laughingfairy

when I was in nursing school I witnessed something similar. Mom came in with c/o cramping. We asked her last fetal movement is it normal, etc, Whe was 36 weeks. She was telling us she felt movement all over the place. But we couldn't get any fetal heart tones. ultasound and exam revealed that the baby was engaged and had suffered fetal demise. (the ob said as much as 3 days earlier) She had a fever and was in active labor. It took 20 minutes. The baby had "softened" so much that when the baby was born (no pulling, forceps, or vacum involved) the poor things head just kinda "fell off". And I know this sounds terrible, but I really saw it. Mom didn't believe until that time that the baby was gone. It was horrifying for me. Thank god my instructer had the compassion not to ask me to write a paper on that case. Instead we did a lot of talking. Even with the birth of both of my dtrs I was terrified it was going to happen to me.

I was terminated after just six weeks at a job. I had worked agency previously so this was my first real job. It was a poor fit for me and them. I was given a very unsatisfactory review. However, in my case it was also about the fact that I had been hired into a position that didn't exsist and the DON who hired me was fired my first day and the Administrator who hired me quit without notice my second day. So alot of it was political. I always put it on my application, but never on my resume. (in this area having to complete both is par for the course.) Anyway I was devistated. I cried for days. It was a major blow to my self esteem and pride. I felt stupid and incompetent. (they hadn't even bothered to do it in person, but rather over the phone.) Since then life has given me alot of perspective. Sadly many new grads are fired from first jobs. I've seen it often. More of the theory of nursing eating their own. Most of them have gone on to have wonderful careers. one decided to be a stay at home mom and homeschool her kids (one of the reasons she was terminated was poor attedance due to her children.) Another went on to work in wound therapy and does great at it. Another found a facility in the same speciality that gave her an extended oriantation as well as a lower acuity floor. So do not despair. Be forth right and honest. Good luck.

while emotionally I agree with the entire idea of castration, I do feel I need to point out that castration doesn't work. In fact even with out the "right equipment" these men reoffend using whatever implements are at hand. In some ways it may even be more difficult to convict them later on because of the lack of semen at the scene and the fact that they are castrated. Most of the time these acts are not about sex but about power. I think we should lock them all up togethor and just shove food under the door. No interaction with the outside world. Let them do unto each other as they would do on the outside. :angryfire :angryfire

Don't do it for guilt. As a weekend supervisor I have to call people to see if they will come in or not. People act really surprised when I tell them "no" is an acceptable answer. I work very little overtime, Don't have to have the money and my top priority is my family and being with them right now.

When my mother was working in a psych facility a nurse was fired and lost her license over something like this. They used stock meds instead fo unit doses...so (by the way this was a geriatric forensic psych ward) when every one would start getting wild she would dose everyone with liquid risperdal. No one paid any attention because it didn't happen every day or even every week, the bottles weren't counted, the bottles were huge and frequently got spilled. My mom said she understood sometimes and that sometimes it was real bad. She would joke that it would have been easier and safer just to fill a water gun with the stuff and shoot at everyone from the nurses station. But it was just that, a joke. She always would speak of the dangers involved and taht it was illegal.

Gotta tell you I checked and I know two facilities that should be on it but aren't...Yikes. And at least one that was on it I thought looked awsome and have been told good things about. I'm confused.

Many facilities have a policy of suspension without pay pending investigation. If you are cleared and even if you do find another job, demand pay for that time. Go to the labor board. They are very supportive of this. As some facilities have been known to do this simply to get rid of people. The accused gets suspended. Days even weeks go by. They find another job but are techinically still suspended, etc. Labor board does not like that kind of thing. If they have not documented that you were suspended for x, y, and z that have been determined to be true it can not be a true suspension, and there for (in many states) are entitled to your pay, pto, and benefits. In fact while your waiting contact the labor board.

What makes me crazy are the nurses who their 2nd day of oriantation tell me "I've got it". Some people really want to do it that way. Me personally I want to know every single one of the residents. If things aren't real busy some of my favorite activities are having nurses review the policy and procedure manual and then compare it to the pharmacy's manual. (they are actually different.) Then quiz them on how they interpret it and why? I also like them to review the residents' charts and tell me what they find. Meds, dx, holes in history, care plan stuff, etc. I think it helps alot in LTC when you have 23 residents who may be perfectly stable but have multiple underlying conditions. If its the end of the month, we do POFs. Its amazing what you can learn about residents if you do POFs in detail. I also try to give nurses a heads up about the different doctors. You know the "this one won't do anything unless you say 'I want thus and so' and this one never offer a suggestion unless you really don't want that because to him if a nurse suggests it he has to come up with something different." It rarely happens that way though.

If they never have to walk into the patient's room right there is part of the problem. A) If they truly never walk into the paitient's room then they are just plain nuts. If something goes wrong, bet your bottom dollar the hospital, the school, and even you are going to say "but the nurse assigned to this patient should have known XYZ". Taking a report from you is one thing, but you are still a student and in my experiance all those assessements, etc. have to be done anyway. It can be more time consuming for the nurse. I know it always through me out of my routine because I did my assessment while I did care. The assessment takes just as long by itself. B) This could be a problem with your perception. Maybe you don't relize what the nurses need to do when they have a student. The hospital I used to work at had alot of students. We had to check all of their MARs and if a med was not given, given late etc. It was still our med error. Now students couldn't give meds without their instructure so the instructure is trying to give 8 people meds at the same time and quizzing the students about what each med is for, and I was freaking out that geez here are all these med errors on me. We had to read every note. Even though the instructure had signed off on all the notes we also had to sign that we agreed with the note or write why we didn't agree, then we had to right a variance report. Don't even get me started about education and discharges.So if on med-surg you start the day with 8 patients, discharge 3 and get 2 post-ops on your 8 hr shift and then (usually the most stable) 3-4 patients have students, can you see how the day may actually be more difficult. Please don't get me wrong. I love having student nurses and precepting. I love to teach. I just think that the expectations on both sides get mixed up. I love it when you guys pick up on something that I missed. I love showing you guys new techniques and giving you a chance to do things that you want to do (and some that you don't). But please come to clinical prepared. Know what Lasix is (honest to god LPN to RN program the girl didn't know it by name or generic), know your general side effects of ABT and opiods, read up on your patient before hand. When your instructure can have things handled smoothly with out having to focus on one person who didn't do their homework, it makes the entire unit run better. good luck and welcome to nursing!!!

All nurses that I know purchase there own scrubs. Except if they work in a specialty area such as OR, Nicu, or LD. Yes there is some concern about taking the crud home with you, however hotwater and bleach kill all those buggers. One of the reasons most of my uniforms are white. That or I use Lysol disinfectent in my laundry...personally I'm more concerned about my shoes.

definetly 2 pockets hanging out. I'm over weight and think it helps hide problem areas. Also if you wear white or light color pants and a contrasting top it shows through if you tuck it in and then I think it just looks goofy. A few people I have seen who do tuck in are constanly rearranging themselves because things become half tucked, wrinkled etc when they are on their hands and knees crawling around on the floor, doing pt care, during a code, etc.

Yes I have run into the same problem...or MDs not calling back...or MD on call for medical director not available for call for medical director only for emergencies with his patients...its a horrible process... Do you have a nurse or administrator on call...If you do, I would notify the supervisor and that person as well (or have the supervisor do it if staff nurses aren't supposed to) and I would document right in the nurses' notes...who I called...did you page direct or via service...who I spoke to...why I spoke to dr. x instead of dr. a. (i.e. on call)...times I called. who else i notified such as family or guardian...other interventions i tried...very strong assessment...not just of specific problem but entire body...heck do a skin check too if it doesn't comprimise the resident...just my 2 cents.

For me depends what shift. AM 1) insulin 2) metopropolol 3) lasix 4) colace 5) senna PM 1) risperdal 2) aricept 3) depakote 4)seraquel 5) restoril

Why don't you look at Delaware or the eastern shores of Maryland or VA. Its close to the beach, weekends in the Poconos, or along sky line drive aren't ridiculus. Close to DC, Baltimore, and Philly. Not terribly far from NYC, VA beach, or Richmond. New grad LPN pay depends on where you are willing to work. I know girls who live on the eastern shore because cost of living is low, but do weekend programs in one of the cities and thats all they work. Guess it just depends on how flexible you are.

Absolutly...I just know the difference in me...imagine being12 years old and unable to sleep for 36 hours because it caused you that much anxiety and because you were so depressed. Imagine remembering being 6 years old and thinking when you saw your pet die that death was a good idea... My first memories of childhood are of overwhelming sadness and just wishing the ground would open and swallow me. I'm talking about for me personally those side effects are nothing compared to what I lived with day to day. I believe that antidepressents are too quickly perscribed with out the counseling and othe coping mechanisms taught. However I don't believe that they should be thrown out the window.

My sister is a medical tech (the BS type not as in pt tech). During her labs one of the things the professor had them do was fill a latex and nonlatex glove with water, tie a knot in them and leave them sit on the lab bench over night. In the morning both gloves had puddles of water beneath them and were obviously deflated. The non latex glove had lost more water than the latex glove. It is a lesson she came home and shared with me and when I question gloving and double gloving, I double glove. And if for some reason I have to wear nonlatex (they come in all of our sterile kits) I put a pair of clean latex gloves on underneath.

As someone who has suffered from major depression most of my life, I don't even think of them as happy pills. I think of them as my functional pills. I was first dx with depression when I was 9. I have been on so many different meds as they became available. Some worked a little, some did nothing, but the more recent drugs are definetly better. So I believe that we are making progress.

I do not believe that we should stop chemically treating depression. Here are my reasons 1) medicine has a long history of effectively treating some ailments without a true understanding of the underlying disease process for a very long time. True during the trial and error stage crazy things have been done, based on totally incorrect hypothesis, but some times it worked and we were able to learn in a backwards way, having found one solution and then identifying the true problem. 2) I believe as time goes on we will find out that depression and anxiety are not "mental illnesses" that they are biological illnesses of great complexity and that the fear of many that we will medicate people just to make every one happy will be found to be incorrect. As we get better at medicating and the drugs themselves get better, incapacitating illness such as GAD and Major depressive disorder, post partem depression will be cured. But we will be able to leave the person able to experiance emotions of both great joy and great sadness. Just not to the point where the person is no longer able to function. 3) I also believe that this research will show us that many of the "somatic" complaints are actually linked to the same neurotransmitters involved with depression and anxiety.. As you pointed out these neurotransmitters occur through out the body. You specifically mentioned the production of seratonin. How many times now are we finding medications for GI disorders that a few years ago would have been called somatic? Or the person would be told that they have emotional problems etc. (please see the discussion on the use of paxil for IBS on another thread) Overall I believe that the gains outway the risks, that are technology is advancing rapidly and that quality of life will be improved for many.

okay this may seem like quackery, but I hated the side effects of Bentyl so I tried some off the wall stuff. A) reduce stress- that was a definete trigger for me. B) avoid high fat foods (keep the diet under 60 gm/day) C) add lots of fiber to my diet Now this last one may sound counter intuitive but for it added bulk and therefor slowed everything down. By slowing everything down the spasms that caused my pain were under control 4) Sassafrass tea- now i know its not available commurcially but it really helps me. I've been pretty controlled for about 8 years this way, with only an occasional problem, until recently when I started haveing gallbladder problems.

BTW. normal serving is 2 oz and she ate between 5-8, 8 oz bowls. :imbar

My worst BM story... Well in our facility we serve PABA-its this nasty mix of Prunes, apples and Bran (never have figured the last A). Any way A&O residents, scream when they see it coming. But here I was on the dementia unit. I was orianting another nurse, and had a little extra time, so I cleaned the fridge. Me not thinking, pulled all the old or unlabled 8 oz bowls of this stuff out of the fridge and set them on the top of the dinner cart to go back to the kitchen. About an hour later a housekeeper says something about the fact that there is "brown stuff all over the unit and its not BM" I think "uh-oh" the bells have started to go off that some of these folks will eat anything. We follow the trail and find one lady is responsible for the whole thing, but that now the Poop is flowing. The CNAs all said "UH UH you made the mess you fix it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" so I spent the rest of the shift cleaning up this woman. and she was one of those demented folks who never stops walking so you just chase them with the wipes around the unit trying to clean them up.

I don't stop as often as I used to. I believe that I would be more of a hinderance and danger than a help when I am carting 2 or 3 kids around. I do usually stop and question if any one has called 911 and yes I do keep a home made first aid kit that includes gloves and a mouth to mouth barrier in my car. I started with the gloves due to play ground accidents. You wouldn't believe how many Moms flip out at the sight of their childs own blood and/or don't carry first aid equipment. I wear gloves for scrapped knees when I don't know the child and family personally I'm not taking the risk

You probably did nothing wrong...on a humanitarian level you probably did something very right. Speak to your supervisor(s), see what they say. I don't see it as that different from when a former patient or family member sends the nurse flowers or candy. If it makes you feel better display it at work. I personally was given a lilac bush from a family member after the death of their loved one. It was a baby from one of her bushes that I had admired. They gave it to me to remember them by. It was something important to their mother. because she and I had enjoyed it togethor. My company said it was okay because the value was nominal and helped the famly find closure.

consider this a hug...same thing happened to me...my mom talked me through it she rationailzed as at 75 questions to have dropped the difficulty level so fast etc...you would have had to get more than 50% wrong otherwise it should have kept testing you... I went through every question I could think of when I got to 40 of them correct I stopped checking and tried to relax

Getting titers checked is a good idea if you have any concerns...I had to have 4 MMRs before I would titer. Have never titered for the hepatitis and never had a known case of chickenpox or the vaccine but do titer for that...so Kara's pediatrician ran a batch of blood work on her to make sure that she wouldn't need additional boosters...said she has never done that before and that my family is pretty weird...my sis is the same way. My mother had measels and mumps in early adolscents and then terrible cases again when she was in her late 30s... again she titered for nothing. DS is adament about not havingthe vaccines for her baby...she says if we are this unpredictable she doesn't trust it with her baby...afraid of unheard of side effects, shots for and infant that do nothing,etc. because "our family is weird"