annreese

Has anyone had any experience with the bd nexiva catheters? They have the extension tube attatched. It seems like a novel idea but has anyone had any problems with them?

I have actually worked in all three systems that you spoke about. I have not worked at kaiser for a long time, but I was not all that impressed, maybe its changed, the doctors at that time did not respect us and we were rather marginalized. Legacy emanuel is a very good hospital, it gets a very wide range of patients into the ICU and med/surg, its the only burn center in the region, alot of traumas come in, I think the nursing population was very friendly. Providence I think is also very good, there several centers in the region, St. v's is very good, never had a problem when there, but again its been awhile since I worked there, I was there as a patient and it was very pleasant.

I have such bad allergies in the spring and summer, I will come into work with my eyes swollen up and i'll have to spend the first 20 minutes with a warm washcloth over my eyes. Im in portland but I think eugene is going to be more or less the same.

Hm, I know all of the nurses on my unit have alot of experience, in fact the nursing population here is more or less more experienced except for med/surg which hire more new nurses. The other portland hospital I worked for also didn't have any new nurses in ICU, I might try med/surg first and them try to get into ICU, I think youll be both more prepared and more competitive for the job. Like ICU_chick said, CRNA school is very competitive, and you will need more than one year.

NE eh?? nothing against them although I think youll find some better choices in SW. try forrent.com

haha tuality kind of has a bad rep, there sort of a small little hospital waay out there in hillsboro, I would not want to work there. St v's now your talking, I would consider it one of the better hospitals in the area, there a lot of hype about OHSU and legacy, but I think St. V's has a better community and is a very good hospital to work in. Ive never actually been to adventist, east side right?, I hear its good though, read an article about some of their more progressive nursing programs.

pay here is more or less commensurate with experience, there is also (at least at my facility) a preference for BSN's, I only only one ASN here. In addition I would say the job market in portland is becoming more competitive for nurses, I think OHSU just froze hiring and its been restricted at a few other. The average salary in portland is 51K a year for nurses according to the article I read, so youll probably be close to that. Keep in mind we have a pretty high cost of living here.

I think oregon gets a reputation for being a bunch of hicks, its quite distressing, I've lived here my entire life and have never even met anyone resembling that stereotype. As far as racism goes, there are several african american nurses here and I see no signs of racism, although I am not african american myself so I would most likely not see if there were, but I have never thought oregon to have a large racist population.

I just found this: http://www.ashp.org/Import/PRACTICEANDPOLICY/PracticeResourceCenters/DrugShortages/GettingStarted/ResolvedShortages/Bulletin.aspx?id=473

We were talking about these today, I looked it up online they seemed pretty cool, has anyone used these? Can they support more than just one channel?

Well I spoke with the nurse administrator today, he didn't know and thought it was ridiculous too and he said he would speak with the pharmacy who are responsible with filling it. Hopefully I will get my darn saline flushes back!

We don't have med rooms here.. what do you use them for?

definitely a time killer. We can draw up our own from the patients IV bag if they have one, we do still have syringes. But why should I have to, I really don't understand the logic, I understood when the took the narcotics off the floor, to prevent diversion and such we had some incidences a while back. And they explained when they took off the other meds. But saline? Oh give me a break.....No one is going to steal saline....and its pretty hard if you ask me to overdose a patient on saline with a 10ml syringe so the pharmacist really doesnt need to overlook the order. argh I don't know. maybe I'll have one the doctors write an order for 1000ml of saline in 10ml syringes every morning, thatll drive the pharmacy crazy. "wait who gets billed for it?" "uh the cranky one on the end?, yea him he called me a candy striper" actually i dont think we bill for saline flushes but thats beyond the point

I actually somewhat understand the underlying logic. They are trying to integrate the pharmD into the whole process, we input the orders into the computer, they go down to pharmacy, pharmacy overlooks the order, sometimes theyll call us up if theres a problem and they send up the order, occasionally already drawn up and everything, its actually kind of nifty, however I think theyve taken it a bit too far, they took our IV bags and that was enough of an annoyance, but now this is just ridiculous. And to boot the other nurses didn't see a problem with it! other nurse: "well how often do you need to flush" me:"uh I don't know, quite often" other nurse:"and its so urgent you can't 30 seconds for it...?"...well ok maybe not but thats not the point, why should I have to wait? No one has given me a good answer to that question. I think I'll go up to nurse management tomorrow and figure out what the deal is.

Okay so my hospital has been migrating towards taking medications out of the pyxis units more and more for about a year. It started off they took out the controlled drugs, than the expensive one,s then some other ones. It has come to the point where there are no more drugs kept in our pyxis, we order then from the pharmacy and they come up through the tube thingy. It's pretty fast, almost instantaneous, I am not sure how it works. I think the only drugs we keep on the floor are in the crash cart. So this morning I go to pyxis to grab a saline flush.....no saline flush.... I run over to the other pyxis down the hall....no saline flush. I ask a colleague of mine and apparently saline flushes are also considered a legend med now and thus will not be kept on the floor any longer. I was LIVID, you mean I have to ORDER a saline flush? Are you kidding me? That is absolutely ridiculous. I just DO NOT understand the rationale behind this. Apparently they still have them on the floor in ER, but not in the CCU? I under stand not keeping narcotics, even other drugs, but when they start taking my saline I will not sit and be quiet. What do you keep in your pyxis? Am I just crazy for thinking this is a bad idea?