AndiMac

deadend, i think you just summed up most of my orientation, the tour was horrible, they gave me a scavenger hunt, the nurses station alone looked like a daily scavenger hunt. 2 nurses were sitting there when i went in and were sitting there in the same spot when i came out. the skilled unit looks horrible, that's exactly why i went away from hospitals ... who wants to chart on 30 people? (welcome to the real world!) plus i had to do a self evaluation, and i had an awful lot of no's and never even seen one of those on there...i'm hoping i have a loving and caring preceptor:rolleyes: if i never do i will never learn, so i guess i need to shut up and do ... and one of the saddest things, one of my residents in my current job in an assisted living alzheimers unit is there, she was sitting alone in a wheel chair, looked totally doped up and was playing with her rolling pin restraint. our facility had sent her out with a head injury(we think) and haven't recieved any updates on her. now i know

I just applied to a LTC facility PRN. They called me the next day, had me come in the next day, had my physical appointment set up before they had even interviewed me. Today (the following day) I've had my fingerprinting done, drug testing done on site and my physical. My interview consisted of "Hi, I'm the DON. You have any questions?" Tomorrow they are going to start my orientation and 2 hours of movies. Then Thursday they are going to do some more oreintation with some other head cheeses in the building. This all seems sort of rash. They had me hired before they had even met me. I'm a new grad, that scares no one. They said I could take all the time I needed in my training. The DON told me that if I wanted to work on one particular hall and didn't quite feel comforatbale on another hall that was fine. I'm going to have one day of training for nothing but the paperwork. This all seems so screwy ... something doesn't seem right. Another thing I'm scared to death about is the fact that I will have approximately 30 pt. to pass meds too, with one aide. She said sometimes they will have more than one aide,sometimes. Do I have a legitimate reason to be scared here or am I letting the number scare me?

Mine shut off at 75 in about 45 minutes ... I passed the first time ... I took my test on a Tuesday and had my license in my hand that Friday. :chuckle

CCU NRS, I didn't mean anything bad about hospice, i think it's not used enough, i wasn't critisizing your post or anything. I agree with ... well it was someone ... that said communication is a lost art, and md's seem to give those false hopes. People lie dying uncomfortably when hospice could be easing the process of dying. that's all ... i think that's what i meant ... people just don't know hospice is there ... *shrug* please excuse the grammar, to lazy to fix at this time

I don't think enough patients/families are aware or made aware of the fact that Hospice is around. A lot of these people when getting so close to death, are "snowed" and don't know they are dying or anything else that is going on. Which maybe/may not be the right thing to do. But, if they are so far gone and with so much pain, make them comfortable, without the pain, even if it does stop those last agonizing breaths. I have mixed views, considering my mother is a hospice nurse. I think I'd have to go with "what the MD says, goes." May sound bad on my part, but I have a daughter to raise and am not to fond of the thought of losing my license. As the previous ones before me ... it's not my place to decide who can die and who can't.

They wouldn't let me without checking out our bands even though out of 5 babies mine was the only girl there. And the nurse was my cousin at that, but still, it made me feel better knowing that she still did her job and checked the bands.

Semen? lady partsl secretions? Exactly how do I go about getting these "splashed" on me? Unless you work in a sperm bank of course...

I don't know where to start, but here it is ... I recently graduated, new nurse, and feel I'm being taken advatage of. Or tried anyways. The Assistant Director left a note in one pts MAR to continue her ABX, do not sign it off. I opened the package, and dumped the pill in the medcart trash. I did the same with the next dose. Then later on, I thought, why did I do that? I should have left them where they sat. I also started to make a copy of the unsigned post-it note, but didn't. Now I realize my mistakes. I should have left the pills in the drawer, and left a great big underlined "Absolutely NOT" on the post-it note. Then I should have copied it and kept it for my own records. There is also a locked drawer in the nurses station that no one but the AD has a key too. She is careful not to let anyone see in the drawer and keeps it locked at ALL times. I finally found out what was so important that was in the drawer. She's been taking all meds that have been d/c'd or should have been destroyed, and keeping them in "her" drawer. As for the uses of these, I have no idea. This AD has also hired 2 aides that are abusive to the pts. One was a no call/no show, and was therefore terminated, but never reported. The other has been moved to a different unit after several complaints from the absolutely wonderful aides I work with. One of these good aides was wrote up and told she didn't own the place, it was HER unit and she was not going to run off an decent person because she didn't like her. *shrug* I want to be the do gooder here and do something, but what? I have no one to back me up except the aides that are being crapped on. (This other aide that continues to work here got irritated at a resident because she continued to ask her several times when So-and-So comes in to visit her, and she replied "He's dead, I killed him! He won't be coming in anymore!", she also told one resident that she hated her to her face. She has walked off the job twice. She's told an LPN that she is NOT her boss and she will NOT tell her what her job is, she told the same resident that she needed to get off her comforter if she wanted to lay on it because she wasn't going to wash it when she peed all over it, just a few of the incidences that I know of. But yet, this aide is almost worshipped. If anyone else would walk off the job, GONE! POOF! Why is she still there? Families have told the Director if she wasn't moved to a different unit they were going to move their family member to a different facility. One family member is irate that one of the good aides is getting punished and having all this taken out on, and is supposed to be taking action with the BON. I have no one to back me up. I'm just a PRN nurse, I've only worked with this aide a couple of times. When I did have a problem with something she did, I told her about it and she stopped whatever she was doing. Although she was quite mad when she wanted to go cash her check during her work day when I reminded her of the wonderful note in our "AD to Staff" notes that says NO ONE is to leave during their shift except for emergencies. Thank you for listening to me vent, and any advice of what i should do, or shouldn't do would be greatly appeciated. Thanks in advance ... AndiMac

make a fort out of shoe boxes in the shoe department get on the PA and announce everything in the store is now 50% off for the next 20 minutes announce the first customer to get to the automotive department gets a free car of their choice from the "tire and lube express" grab a package of toilet paper and squat in the middle of the aisle and grunt ... start barking at people in the meat department ... go to the fish department and insist you need THAT fish and ONLY that fish from a tank of 600 fish .... go to lawn and garden and pretend your in the indy 500 on a riding mower ... the bad thing is, these are things we have actually done ... :chuckle

Now I understand why I was told it helped to know someone to be able to get your foor in the door ... They always manage to run off the best by doing favors for their "friends" ... Just remember what's going to happen when they realize they can't replace you ... or they can't fins someone to come in to pick up the slack and they have to stay themselves ... revenge can be sweet

Could you sleep at night knowing what you had done?

Sounds disgusting. I run in to the same thing all the time. Only problem is I have no one to back me up.

Hi, I'm an LPN at an assisted living home here in the Buckeye State (Go Bucks!). We have 2 units, one for regular residents, and where I work, the Alzeimer's Unit. The regular residents, most generally care for themselves. Most of them have their pills filled by a nurse in a dated and timed pill box for the week. The aides are to remind certain people that need a little more help, that it is time for them to take their meds. There are a few that require a little more. Our meds come in ATC rolls (the rolls are timed and dated for Mon.-Fri. and 8a, 12p, 4p etc), the aides are allowed to get these medications packets out and hand them to the resident, but that's all. The patient has to open them him/herself, and if they decide not to take them, it's their problem. Since it's assisted living, it works a little different. The aide can not actually put the meds into that person's hand/cup and give them to them with a glass of water and say here take them. They have to be un-opened in the packet. That's the rule for us. That's considered a pill reminder, and they are billed for it. You're facility may be different, considering we are a home consisting of 30-35 residents total, both units. In the Alzheimer's unit, the nurses are to give the meds, simply because these people can't. So, I deal with it. As far as who's responsible, good question. Since ours are pre-filled packets, and are checked by a nurse for the whole week, and the fact that the aide does not have access to the MAR, I really don't know. I would think in our facility there would be a lot of people in some deep water. Hope that helped some.

I've never had any job where it was OK to discuss salaries. Although everyone always did, and still do. $11.25 sounds extremely low, especially for my area. I'm a new grad, no experience, working in a low paying area any way, (assisted living) and I'm still making $13.00. Which is low here. But I like my job, so I don't mind the low pay.

I had always thought if you hadn't graduated for an accredited program you couldn't take boards ... here anyways ... *shrug* ...

Now that I know there are several nurses that would have done the same, I don't feel so bad. It never seems to be the patient, it's always the family. Never fails.

in reply to myself, i just found a letter to staff from our don at work last night, that says we are not allowed to leave for any reason, other than emergencies. apparently it is an issue at my workplace and didn't know it ...

I hate LTC, I hate hospitals, where does that leave me? An LPN that hates the health field. I want to take my license outside the box. I currently work in an Alzheimers Assis. Living unit, which I absolutely love. They pay is low for assis. living and I'm a new grad, and I'm PRN, no chance of a fulltime opening there. I need to move on ... There are very few Alzheimer wings/units around here, and the ones that there are have very bad reputations. I fear going to such a place, I'm afraid that might ruin my own reputation. There is a local hospice that is considering hiring LPN's ... but I can't sit and wait on them for a year or two. So now what? Any ideas? BTW, don't mean to offend anyone, LTC and hospitals just aren't my thing ...

Wow, have you hit the nail on the head. I get this not with my nurse co-workers, but with my aides. The aides are so bad they request not to work with certain nurses, and this particular one that has her nose so far up the DON's colon, gets what she wants. I've noticed that she does things to get the other aides in trouble. Any little thing she finds, laundry undone, a sock on the floor, and the most recent one, dust on a Kleenex box. Her and the DON have something going together, so far up each other's colons, I'm afraid of saying anything. I'm the new kid there, so the aides are coming to me and saying hey help us out here, but ... what am i going to do except end up in the same position? This isn't just the medical field either though. This is any job, any where, any position or rank you hold ... some people just never grow up, what can I say?

I tried, I did manage to explain it to one of the family members, who works in a md off. she understood. the rest of the family was so irate, they either ignored me or gave me dirty looks, so i just charted and charted to cover my butt. nothing was ever said of it from my DON or assis. DON ... so i'm assuming they got over it ... just makes me doubt myself ...

I work in an itty bitty 11 resident facility, my lunches are usually spent eating with the residents, then running outside to hotbox a cigarette. Sometimes I do the same as the rest, spend my lunch with my tray at the nurses station charting and smearing my food across charts.:) I try to go out and smoke as often as I can. I figure if I can't take my full breaks, I'll split them up and take what I can. 2-3 minutes to smoke equals 5 cigarrets in 8 hours? Since there is only one nurse, I can't leave, atleast i feel that I can't. I don't know that it is written anywhere, but with it being asssisted living ... there is no nurse 3rd shift ... so where would it be different if I DID leave? Sometimes I wonder if they consider charting time as break time...

I recently got my rear chewed off by a family of a resident. This res. had severe back pain, she couldn't stand from a sitting position. This res. is also notorious for having anxiety attacks. I gave her a PRN Darvocet and a PRN Ativan. She was unable to slow her resp. rate, she was obviosuly anxious. With that kind of pain, you're going to be anxious, correct? Well, anyways, it was Thanksgiving, and her family chewed my butt because she went to sleep. This has been giving me grief, I was taught anti-anxiety and pain meds in this kind of scenario go hand in hand. I feel bad, because it was Thanksgiving and all, but still, was I supposed to let her sit and hyperventilate, pass out, and drown in her gravy?

I too am a new grad, I took a different route and started working in an Assisted Living Alzheimer's Unit. It is an extremely small unit, only 11 residents. You start to learn the family as well as the residents. And that's where the problems start. Being dementia, they don't know what is best for them, therefore here comes the POA. The POA doesn't always know what is best. They may request no PRN, no this or d/c that, but, that is your job as a nurse, to know what is best. I constantly see med changes because the family requests it, but they don't see the changes in res. we do ... they don't know the knowledge we do ... So do your best, and cover your butt ... :)

I was reading on another forum/thread in New Jersey, I believe, that by law, an LPN can not work as an aide, working under their license. Has anyone ever heard of this? Is this true in Ohio also?

These were so great, working with all women, i had to take these to work :roll :chuckle