TexasNS

There are people above the nurse manager that I am sure would like to hear about the problems on your unit and the short comings as far as the training program is concerned. On your next day off go talk to the house supervisor and inform your nurse manager of doing so. It is your license, take it in to your hands.

Benn an RN for exactly 2 months now and I find this HILARIOUS!!!! I have even laughed at my self for some of the things that I find interesting while others sigh and pretend to be busy. Keep it light ya'll!!!

Just for the sake of having another story in on this.... When I was a PCA(CNA) A family member (son) asked me to shave his dad. So I did. The son told me to leave him with a nicely trimed goatee. So I did. Then the wife and daughter come in and oh my.....talk about all heck breaking loose. Daughter is screaming at the brother, wife is in tears. I'm standing there with a razor in my hand more for protection than anything else. Come to find out that the gentelman has always worn a full beard and the son (who I might add has a goatee) just thought he would look nicer with a goatee. Sooooo Getting the families permission doesnt always prevent a mishap. In the end we shaved it all off so it would grow back even. :uhoh3:

My favorite debate. Yes I know many of the nurses here were once patients delivering their children. Honestly though do we as nurses feel differently about the sexual stigmatism than non medically trained individuals do? I think we do. Knowing that this is a nursing forum I am not one bit surprised by the overwhelming "OK" response. This question would be better asked in a public forum of non-medical trained individuals to get a real feel for how women of childbearing age feel about this. I personally am a male nurse and my favorite rotation where I did the best in school and enjoyed the experience the most was L&D. Unfortunately I probably will never work there do to the stigmatism that the patients feel as well as the patients FAMILY. I am the last person that would want my patient to feel uncomfortable. I am a 30 year old fit good looking male. (not cocky just trying to make my point) 15-30 year old fathers in with their wives, gf's or whatever have problems with me, not necessarily the female giving birth. Hell I almost got hit assisting a male doc when he checked the cervix when the boyfriend walked in. I have never before in my life experienced sexual discrimination and it sucks. I feel for women who have experienced it because it is hurtful and it affects the way you handle yourself and the situations you find yourself in. When my patients say the want a new nurse because I am a male it bothers me and I am sure it bothers others as well. I do think though that society created this problem and it will soon (10-20years) be a problem no longer. Many moons ago ALL MD's were male and ALL Nurses were female. There are still individuals alive today who remember this era. Mater of fact, most of the hospital clientele fit this category actually. Things are changing. Soon there will be as many male nurses on a floor as there are female. Just as there will be as many female docs as there are male, the later of course happening faster. This is because women are fighting sexual discrimination and are winning their battle. As men we will have to do the same in certain circumstances. (i.e. my hospital will not hire men into the "Mother, Baby" unit.) But in the end it is what the patient wants that really maters. We are there to serve them, they are our customers let us not forget.

Classic I will tell this story to all I know!!! :rotfl: :chuckle

a pedicure and I told him..................

and will be watched by mine as well............. I lost a "perfect" newborn baby girl named Rachel almost three years ago. Mater of fact it was the NICU nurses that caused my career change. They are why I ditched a 40kayear job to go back to college. The one thing you don't want to hear right now is "it gets easier ". It does but that doesn't mater right now. I am so sorry for your loss I am sorry that your son is not with his mommy. I am sorry that you have to feel the pain that not one of us that have been through it would ever wish on our worst enemy. I can not give you any reasons why this may have happened but the one thing I can give you is hope. It gets easier. It hurts like hell most of the time but..... It gets easier. It makes you want to crawl into a ball and cease to exists but, It gets easier. Every morning, every day every week and every month............ It gets easier. A few things that helped me cope (not that they are what you will need but they worked for me and your welcome to them) are. Pray Pray often and loud have one to ones with the God that decided that your sons work was already done and that you had more work to do before you could be with him. Cry Cry as often as you pray. Do them together. I didn't cry enough. I still cry today. I am crying now. It hurts and it doesn't go away. It gets easier. Tell it Tell the story about your son. Tell your friends and family how beautiful he IS. Tell the story about your angel. We can not se god but we speak of him in the present. Speak of your son in the present as well. He is not gone. You know right where he is. "I have four children.......three live at home.... one lives with Jesus." That is what I tell friends and coworkers. May God wrap his loving arms around you and let you sleep tonight. Let you sleep with the peace of knowing that it is never goodbye but.....see you later. (((((((((((((((((hug))))))))))))))

I cannot believe you actually posted that. Cheap? What is wrong with an employee of a hospital wanting to wear a uniform and the scrubs their company provides? Its not about being cheap it's about being a professional and an infection control minded individual. What I can't stand is all the prints and cartoons and bell bottoms and all the crap that is taking this profession down to pajama wearing Doctor Secretaries. If any thing in this field needs to change it is the fact that the Nurses are not uniform or at least professional in their wardrobe. Walk into a business office wearing your sponge bob shirt and see how much respect you get. Body fluids. My friend it is not the body fluids that are the problem its the little microscopic guys that are in the body fluids so if you can see it great but if you cant.........doesn't mean its not there.

i work on a med/surg floor and today i saw a dub-hoff tube inserted and 30 minuetes later went to check the patient and the tube was sticking out an old peg site...................havn't seen that before . i love working med/surg it is fun to watch the unorganized nurse spin in a circle half the day.

When you speak using "related to" and "as manifested by" or When you can write a complete sentance using nothing but abbreviations

As of 1999 in the state of Texas anyhow.

I am sure this happens more often than we think. Prior to nursing I had a career as a Correctional Officer in a state prison. Even in that feild Nurses would have relationships with their patients. Yes the patients were inmates!!!! At least once a month we watched a nurse get escorted off of the grounds in handcuffs for having a relationship with a "patient" It is a felony

Wow and I am complaining that our hospital is going to color code Rns,Lvns,Aids, and unit clerks. I dont know I wore white scrubs yesterday to clinicals for the first time (i used to wear the zipper top yuck) and I thought I looked pretty darn sharp in them and also got a couple of compliments from the patients. I have seen plenty of unprofesional looking scrubs but I dont think the uniform colored nurses will fix that. Making sure al nurses are actually wearing scrubs and not t-shirts under open scrub jackets, or polo shirts would probably be the better attack. Whatever the dress code unless they are provided by the facility people will find ways to circumvent the "code" ie hip hugger tight a**ed flare bottom white pants and a blue thong, with low v-neck tight scrub top. I wont lie I think they look good on some nurses but maybe on "Night Shift Nurses Getting Busy" not in the real world.

I wish I would have thought to search for a thread like this a year ago. I am a nursing student in my last semester and thankfully I have been lucky enough to have been working as a Extern in a local hospital so I get tons of skills practice. There is nothing like just sticking everybody you can. The one thing that has helped me more than anything else is going for the "feelers" first. I go for the ones I cant see but can feel first and if I miss those then I go for a shallower sight vein. Those feelers are larger and your site usually last longer. Remeber "I am going to start your IV." NOT "I am going to TRY and start your IV" Confidence builds confidence in your patient and in you

Now that got my mind going... We have another victim/patient that alot of us were not even considering. Lets say the woman is innocent. Could you imagine the trauma she is going through? This woman needs help as well.

That is a good question. I had to go back and read the post again due to the fact that after reading it and reading all the post I had it in my mind that the patient was on a mental health floor, which then you have every right to have monitored visitation. Now since I believe this is on a medical floor that does make one wonder. Personally I dont think you can legally stop the visitation or alter it on a case by case basis. I say alow the visitation and do what you can to "monitor" it legally.

Personally I do think it is odd but I will try to present a different point of view. I think it is extreamly plausable that a woman could find three men that would eventually commit or attempt suicide. This of course would be on the extreme side of co-dependancy. What an awsome case to learn from though. Emotional abuse is very possible but I dont think there would be three that would go to that extreme. Maybe one but surely the others would just leave. But on the other hand for 1 woman to seek out "broken people" and try and be their healer (co-dependant) is very possible. Give the visitation monitered and see what can be learned about her personality.

So glad you asked, because I love to tell this story. This story starts with a beautiful young woman in a delivery room. This woman was there to have her second child her first one was now ten and she had met a new man after a trying marriage and divorce. They had plans to marry but chose to wait until after the baby was born. Both the boyfriend and the woman were so excited and going through the pre-delivery motions like champs. Until about three hours into it. The young mother to be suddenly was going in and out of consciousness and the young man was screaming for a nurse which was there in seconds. The fetal monitor was doing some very odd things and loosing the baby's heart rate which was probably caused by the seizures that the mother was having. The nurse was on the phone calling the doc and the young man was at the bedside trying to keep his girlfriend conscious. The bed with the young women was taken out of the room for an emergency c-section and the young man was left in the room by himself wondering "WHAT HE HELL IS GOING ON" "IT ISNT SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE THIS" After what seemed like an hour or two they came in and told the young man that his girlfriend would be fine but there were some complications with the baby. It seems that the placenta abrubted and the blood got into the babies lungs and clotted and it took ten min to get O2 to the baby and she was now intubated and not doing so well. The young man went to see his girlfriend and the docs said "I'm sorry but we can't get the bleeding to stop and we are going to have to do a hysterectomy." The young man went to see his new daughter and the nurse, Shelly, took him in there and his daughter was connected to more tubes than he thought they could put on a baby. She was intubated and receiving blood products. The Neo-nat physician wanted to talk to him and told him the grim prognosis that she would probably not make it through the night. While all this was going on his girlfriend had gone into DIC or disseminated intravascular coagulation. She was bleeding to death and her chances of living were about 20%. Four days later his daughter, Rachel, was still intubated and his girlfriend was now recovering. 28 days later they decided to remove life support from Rachel. As the brain damage was so severe that only the medulla was still working, and that probably was not going to be for long. They asked their pasture if they were doing the right thing and if they should wait to see if God had a miracle planned and he replied "Don't you think if there was going to be a miracle that it would happen after you took her off life support" So they did. With all of their family there to say good bye the little baby girl was rolled into the room with the RT pumping oxygen through her little tubes and then they removed the bag and the tubes and handed the child to her mother. The doc said it may take up to 4 hours before she stopped breathing. 4 hours came and went. And then 4 more The nurse came in and fed the little girl. The couple fell asleep with their daughter next to them and awoke 2 hours later and she was still there breathing away. They would call this "The Day of Life" for after 28 hours the doctor decided that maybe he had misjudged her and that maybe she could go home. After a few days in the hospital to receive a J tube and a nissen wrap. Nurse Shelly was giving the couple CPR training and the little girl was in her Car seat ready to go home. On day 40 nurse Shelly walked the couple down to the car and hugged and cried with the mother and father and they took the baby home that was not going to make it through the night. She would only live for another ten days but those ten days were so much more than the doctors ever gave her. It was because of the tender loving care and support that the NICU Nurses, especially Nurse Shelly whom the couple still stays in touch with after two years, gave their little girl. So not even a month after my girlfriend and I held our little girl as she took her last breaths on this earth, I registered for school to start working on my pre-recs and a year later I would be accepted into a ADN program and now I am almost half way through with that and before it is all over I will be in the NICU again. This time as one of the best human beings on the face of the earth. A NICU Nurse. And here is picture of me and my baby girl on "The Day of Life". Sorry so long and thanks for letting me share.

I sold my oldest child. Seriously wife works and Stafford Loans. I work about 30 hours a week and stay in the B range but I am about to start pedi and OB and may cut back on my hours.

Personally I am all for the quarters. That is what we have in SA and it is nice when you only have 7 weeks of Mental Health. lol But really I enjoy it more although I do find it more intense and sometimes very stress full. I have done the semesters also. It is alot of info in a short time but somehow I make it each quarter.