meluhn

Soundofmusic, You put that so well, all management needs to read this. This is the problem with nursing everywhere. They have unrealistic expectations that we can never live up to because it is physically impossible, yet we run ourselves ragged trying and end up feeling like failures because we can almost never be successful. I for one would never, evergo back to the bedside in a million years, you couldn't pay me enough.

I started in home health almost a year ago. For me it has been a catch22. I love the flexibility,hate the hours and hours of paperwork that I bring home everyday and really hate the low pay. But, it works with my lifestyle, my husband isn't military but travels alot for work and I am solely responsable for the kids when he is gone. If I need to drive my son somewhere in the middle of the day for some reason, I can. It also depends on the agency. Mine is very family and nuirse friendly. My friend works for an agency where that is not the case.

Congrats on landing a job in these tough times. I have worked for (and did my clinical at) both of the health systems that each of these hospitals are a part of. I generally found the health system that starts with an S better than the other major one in our area that starts with an M. The M one seems to use nurses like work horses and burn them out. Nurse to pt ratios are worse than the other system. Again this has just been my experience. It all depends on your manager and the floor you are on. One thing I do like better about system M is the computer system. It is more like a windows system which I prefer and system S seems more like MAC. Good luck making your decision.

Recently I tried to straight cath an obese woman for ua/c&s and was unable to. I just gave the live-in a sterile cup and a peri wipe especially for clean catches and told her to do her best and call me when she got the sample. It came up negative so it was good enough.

If you can tough it out for a year it will look better on your resume and you will def be prepared for home health.

haha. it sounds stupid to me too but somewhere on one of these threads where the subject came up, someone proved that "orientate" was actually a legit word and not just someone pronouncing it wrong.

Me too. Im glad she got her license back but will she ever really want to work as a nurse again? I wouldn't.

I am full time. I do 6 visits/day & I make a little over $200/day. The per diem RN, doing the same 6 visits would make $50/visit = $300/day. But, I get PTO and I get the same if I do 4 visits or 7 so I think it all works out in the end.

That is good for a new grad. Unfortunately, you will never get rich doing HHN (or any other kind of nsg) but it is my favorite kind of nursing so far.

Up until recently, I thought I had a stellar relationship with my coworkers but it seems that they are all a bunch of backstabbers after all. I am disappointed but I still need the job and so I carry on. It disgusts me and I wish that I worked with all male coworkers. I dont think I would have the same problems. Just remember, if someone is talking badly about someone else, chances are they are doing the same to you, just not when you are around.

Eeow, Does that happen often? I would have to jump off the table and slap him, or if I was the nurse, a knee to the groin would be in order. That is so obnoxious.

Just a quick poop story... I was transfering a pt from toilet to wheelchair after they had a bm when my worst nightmare came true. They started to fall and I had no choice but to lower them to the floor using my leg which I had no choice but to strategically place between their dirty but crack to lower them down. It was either that or grab their upper body and squeeze but they would have definitly been hurt. I was quite traumatized by the whole thing and still had to fill out an incident report.

I did it one summer and the worst was one day a girl went into a severe asthma attack and had to take an ambulance ride to the hospital. The other major injury was a boy who broke his arm playing football or soemthing. Otherwise, lots of sore throats, lots of mini neb tx, headaches from not drinking enough in hot weather, mosquito bites, one ghonorhea of the throat (yup), a small lice epidemic in one bunk, tons of meds to give out, a yeast infection, a growth hormone shot, an infected ingrown toenail and other minor random stuff. We were lucky to have a parent/pediatrician on call at all times in the camp.

I did an LPN program full time when my 1st one was an infant. I dont recommend it. I started doing prereqs for RN/ADN program when my little guy was 3 and in preschool. I would run to class for the 3 hours while he was there and then run back to get him. It just worked out that by the time they were both in school FT, I was ready to start the program. You might want to look into getting your BSN and just taking classes slowly 1 or 2 at a time. The ADN program is really hard and fast. Only you know what you are capable of and how bad you want it. I personally would be setting myself up to fail if I tried it with 3 little ones. It is not just the class time you will be away. You will be mentally absent too. Devoted to your studying, care plans and papers, unable to cook or clean very much. It puts alot of stress on your family and marriage.

I just started in HH a few months ago and I am loving it. I just started case managing a case in which the pt is a 62 yo, lives alone in a 2nd story walk-up apartment and just had the whipple procedure done for pancreatic ca. He will be going for chemo when his incision heals. I plan on talking to the oncologist and my manager about this but isn't that going to be kind of rough getting home after tx? I know the prognosis for pancreatic ca is not good but does this procedure improve it dramatically? I am wondering if I should be concerned about his living situation. Should I get SW involved? Try to nudge him towards moving someplace more accessible in his compromised position? I dont know how much family support he has if any.