ryuunohime

O2 Stats is one of my favorites. Its oxygen saturation, or SATS...not stats. Oy Vey

Hey fellow nurses, I just need a place to vent and get some feedback. I've been dating this guy for about 4 years, and he proposed on Christmas day 2016. Naturally I'm ecstatic, and as soon as we get back from visiting his folks, I start planning the wedding. Its my first marriage/engagement, so I really have no idea what I'm doing. After many many phone calls and negotiations with family members and venues, I get my date. July 29th. Fantastic. At work, our bi-annual PTO sign up starts Jan 1st to the 14th for PTO through the month of august. I sign up on the 4th of Jan for my wedding week and the week after. I'm in a hospital, work 3 12s a week. By the time my wedding rolls around I will have more than enough PTO to cover. I also email both my manager and clinical coordinator and let them know I am getting married. Yesterday, my PTO was denied. Naturally I'm hurt and heart broken, and I ask them why. I get told PTO is handed out based on seniority, and only so many nurses per shift can be off. I'm a full time night shift nurse. During my week I wanted, there are 5 day nurses and only 1 other night nurse off, but I get told they are full for vacation that week. When I point out the numbers, I get told I'm being difficult to coach. I was told that I should have picked a date at a less busy time for our unit. I was told that if I want my wedding off I need to find someone willing to cover my shifts for me. I'm heartbroken and enraged and I can feel my emotions eating away at me. I love being a nurse, I've been in the field since 2010, but I hate coming to work any more. Especially now. My unit is a busy medical unit in a small magnet hospital in a rural state. I will have been on this floor for 2 years in July, and plan to have finished up my BSN by the end of this year. I'm thinking of bailing after the wedding and going to another floor, perhaps float pool where I imagine its a much more flexible schedule. What do you guys think? How would you handle this?

So I got done with the meeting and I left in tears. It was a laundry list of things I should have done. I didn't check a blood sugar. This event happened at 8ish in the morning and the last BG check on the patient was at 6, which was 123 and there was no insulin given. Also I apparently told the CAT nurse that the patient needed IV push medications and to be on a drip up in the ICU. I did no such thing as I have zero experience with these meds. I also got told I over reacted, as both the nurse before me and the doctor thought the patient was stable. Anyway, it was a good old fashioned ass chewing and I'm sitting here drinking wine and questioning my entire career choice. Yay Nursing! Some days I very much regret taking out so much student debt to get so much abuse. This sucks because just yesterday I got the Daisy Award and I was being paraded around like I was an example to nurses everywhere, and today I'm dog ****. Sorry for the pity party guys.

Hey guys, I've been a member of this board for a long long time. Some background on me: 6.5 years of nursing, started as a CNA, worked as an LPN and now I'm an RN on a Med/Surg floor for the past 1.5 years. Last week, I had a patient who was on remote tele and was an older gal with various co-morbidities including obesity, diabetes, CAD and recent CVA with minimal residuals. I had this lady for a total of 5 days and my doctor assigned to her was a internal medicine resident who doesn't have the best reputation. The first day I get this patient, her pulse is in the 30 to 40 range, the tele is picking up 3 to 5 second bouts of asystole and her BP is 200ish/90 ish. The patient is lethargic and gray, and is very difficult to wake up. I immediately page the doctor. No response for about 15 minutes. Meanwhile I have my CNA and myself in the room doing vitals, trying to wake up the patient, ect. I page the MD again and calls me, says he's aware of the situation and plans to make rounds on her in about 30 minutes or so. I tell him I feel he needs to be here sooner than that, he blows me off and says he will come when he's doing rounds. I page my charge nurse, tell her the situation, and she tells me to call the CAT. Which is Cricical Assessment Team Nurse, or the charge nurse up in ICU. The CAT nurse comes down, assesses my patient and agrees that the patient should be up in ICU on a drip. He pages the doctor. He gets no response. 2 HOURS LATER the doctor finally shows up, declares the patient to be fine, her BP is now around 160/80 and she is much more awake and looks to be in better color. He orders an oral BP medication and consults with cardiology, and the patient ends up getting a pacemaker. Meanwhile he and his attending physician scold me on the floor, and insinuate I don't know how to properly take vital signs. Apparently my charge nurse or the ICU nurse don't know how to take a blood pressure either. Yesterday I get a call from my Clinical Coordinator that I need to have a meeting with her and the Unit Manager, and that its "Going to take too long to pull me off the floor so we need you to come in on your day off." Nurses, did I do something wrong here? Did I rush things, or am I justified in initiating a CAT response? Thanks for the replies, this has been eating me up.

hey guys, I just took my NCLEX this morning, and here it is 3:30 in the afternoon, and I of course attempted to use the PVT to determine my test results. I got the popup "The candidate currently has test results that are on hold. A new registration cannot be created at this time." I'm pretty much freaking out at this point. I took the test in under an hour, I had 75 questions, and at this point I cant remember what most of them were. I know I had 2 dosage calc questions, a LOT of select all that apply, lots of delegation questions and "Who would you see first" questions. Is this a good sign? I'm panicking a little here. Help.

Well, my school seems to be set up a bit different then other schools. I haven't had med-surge or pharm yet. I know basic anatomy, and I've learned how to do everything a CNA can do--as well as administer enemas and do catheters. We've been doing care plans and have started working on documentation. As far as I know we're given a patient chart and we have to plan out an 8 hour shift of care for them based on that.

So as soon as the next session starts, I'll be going to my first clinical, and get my very first patient. I've never worked in the medical field before, so I'm really nervous. I have driving directions to the facility and I plan to set my alarm super early so I'll be on the site at 6:00 am sharp. However, I'm not sure what to expect. I've never been inside a nursing home, let alone been allowed to care for anyone there in. Can any of you experienced nurses/students give me a few pointers for a first timer? I'd really appreciate it.

I feel for you hun. I had to make some major sacrifices in order to go to school. I gave up my whole life pretty much, but I'm just thankful that I was in a position to do so. I love nursing school, and to be a nurse is my ultimate goal in life, as I know it is for most people on this board. Don't let this stop you from pursuing your dreams. If anything, try to look at this as even more motivation to get through school. What I keep telling myself, once I'm a nurse, I won't typically have to worry about getting laid off. Nursing shortage is good for something, at least. I hope everything works out for you.

Hey guys, Its my first time posting on this forum, I've been a lurker for some time though and I appreciate a website like this. The information I've gotten from you guys has really come in handy and I was hoping someone might be able to help me out. Currently I'm in a full-time program working on my LPN degree. I just finished finals for my first session, 4 more to go. I don't have any other background in the medical field or any sort of license. I was told by a classmate that I could get a job working for a nursing home or an assisted living facility, even though I don't have my CNA yet(I'll be able to test out for that at the end of the next session, a good 2.5 months a way). Can anyone confirm this, or offer me any suggestions? I need a job, and I'd prefer to get something healthcare related so I can start boosting my work experience in the field. I'd prefer not to go back to fast food, however I might need to. The field I was in before--call center customer service stuff--doesn't really have any nights/weekends options.