mykrosphere

HORRIBLE! i dont even know how to reply, except the new job thing.....yeah.....do that! i have been encountered with this a couple of times where i was just told to "chart this" or "chart that" and i could not do it. i didnt lose my job over it, but the charge sure was not happy. i do not work there anymore. just a couple days ago i found an error where a doc charted in a pts chart that was not even his patient and wrote an insulin order and progress note.... it was obvious who he meant to chart on i guess, the room next to the one he did, and i heard from the oncoming nurse that i should just take the progress note out of the chart and put it in the right chart and put a new sticker on..... im sorry but IM NOT DOING THAT! that is altering a record and i will not be responsible for any doctors mess up. i passed it on to the charge and hopefully they can take care of this. there was no harm done thank god, but what if there was? it would have been nursings fault.... just take care of you and what you are responsible for. i couldnt imagine taking the fall for someone elses screw up at this point in my life. we have enough to worry about!

this situation makes me horribly sad. i dont think that anyone knows the jist of whats really happening..... i dont pray but all of my love and hope goes to japan. there are just no words

i think you should be happy that you have the help and he wants to help! i have been a single mom for 21 years, been a nurse for 11, and i second the crockpot ideas, although a lot of food doesnt take long to cook! freezing and leftovers made into something else is also good advice too. frozen ahead of time is still better than fast food

bug them! i think it is an hr issue also. it took me 3 months to get the job i got after interviewing and i was so desperate i bugged them constantly. the hr person got fired not long after i started. who knows what they do when theyre supposed to be working?!

my first job after graduating was in dialysis. it was 4-10 hour shifts between 10am-around 8pm. of course there is first shift also which starts out super early (i think ours was from 6am-2pm) but its an option. we did work every other holiday though....but off for the sunday after christmas and new years i learned a lot in dialysis too.......!! if youre worried about pay and all that, the hospital would be your best bet. but children never become children again.....youre wise not to want to miss out also, there are a lot of places that hire in to first shift because a lot of people do not want to leave the "comfort" (i am a night shifter going on 11 years) of night shift

this is just wrong and unsafe :sofahider i have the week off and i am tired of even thinking (about it) i work in an ltach east/ midwest. 5 pts at night (although i have had up to 7 we supposedly do not have an icu unit anymore. 80 percent of our pts are trached/ half of those vented/ some on pressors/ sedation/ many out-of- their- mind- fall risks/ many weighing at least 300 pounds (double that for a handful), many full codes who shouldnt be and whose family cannot let go/ etc etc 8 pages of charting on each patient. we are supposed to do our own labs (even though we have lab), and our own vitals and blood sugars (we have NA's), and process all orders (no unit clerk) it makes me want to cry really....and know that i will never have my own family member there. everyone is mad/ upset about something all the time- mostly family/ pts. not to mention staff. it wasnt like this before we were acquired by another company. our pts are not regular med surg pts. i wish they were! i wish something could be done about this issue also. there are so many nurses who need jobs, and so many nurses with jobs who could use the help!!!

lopressor, insulin, tylenol, vanco, ambien

agreeing with some of the other posters, if you are not paid for your lunch/ break, then you should be able to do whatever you want to do !(within reason, obviously drinking or whatever is not right when you have to return to work) some people lead busy lives with kids and other issues. i guess sometimes 30 minutes of napping can be a relief!

i totally agree at this point in my life... i have driven before in storms (no 4wd ever), and will drive in the snow, but....... in the end, i wont be a lot of good to anyone if im dead, and to be honest, my place of work has deteriorated so much lately that is just not worth it trying to make it in just to get treated like poo once i do get there. the manager was trying to argue with me that weather was not an excuse to call in. i told her i was calling off anyway, so it should be interesting to see what the outcome is. i never call off. and im sure others have called off as well today and will in the a.m. due to the weather. we are mostly getting the brunt of it now. (i work 7pm to 730am) we take care of people 24 hrs a day 7 days a week 365 days a year.......rain snow sun.......whatever! i think its okay to take care of ourselves once in awhile too, because no one else is going to. and if that means being cautious (re: smart) or knowing limits and not trying to get into a dangerous situation just to go to work, then so be it. i respect mother nature more than i do my manager.

apresoline amiodarone hydralazine most beta blockers (esp. lopressor, labelotol, coreg) cardizem nitro ASA digoxin hctz coumadin

^ this! especially if they are a pulmonary pt/ have a pulmonary doctor. often times calling a doctor in charge of a respiratory patient will produce more effective results, even if its not completely respiratory related. or, if you have an on-call in house doctor, most times they can give you what you are looking for. and if that doesnt work, i go to the supervisor and let her deal with it. sometimes all that is needed is a call/ plead from them. and if that doesnt work, do your best and as others have said, document EVERYTHING

i smoke, and wish i had never started, but its how it is. my hospital is also a smoke free campus (meaning, we are supposed to be off the property to smoke if we so choose). this poses a problem with some who choose to abuse their breaks, but in general its not really an issue where i work, on night shift anyway... not ever getting to take a lunch, i average 5 minutes twice a night for a cigarette, equally ten minutes. i pay on average 20 dollars more per pay for being a smoker. i have not been to the doctor in years though... it was recently revealed that a large health care company who owns half of the hospitals where i live will no longer be employing smokers. this is fine and all, and i understand the reasoning behind this, but if this is the case, tobacco being legal and all, i think they should not hire overweight people either, seeming as how 75 percent of the people i take care of are obese or morbidly obese and their health issues mostly stem from that. not hiring obese people and smokers would open up the job market a bit for all these new grads who cant seem to find jobs. half of the people i work with are overweight, and the other half smoke. if i ever do have to go to the doctor it will probably be due to my trying to reposition one of the 600 pound pts i frequently take care of, not from repositioning the 80 pound 3 pack a day copd'er. at any rate, i do not think its fair to not hire anyone based on their personal choices if it does not effect their ability to do their job. i pay for all this insurance that i never use, and i do not abuse my break(s) insurance companies dont have to cover smokers. but it shouldnt matter if someone smokes as to whether they get hired or not

this is amazing to me as i had no idea about the sizes of needles used in er and related areas! the largest needles ive seen have been 14s-15s-16s with dialysis patients when i worked in that field. i have a few piercings also, but i could not imagine sticking someone with a 14 unless they were renal that is a huge needle! i work in ltac and we are lucky to get 20s in. there are not really any veins to be had. thankfully we usually have someone who can throw in a central line or picc

i do not have a significant other, and havent for quite some time, but this issue has muddied up relationships in the past. it takes time to learn how to deal with this stuff, and lets face it, most people dont want to hear about the messed up stuff we have to deal with as nurses because it IS depressing! the one thing i have found that helps, is finding someone who does the same thing as you (nursing) and getting it out that way. and sometimes, to get away from yourself and work, you may have to extend the listening/ patience when you get home, and instead of venting, let him talk about what hes doing. sometimes listening to someone else talk about things other than what youre dealing with helps to clear the mind and get away from yourself and work for a minute. on the other hand, being in a relationship should include listening to you also, and if he is so sensitive that he doesnt want to hear it because of how it affects him, then maybe he needs to work on that. its a 2 way street.

sounds like she is burnt out, and you should not have to deal with it, no matter if shes your preceptor or not. we are all humans here (well most of us), and there is no reason for that sort of behavior from anyone.

i think this year (well, hope, anyway) may be better.... but last year we had a group of students on the 3-11 shift (we are 7-7). there is only one teacher, and for some reason only one student can pass meds to one patient at any time that evening, and the rest of the 5-10 students are sitting at the nurses station talking about nothing, learning nothing, and not offering to do anything to help. its pretty frustrating. i understand there may be a liability issue involved, but when a bed alarm is going off, and its the room closest to the station, and none of the students, or teacher, get up to help, i think thats ridiculous. and if they are not giving meds, they are still hogging the MAR and when i explain i need to give medication to this patient they "have" they say they are still using it. they make it hard to chart or get meds passed and sometimes cause a bit of resentment. to end that note, i appreciate students who do actually want to learn and help out. most of the things you learn as a nurse are going to be by actually doing them and not reading about them. its nice to see someone who is actually interested in what they are going to school for! i appreciate most of their thoroughness and the thousand of questions. asking questions is a good thing!! if you are not asking questions, then you either dont care to know, or just think you already know, which is not safe. and as a nurse, we never really know it all.

"What does "charge nurse" mean to you?" not a lot..we have 3, sometimes a 4th, who rotate on my shift. sometimes a whole night can go by without seeing one of them (unless its to tell us shes going out to smoke). we havent been able to figure out what they are doing most of the night. sometimes they help out if someone is drowning and starts making a fuss and freaking out that they are in fact drowning, but we usually have to ask for their help in order to get any help at all. i depend more on my fellow rn/lpns on the floor, and the cnas if i need help, and i try to return the same favor. our charge nurses do not take an assignment at all, and if they do have to, its usually the easiest one available with the least amount of patients/ less sick patients. they do not do any discharges or admissions, and definetly not chart checks. the only thing i have consistently seen them do is the assignments for the oncoming shift. i would imagine your doing a fabulous job, because most of us are not privledged enough to have this sort of support! so thanks for helping us/ them out. i am sure it is much appreciated! :rckn:

"Can't get the stink off He's been hanging round for days Comes like a comet Suckered you but not your friends One day he'll get to you Teach you how to be a holy cow You do it to yourself you do And that's what really hurts is You do it to yourself just you You and no-one else You do it to yourself You do it to yourself" radiohead-'just'

this is how we treat those who have sacrificed for us.......?!!?? how sad. and wrong

i worked in an inner city ltc that i thought was the absolute worst in the world. apparently there are quite a few like such around the us/ world. i took the job because i needed a job. i managed to stay there for a year and a month until one day when i drove into the parking lot.....i just could not force myself to go in. my opinion is that no, you cant change a bad situation. the only time i have seen this happen is when a completely different company buys out the bad one, and sometimes that only makes it worse. the nursing home i worked for thankfully got bought by someone unknown company and has been shut down completely. its too bad for the patients in a way, because there was a subacute side and where i worked took long term vent pts and now there options are extremely limited to different cities, but maybe it will work out for them. one thing i can say is that in my ten years as a nurse, and a couple as an aide, i have never learned as much as i did there. that was one good thing that came out of it anyway. it seems to be all about the buck in ltc and thats too bad because that business is going to explode in a few years and older people really are awesome

i agree. awesome question......that i never really questioned!

i used to work in dialysis and have never heard of benadryl being given diluted through a line.

the only drugs i have ever diluted are protonix (which pharm specifically states to mix with 10 ml of ns) and ativan for im injection (because man that hurts!) if a drug needs to be diluted, it is usually done so and hung as a piggyback. 100 percent of our antibiotics are hung piggyback. and 99 percent of our patient population has a picc or central line. i have never had an issue with not diluting. but i have heard plenty of complaints about the taste of a saline flush (??)

this thread is pretty funny:grn:

fortunately the last etoh cocaine abuse pt i saw had a trach. he ended up on his icu room floor even while restrained x 3. a doctor happened to be rounding and ordered him vented with diprovan