PeteyPie

We have been using these for the last couple of months, and I really love them. They are expensive though, at around $4000 a pump.

Yeah, so hypothetical situation. A nursing home just has an administrator and a DON working there. The administrator fails to change one of his 137 patients. Who's on the phone to the police first?

Your story is eerily familiar. The exact thing happened to me, the only difference is the clinical instructor was also the director of nursing for the program. She said multiple times in lecture and at clinicals that "men don't belong in nursing'. She took every opportunity to fail men out of her program. We started with 4, at the end of the program I was the only one left. Two months before graduation, she tried to work her magic on me. I showed up to the hearing with the dean, documentation in hand, and escorted by my legal counsel. She denied saying it. Fortunately, I had tapes of lecture, with her comments. The look on her face was priceless when the tapes were played. She was fired that very day, and I was back in the program. I also got an apology letter from the dean. I was lucky though. A friend of mine was an attorney and showed up with me, and the instructor was stupid enough to say her comments during lecture. It could have easily gone the other way. I really wish you well, in whatever you decide to do.

Rural Missouri. $17.50, $2.25 night dif. I am however paying $250 a month to rent a two bedroom house.

Look up for potassium chloride: Lethal Dose (LD 50) Efective Dose (ED 60) and Therapeutic Index. I will get you started :) Lethal Dose 50 is the amount of a drug to kill 50 percent of the lab test animals, usually rats because they are genetically similar to people. For KCl the LD 50 is 2.5 g/kg.

Over the summer, my BP was running about 115/70. I was running 3 miles a day, and enjoying my summer off from nursing school. I just checked it today and I'm at 151/81. I'm only concerned because I always have a headache now, and during sex, the headache builds until orgasm where it feels like a migraine. How fun is that? Im not running everyday like i was, and the stress of nursing school this semester is almost unbearable. I'm an uninsured student, but we have a campus clinic I could go to. Should I go? Or do you think it's stress induced and will resolve on its own. Thanks.

Well, the list of NANDA approved nursing DX that I have, I would go with: Impaired Urinary Elimination related to side effects of pregnancy as evidenced by.... blah blah blah.

I asked this same question to a friend, and she gave the best advice ever. "You could be 60 and NOT a doctor." I say go for it.

I used to keep my common sense tethered to the D ring in my pants, but upper management has made me lock it up in the pyxis, it saves money that way. :) I imagine a good pair of scissors could go there?

I find out about pay rate and compensation BEFORE I even apply. I just make a quick call to HR and ask what the pay range is for X qualifications and what other benefits they have. I've never had a problem at least getting a basic range to consider if it's even worth my time to apply. I never bring it up in the interview.

I wouldn't reapply. She immediately jumped to the conclusion that you were a liar and had you fired without so much as a phone call for clarification first. Do you want to work for a facility where those in charge have a severe lack of judgement? I wouldn't entrust her with my trash, much less my nursing license. I vote for find employement elsewhere.

I disagree, credit a good indicator of financial planning and financial responsibility. Not the same thing. I bet Mother Theresa had a poor FICO score with her self employment and transient lifestyle. But to the OP, if they are going to run a credit check, they are required by the Fair Credit Reporting Act to: 1. Get your written authorization. 2. The authorization must be on a separate sheet of paper. So if you don't see that, they aren't going to run one.

I'm sorry you got fired, that must be difficult for you. I really can't fathom how you could be fired over one customer complaint. Don't beat yourself up over it. It sounds like management did you favor with not having to deal with them anymore. But on to the resume and interview question. From reading your first post it seems that you would regard putting down anything less than "terminated" on your application as a lie. The world is hardly so binary. HR might say, "Terminated: Left child's remains in sink" while I would say "Incompetent morons promoted to management, spends too much time with customer surveys and not enough time with patients. Left to purse other goals." So the real truth in why you don't work there anymore is open to interpretation depending on your perspective. So where do you go from there? I as in a similar situation before. I was fired and didn't know where to go. Here's what I figured out. 1. Information Gathering: Find out what the hospital is going to say about you. This will help alleviate your anxiety and give you good direction on what to do next. Have a good friend call the hospital HR as an employer, and see what information your friend can get. I mowed my friends yard for $10, so she was my employer. Most likely, HR won't disclose anything without a written authorization. Fill one of those out and fax it in to see what comes back. Possible outcomes: A. Most Likely: Nothing, they won't say anything at all. From an HR perspective, you don't work there anymore, so they don't want to spend any time/money on you (IE getting you a new job). B. Less Likely: They call/fax back saying you worked there, giving dates, and your title. C. Least Likely: They call/fax back saying you worked there, giving dates, your title, and that you're not eligible for rehire. D. Extremely Not Likely: They call/fax back saying you worked there, you were the most awful employee in the history of nursing. You spent most of your time digging in the sharps containers for used morphine, frequently bit patients, possibly have rabies, and you kicked service animals on your lunch break. In case A and B, it doesn't matter what you put on the application or say in the interview, because it can't be verified. Now, I'm advocating just making things up like saying your title was “The Empress of Taipei.”, but you can find some kind of middle ground for the “why I don't work there” reason. Focus on a reason that put you in the spotlight and not the employer. Career growth is a good one. Commute times. You can find some reason that's the truth. Case C is the stinker. They are basically saying you were terminated without saying it. But again, its open to interpretation because the employer isn't going to verify it. So I'd simply tell a quick story about how I overlooked a hospital policy about biological waste cleanup. I was fired over it, and I took these steps to correct the problem. Case D is the lottery. They lied, and as a result of that lie, they are damaging your income. You sue the hell out of them. If you end up winning $13 million, I demand a puppy. Hope this helps.

Ha ha, dose? route? The MD left that part out. :) Your primary role as a nurse is patient advocate. And unfortunately there is no magic machine that monitors pain. If a patient says they are in pain, then I believe them, I have no choice. Standard practice demands a nursing intervention for pain, a placebo does nothing. Doing nothing for pain will get you in BIG BIG trouble with your state board of nursing. Would you consider doing nothing for a patient with a BP of 65/42? But for the sake of the argument, let's say you decided to give the medication. The only ethical way to give the medication is to walk into the room, introduce yourself and say, "This is a placebo the doctor has ordered you to take, it does nothing and has no side effects, do you have any questions?" "WHY IS THE DOCTOR MAKING ME TAKE A PILL THAT DOES NOTHING!" "I'm not certain, lets call him/her." My first call would be to the physician to verify the order. MD chicken scratch can be so hard to decipher sometimes. Perhaps the MD means to give some narc pain med that starts with P and ends with O, and is a train wreck of spelling errors in between. If the order is correct, then the MD and I are going to have a very frank and candid conversation about his rationale of treating pain with a placebo. I'm going to try and convince him for a new order. If he refuses, then I'm calling someone else. Nurse manager would be a good start. You have to do more than simply refusing to give the medication, you actually have to look out for the patient.

I think your friend is being shortsighted in suggesting that everyone lands into the perfect fitting job field the first time. It takes time to decide if a particular field is right for you. It sounds like you were not happy in law and are willing to try something else. Personally, I've worked in Information Technology for the last 10 years, and I hated it. I loved computers, but working in the corporate world just wasn't for me. I hated putting on a shirt and tie working 9 to 5 with the only personal satisfaction coming from making our bottom line more efficient. For me, it was a life without purpose. I was unhappy and changed. I'm now in my second semester of nursing school, and I can't imagine doing anything else. So I say go for it. If nursing doesn't work out, you can always try something else.

Bad breath is caused by bacteria. Bacteria do not require oxygen for cellular respiration, they do so anaerobically. The chemical reaction produces sulfur compounds as waste, which is what smells bad and is your bad breath. The trick though is discovering where the bacteria are hiding. For most people with bad breath, the bacteria are found in the mouth. Tiny bits of food that get stuck to the teeth, gums and tongue are a perfect food source for bacteria. Other hiding places are, sinuses, the upper and lower respiratory system, and your GI tract. Bacteria in any of these areas can produce a symptom of bad breath. I think its important to note that bad breath is a symptom and not a disease itself. Gums, mints and breathstrips are just treating the symptom, you need to treat the cause. If you have been to the dentist and he has ruled out everything dentally, it's time to go see your doctor. I suspect you have a Helicobacter Pylori infection in your upper GI tract. It's a common GI infection that often manifests few clinical symptoms, but can cause bad breath, so go see the doctor :).

I would call your state board of nursing and find out how you should proceed. You need to protect yourself, because the first person the ALF management is going to throw under the bus if something happens is you.

Relax. The NCLEX is given using computer adaptive testing. It starts by giving you a medium difficulty question, and then gives you a harder one if you pass it and an easier one if you dont. From there, it analyzes where you fit. Generally, if you get a low amount of questions, you did really poorly, or really well. In your case, from the amount of preparation that you did, I would bet you did really well. Get some rest and go out and do some fun things to take your mind off it.

I'm sorry you're feeling bad, we all know how rough nursing can be, and working rotating shifts can be hellish. I did it for 2 years before I said enough. Don't quit nursing, you sound like a great, caring nurse. There are other things to try before the bookstore. :) 1) Sleep at the same time every night, your body will adjust and you will feel much better for it. You said you worked 1st/3rd shift rotating. Try and sleep 2nd shift every night. 2) Talk to your manager, refuse to work rotating shifts anymore. Cite your adverse health as reasons why. 3) Transfer to a different unit. 4) Find a different place to work.

I had a lot of trouble with the therapeutic nursing communication for a while, until a classmate explained an easier way to answer these questions. First, reword the question to, "What initial therapeutic response would a nurse say to a victim of sexually assault?" 1. "You know self defense techniques." This response implies the nurse is making a decision for the patient. With therapeutic communication, the nurse is supposed to be focusing on the patient, and the patients feelings. So this one is OUT. 2. "I need to get a detailed description of what happened." Again, doesn't focus on the patient or the patient's feelings, so its OUT. 3. "Would you like me to send you to the clinic clergy." This is a favorite type of wrong answer on NCLEX questions. The answer is almost never, "have someone else do it." I always throw these out immediately, along with, "Can I call a family member for you?" and "Call the physician." 95% of the time, they are wrong. 4. "It seems what you did kept you from further harm." This is the best answer, although it's missing the patients feelings, it is a response centered around the patient, that doesn't imply a judgment.

1.) I made it into nursing school on my own merits, not because I have a member. Stop trying to insinuate otherwise. 2.) Stop with all the "what if" questions. I could understand if they even remotely had any bearing on the material we are going over. I would not be surprised if you said, "What if aliens attacked and vaporized all my sterile equipment, then what would I do?" Nursing is not something you can flowchart, learn to think on your own. 3.) We just learned about how silence can be a therapeutic communication technique, kindly try and follow it. I seriously cannot handle another 2 years of hearing you yap on and on about diseases in your family. Also, I can't stand to hear anymore of your motivational stories during lecture. Write a book. You could call it, "Chicken Soup for the D+ Nursing Student" 4.) I do not want to get to know you, stop trying to invite me into your inner circle. First, you gossip about everybody and I’ve heard you talk about me on occasion. If backbiting is going to be a hobby for you, it might be time to learn just how far the human ear can hear with acuity. Learn to develop a professional relationship with your classmates. I’m friendly, even eager to help, but I’m not sharing my personal life with you, you’re creepy and have a big mouth. 5.) Please stop complaining about the instructors while in the classroom. They are some of the most kindhearted, caring people I have ever known. But more importantly, their office is 8 feet away and this building has a drop ceiling. They hear EVERY word. 6.) I’m not your personal day planner. Stop asking me what assignments are due. It’s in the syllabus and I don’t think you can write a 600 word paper on cultures in the next 5 and half minutes. 7.) Stop asking me, “What diet are you on?”, and then just blowing me off when I say, “A balanced diet with about 1 hour of cardio a day.” You expect me to reveal some kind of inner dietary secret that will enable you to eat whatever you want and lose weight. I’d tell you that I eat 2 cups of spoiled cottage cheese everyday and rub my ass against the bark of a fresh pine tree if that would shut you up, but I’m afraid you’d come in the next day with diarrhea and splinters in your butt. 8.) I admire your gall. You come in at least 30 minutes late every day, usually carrying a bag of McDonald’s food in one hand, and a Starbucks coffee in the other, and loudly announce, “What did I miss?” You then expect the instructor to give you the reader’s digest version of the last 30 minutes of lecture. I smile a little at your anger when she doesn’t. That was therapeutic. Great thread.