HurricaneBreeze

Hi there! I have some information that might be helpful for you. Columbus and Greenwood are both good areas of Indiana to look for a place. My husband and I currently live in Bloomington and have been trying to make a decision to buy a house in one of these two cities. Heres my . Columbus -- Nice area, family area, close acess to I65, vicinity to Brown Co State Park, 2 colleges Ivy Tech Columbus and Indiana University/Purdue University Columbus (four year university but the town isn't a typical college town, not many outsiders come for the university). Not many options for hospitals though. Columbus hospitals is a great magnet hospital but job opportunities are few and far between due to the fact that once people go to work there they don't leave. The next closest hospitals are Seymour (about 40 mins) which is also a decent small sized hospital, or Bloomington (where I currently work) which is about an hour. Pay at Columbus Regional is decent, not sure about Seymour but Bloomington pays about the lowest for the area. You could hit I-65 and go to Indy to work but thats also going to be about 45min-hr depending on where you live. Greenwood -- Much closer access to Indy and surrounding hospitals. Great school system if thats something you are looking for. Better selection of homes and shopping activities. Many many hospitals St. Francis, St. Vincent, (both great cardiac hospitals) Methodist. Access to IUPUI and many other universities.

I've been an LPN on a med-surg floor with multiple central telemetry patients for almost a year now. I've learned a ton and really like my job. Its surprising how much stuff there is to learn. One thing I learned a few nights ago is just how important those support people are. I had a patient in with pancreatitis but was on telemetry due to arrythmias. He typically had several PVC's a minute. In the ED he was having about 20 pvc's/min according to the ED documentation. They didn't seem too worried. He had just been admitted a few hours before I came on shift at 7p. About 2000, the central tele tech called to tell me he was running bigimeny with a couple short runs of v-tach.:redbeathe I checked the patient and he seemed fine. Awhile later about 0100 the tele nurse came over and told me that he was in sustained bigemeny and it was slightly concerning. She also said that she had looked at his labs and saw that his Mg was 1.6...the lowest possible normal value. She said that it might be a good idea to get an order for IV Mg replacement. I looked back at his old strips, H & P, and EKG from that night and previous admission. It looked to me that his multiple PVCs were normal and at the time opted not to call the MD. I kept going back and forth in my head what to do. Another person on my floor needed to call the same doctor and I opted to go ahead and let him know and see what his response was. He ordered 2gm Mg IV. About an hour into the 2 hour infusion, the tele tech called and told me that he was now running basically NSR with ocassional PVCs and they were able to get a whole 6 second strip with no PVCs at all. Even though I wasn't the one to think about this order, it made me feel really good that I had a part in straightening things out for this pt. It also made me realize that the people in these support positions are there for a reason, because they have a wealth of experience and knowledge and even if they MD doesn't agree with their assessment and suggestions, its probably worth making the call.

These aren't charting but still funny... When the pts are registered, the registrar enters the admitting diagnoses and most of them aren't versed in medical terminology. We have many admitted with "Periferal Vascular Disease"...last week I had a patient with "Flue". It always gives me a good chuckle.

Last night at work I ran into a predicament that I have now recieved about 6 different answers for. I am an LPN on a busy med/surg unit. We often see patients who are step down from critical care or new admits with stable angina on central telemetry, some with IV Lopressor. Up until just a couple of months ago, anytime the med needed to be given, we would call the Central Telemetry Nurse and she would come push the medication as we are not telemetry nurses, we don't monitor the tele and we aren't even required to be ACLS trained. However, our manager has decided that now we can IVP our cardiac drugs on our own as long as we follow the guidlines in the Emergency Drug Guide located on the crash cart. I am pretty sure that as a non-ACLS LPN that I cannot administer this medication. However, do the RNs that push the med have to be ACLS certified. As per usual, no policy could be found regarding this issue......... I am interested in feedback from any state or facility. I'm just curious as to what other places policies are. Thanks!!!:heartbeat