nursemon

I definetely would have changed the bed! That pt may have been so exhausted after walking that they may not have wanted to wait in a chair until the bed was finished, then transferred into bed. I would have told the d/c pt that you are finishing up with a pt and then you'd be right in. That nurse was unprofessional to yell at you. As a nurse, if my assistants are busy and I have a few minutes I would have taken that pt out myself.

I would not wake them either. I agree with the previous reply that I would let them know ahead of time, like when you do your first assessment of the shift-I say to my patients "I won't be waking you up tonight unless I need to so you can get your rest, but I will be hanging IV meds or giving meds through your IV." That way they know and I have never had a pt refuse it.

I would recommend you do the RN program. I am an LPN that is trying to get into an RN bridge program and it's very frustrating! I wished I would have done the RN thing. After school I would get some experience on the floor or just go straight to the OR, depending on the amount of patient contact you want.

Congrats on becoming a nurse! Here's some answers I hope will help: 1. Have been an LPN for 5 years (and am currently in school to obtain my RN) 2. I have done school nurse, med-surg nursing and labor delivery/mother-baby nursing 4. Be open for anything, any kind of experience. I would definately get med-surg experience first because that is a good foundation to have prior to moving onto anything else. 5. My advice would be to obtain all the knowledge you can, but do not stress out if you don't know every little thing. My experience has been that you get your knowledge base from your education but you get the bigger picture and you gain more of your knowledge and experience from working. Good luck to you~!!!