midlife_nurse

Jeannepaul, I've been where you are, and its painful. I loved the work I did for my company, but with the decline in the use of CC, our team of 15 Lpn's who did 12-hour continuous care shifts was cut to 5, then three, then one, and the one only gets ...

One of the most important things we nurses should keep in mind, with every patient, every day, is this: "What if this were my family member- how would I feel right now?" If we use our empathy and put ourselves in their place, we can always provide th...

I had been intrigued by hospice since nursing school- one of my instructors was also a hospice nurse and encouraged us to check it out. I experienced hospice care up close with two family members, and ended up going to work with one of those agencies...

Was making $16/hr as a new grad in the big teaching university hospital, and now 3 yrs later making $18/hr in hospice, nights, with a good amount of OT and good benefits. But the mileage reimbursement is not good- I'm sure that's failing a lot of pro...

My office assures us that we have discretion in choosing whether a situation is safe- driving, home, neighborhood etc. As a crisis care nurse, however, I've been advised that if I'm in a home with a patient whose death is imminent, that I should be p...

I'm a new hospice nurse too. Almost 3 years LPN experience, and now a night shift crisis care nurse for Gentiva (Odyssey) and I LOVE IT SO MUCH. Best nursing decision I ever made. My team is fantastic- always helping each other, very patient with me ...

Long cases can be boring- but you must always stay ready and vigilant because when you let your mind wander, that's when they will want something unusual that they haven't used in 6 months for a case like this, and supply has been rearranged since th...

Being an LPN in the MD office where I work is NOT easier. The GP doc I work with sees 40 patients a day, and there are two of us nurses. We take their vitals and complaints and refill requests, enter everything into the computer chart (older MD w...

If you call your MD or any ambulatory care or walk-in clinic, they will quote you cash price for services if you ask. I work in a clinic and have given PPD to lots of new nursing students. We had a patient who had Hepatitis B titers drawn after comp...

I have a pair of purple croc clogs that I bought from the closeout section of Alegria's website and I LOVE them! I work 12 hour shifts either mostly standing in a small area (scrubbing) or walking quickly over a large area (circulating) and they are ...

Our hospital uses the dispenser- we each get two credits for two sets of scrubs. XS is kept in a separate shelf for the petite staff, S thru 2XL is in the machine. We have the same problems with size range- some days you get new, HUGE scrubs and some...

I was hired into a perioperative training program at a teaching hospital straight out of LPN school. Our hospital teaches LPN's to scrub and circulate, usually providing breaks to circulating RNs. It was 6 months of classroom and precepted training b...

I'm an LPN and I scrub and circulate. My hospital trains LPNs to do both. I am often a "0.5" person meaning I help set up cases and give breaks to both the scrub and circulator in one or two OR's. We have a few LPN/First Assistants as well but there ...

Yes, we always check. Most of our instruments are in pans, and a lot of vendors use their own proprietary pans that get wrapped. The ones with rounded edges almost never get holes (example Synthes and Medtronic spine), and the ones with square corner...

I work in the OR, and last summer I worked with the Ortho Trauma team. I had a dream that because of the busy summer accident season, team members had to host surgery in their home if needed because there weren't enough OR slots available. I was to h...

I don't live in Memphis but I have some advice. Medical assisting costs $18000 to train you for a $10/hr job with no insurance. Go to LPN school at TTC instead. (I did both and wish I hadn't wasted my money on MA classes.) However if you ONLY want to...

Update: I did see on the national news tonight that a) The US government is concerned that we won't have enough surgical masks stockpiled if the pandemic flu continues (they want millions), and b) there are concerns that since most masks are manufac...

Our masks are in a central location, and sometimes a box of one particular style or another will be empty or missing, but we definitely haven't been asked to conserve! Gotta wonder why cost cutting vs. patient safety keeps being an issue. What next ...

OR nurses do it while you're asleep. Neurosurgery nurses do it in the dark, under the microscope.

You undress from your hospital-issued scrubs at the end of your shift and in the shirt pocket, you find two scalpel blades, a pack of 3-0 Nylon and a half tube of Bacitracin ointment. :chuckle

9) Not being easily offended by off-color jokes- people seem to speak a little more freely in the small rooms and close-knit community away from family members, the public and other patients. I know it's crass to mention, but it's true. How many time...

I'm with you in thinking that you should hang in there until you can move on. I work with a great group of people who are not into "eating their young," and as a new nurse and new OR employee, I've been treated very well and I'm very grateful. I'm s...

:yeah:Way to go, NURSE! I felt the same way you did when it cut off at 85.... "oh no... that was too fast, I must have BOMBED!"

Math was my nemesis too- at 42 I didn't remember how to do anything without a calculator so the entrance exam was very hard. I worked my butt off, did well even on Pharmacology, graduated last year with fantastic grades and have my dream job in the O...

Working in Neuro and Ortho Trauma for only a year, I've never seen anyone in lithotomy at all... but I'm teachable. And the MD didn't mention ROM, he only talked about lowering the legs. I have checked under the drapes to make sure heels, elbows etc ...