BaystateRN

I accidently double posted, so I'll add one more thing. People who show up after visiting hours are over, go into the room talking like it's noon and wake both patients up.

Treating me like I am a maid by using the call bell for non nursing issues.

It is really hard not to gain weight. For me, my brain thinks if I eat something my body will feel better. That doesn't work. I also find that I want to eat before I go to bed in the morning. I have solved that by eating something low calorie like two eggs, over hard or scrambled. (then I don't want toast). Not that I've licked this, but I am making progress. Keep track of your calories and eat as little as you have to before going to sleep in the morning. Good luck.

It amazes me to look at the posts from the foreign nurses. It makes me wonder, why they train for a job that pays poorly and for a job that has an overabundance of nurses in their country. It seems the only reason why they do it is to come to the US. Are any nurses in the US applying for jobs outside of this country. In Canada you are not allowed to have a job unless no one wants it, also the same way in Bermuda. Why the tude if we are not all pleased that this country is not taking care of those who are already here. You also take a job and put someone in it who is willing to do most anything and work for almost anything, it will bring the wages down.

I had osteo arthritis in my knees for years. I say had because the joints were replaced, at 46! The only thing that saved me was going on a tricylic antidepressant. It keeps the endorphins around a little longer and raises your pain threshold. I was the doubting one and it really worked. It takes a week or two to work and sometimes you have to play with the dosing. Good Luck to your husband.

I am not attacking foreign nurses. The question started with... should the government be recruiting foreign nurses. As an American no one will ever convince me that you shouldn't start at home. There are Americans who have lost their jobs and can be retrained. Someone responded that nursing is a calling, but some of them may have chosen another path at first and now would make a wonderful nurse. We are a mulitcultural society, but I think they are over estimating their ability to slide into American health care. It takes me, with trying and a lot of exposure a few weeks to understand everything they are saying. Also, there is a lot of language differences that you would never learn in a text book. If we don't find jobs for all of these unemployed workers, some of them very intelligent with college degrees, we will have foreign nurses taking care of people who don't have any health care. In Canada, no foreigner gets offered a job unless there are no Canandians who want the job.

Our government would not be crazy to educate more Americans to be nurses. If we bring nurses from other countries it would put a patch on the problem, but not solve it. We have many who work two and three jobs to make ends meet, if we made it easier for them to be nurses, it would change their way of life and that of their families. We also have many high tech jobs that have disappeared to other countries. They already have some advanced degrees. They could be retrained to be nurses. It may sound a little catty, but maybe instead of sending money to foreign countries with their hands out, we should invest in those already here.

Absolutely not, nurses should not be recruited from other countries. We had a big influx of nurses in the 80's come from all over the world. It didn't solve any nursing shortage then. It took quite a while for some to assimilate into our way of nursing and of health care in general. If nurses were not so stressed on the job, they may work more hours and may encourage others including their own children to become nurses. I, for one, am tired of companies using foreign workers to supplement staffing or replace staffing.

This question is directed to permanent night nurses. Do any of you have problems with mixing up words, you know what you are saying, but the right words don't come out? It drives me crazy.

I had to Kwell a homeless man's hair. I might add that a fellow nurse had him on her assignment from 7p to 11p and dumped him on me at 11p. I poured the Kwell on and out came a bunch of maggots!!

I am answering this as a mother, and not a pedi nurse. My oldest, now 17, screamed and screamed. She slept only an hour or two at a time. At three months, I changed her formula to a soy based formula and within 48 hours I had a new child. I don't recommend hopscotching around with the formulas, but three or four days trying a soy based formula might help.

We weigh just about all the babies on our floor every day. For the most part, the night shift does it somewhere between midnight and six am. When the child is a toddler, the adherence is not 100%. A lot of these kids sleep all night, and to wake them just to weigh them is so disruptive to already stressed parents. I think the six hour time frame gives everyone enough time to do the daily weights. I think it is important as the parents aren't always reliable about I's and O's.

While I totally think the trouble maker should go, can your self confidence and peace of mind take the pressure with no end in sight? I almost got out of nursing because I worked with people who would not work together. They wouldn't help with the really heavy patients and I felt like a haggard old woman every day I left work. I changed my position within the same hospital and all I can say is I LOVE my coworkers. Good luck. Go with your heart.

Obviously you've never walked in our shoes. Are those nurses that aren't answering your relatives call bell fast enough sitting around doing nothing? I rarely ever even get a half hour dinner break in a twelve hour shift. Just pass out meds for five patients? I don't think so.

I worked with a float RN who thought everything and almost every patient wasn't "appropiate" when she was pregnant. I finally told her that we were her coworkers, not her friends, and if she couldn't do most of her job, she belonged at home. I don't mind that they can't be exposed to the TORCH viruses and heavy lifting towards the end of their pregnancy's but sometimes enough!