bezany

I am a travel nurse living in an RV. I love it. Cheap rent, so I take the stipend giving me more money in the bank. My husband can often get work for the park which makes our rent free. There is something to be said for getting rid of all your "stuff" and moving into a small space. Rv parks are notoriously friendly. Make sure you tell them you are a travel nurse. The park I'm in currently offers a discount for travel nurses.

during charlie, the hospital where I worked allowed family. The accomodations were not good, many did not have beds and it was very crowded and chaotic. Food was in short supply. I would recommend having your child stay with relatives. Who will watch him while you work if you bring him along? Even if you work the night shift and plan on him sleeping you cant leave him unattended in a hospital!

You wrote the solution right in the paragraph: "The people I work with now love the crap out of me because I'm good at what I do, I'm good at understanding what THEY do, I'm good at getting everyone and everything to work together and I make the work environment fun and enjoyable with humor and good cheer." Patients dont go to the hospital to see pretty people either! Find a feather and beat yourself black and blue with it, then stop beating yourself up with your harsh criticism. Negative self-talk is destructive and hurtful. Imagine if a friend said the things about you or someone else that you say about yourself!!! You would be angry, hurt, and resentful. I work on treating myself just as good as I treat others, I believe that I am just as important to others as they are to me. Respect yourself and others will respect you, love yourself and others will love you, I promise. As far as the age thing goes, the nursing workforce is aging, you will probably be one of the young ones! Oh by the way, I resent that circus reference, I grew up in the circus, and I dont remember a single troll during my years under the big top!

The nurses at my hospital are represented by the National Nurses Organizing Committee which is a part of National Nurses United. National Nurses United is the largest union and professional association of registered nurses in America. Its purpose is to give registered nurses a national voice and organizing power.

I am a member of this union, you get a bonus for belonging to a union? Most hospitals in this area would not be pleased with it!

I have a fb page for my friends, and a separate one i keep mainly for family and peers. The friend one does not list my association with a hospital and i dont talk shop there at all. The friend page is heavily private. On a second note, I cannot imagine that it is ever appropriate to get "completely wasted" and certainly if it happened I would not be bragging about it either to my friends, family, or peers. I became a responsible adult when I chose a profession that requires respect and dignity of its members!

I would not want to be pulling narcs for agency staff, thats crazy! temporary codes can be given to agency staff and if i were in a facility where they didnt have access, i would be advocating strongly for that.

bedside scanning is a lifesaver, as long as we dont bypass it. At my hospital we scan the patient armband and then the med, we use an electronic mar. It is virtually impossible to give the wrong med if we follow the procedure. I still do a 5 rights and physically check the med both when pulling it from the pyxis and prior to opening the package at the bedside or spiking the bag.

My favorite of all time is: if the doctor doesnt come to see me right now, I am leaving! I want to say "do you promise?" But what I actually do is grab the AMA form. LOL

With patients like this, it really does no good to argue with them. I can humbly apologize whether I am right or not. I then ask them if there is something that would make their stay easier, remind them of how to get help, and offer comfort measures like a warm blanket. Remember that they are in the ED for whatever reason and I would hope that most of them would rather be anywhere else. We are getting paid to be there. I have been an ED nurse for 21 years and have yet to win an argument with a patient! I agree with documenting a note, for instance: "responded to call bell, patient states waited 30 minutes for response, confirmed call bell was lit less than 1 minute, checked proper functioning of call bell and REinstructed patient on use. care needs attended to and appropriate reassurance provided." Then maybe two more notes 15 minutes apart documenting "checked on patient, no new needs or needs addressed". At the end of the day, the customer/patient is always right because they have the power to complain, but with appropriate documentation and a few extra minutes of care and concern, the complaint may become a compliment!

I have done nights for a long time and I live 50 minutes from work, when I feel sleepy while driving, i find that if I get out of the car and walk around it a few times, it wakes me up enough to make it home. 1st shift after a few nights off is always the hardest.

Lovenox, omeprazole, metoprolol, amlodipine, dilaudid or percocet and restoril or ambien med surg tele ortho neuro night shift hence the sleepers for everyone!

I have worked nights for over twenty years now, i switch back and forth, i take a nap on my first day back to work and i stay up longer on my first day off. I try to do three in a row so that my days off are all in a row too.

I think my best advice would be to take an attorney with you who has experience before the board. Whatever the cost it will be worth it.

if you are working in a "drug free workplace" you have protections if you reported rather than being "caught", so i would suggest you lawyer up. The drug free workplace designation would be on signs in your facility probably in HR and it would be in any employment contract you may have.