school is,and and if it is a hospital or started by a religion or in a college. it is a way to emphasise the importance of what we do for a living. nuraing is an art, as well as a science. to paraphrase flo. she knew exactly what she was doing, and writing even before the crimean war. read her writings. the meaning behind them is as fresh and new as the writing of nurses now. she was trying to raise nursing to a height as respected as doctors. nurses had a bad reputation at the time. most of them were prostitutes because of the personal things that had to be done. she recruited respectable women and had strict rules to raise the value of what nurses do. she succeeded. didn't she!:roll

:roll Here is a TRUE Halloween story. My patient's F/C was dry and she was retaing urine I encourged to tap gently over her bladder and apply gentle frim pressure. The Foley bag began filling. She knocked over a glass of water on the side of the bed. after a moment the bed mechanism started to raise he head of the bed with nothing touching it. I immediately unplugged the bed and it stopped. I checked all of the touch controls to be sure nothing was beong pressed accidentally, then plugged the bed in and lowered her hed. The head of the bed immediately started up again , I unplugged the bed. We transfered her to another bed and took that one out of service. She was frightened but now has a marvelous story about the bed that tried to"eat her" I am so glad she was uninjured, She had 8 days before had a procedure to stablize a shattered vertabre.