Walk9

We use PICC lines quite a bit in my facility. Our protocol is to flush it daily with 3cc of 100u heparin. Of course if you are administering medication you use the SASH method and if drawing blood off of it you must flush with at least 10cc of NSS and then 3cc of 100u heparin. They tend to clog very easily.

As a Respiratory Therapist/RN/EMT i have seen it all and i can honestly say i must have an iron stomach!!! Nothing bothers me. I can talk about or even be in a procedure and then go get lunch. All the other nurses on the floor come to get me to suction their patients. Sputum definitely is the one thing that grosses everyone out!!! I'm sure i'll find something to turn my stomach in time.

I agree with Duckie. Nurses who are incompetent survive by kissing the right butts. I worked as a Respiratory Therapist in a facility where aides spoke about their sex live with patients, chewed tobacco, played hide and seek in patients rooms on the weekends and ignored call bells. One nurse would always complain of a migraine (usually on a weekend when no management was around) and wear her dark sunglasses and sit in the back room while everyone else had to cover for her. I was the only one who spoke up about it and said that if she were that sick she should go home instead of being on the clock. I have witnesses when she confronted me in the hallway and told me to mind my own business in a very vulgar way. Guess who got reprimanded- ME!! It just so happens that she is buddies with the nurse manager and got away with it. It makes me sick to say that there were people who backed her up who actually saw the whole thing that day. Why should the rest of us pick up the slack for those who get away with not doing their work? I left there when i became an RN. They had the nerve to ask me to work there as a nurse. NO WAY!! Also the incompetent and very dangerous people who were in my nursing class who always squeeked by with help (cheating) are now out there too. I hope i never encounter them again. Incompetent people always seem to get by while the rest of us take up the slack or when we speak up- look like the bad guys. QUOTE]Originally posted by Duckie: Another reason unsafe nurses keep their jobs is that they know who's butt to kiss to make all their troubles disappear. Example: About 2 years ago, I followed a nurse on a daily basis that would leave meds she has signed out as given in cups in the residents meds drawers...so much for presetting??? On a daily basis, I would find she had removed my time and date from treatments and place a new tape on them, but never doing the treatment. I have a certain marking to my dressing that no one knows but I can look at a treatment and know it was mine. She also forget to take off countless orders that were found by me and many other nurses. Once I called her at home about an order she had told me in report she had received but it was never written in the order sheet so I told her she needed to come in and write it as she received it from the MD. She said she wasn't coming back in, that she was tired. I told her in no uncertain terms she would come back in or I would write her up. She came onto the hall, didn't say hi, bye, or kiss my rosey red butt, grabbed the chart, wrote the order, then threw it across the desk, knocking everything on the floor. Of course this display of unprofessional behavior was documented on a "Report of Concern". Then there was a time she forgot to take an order off when she received it but it showed up a week later, with forged initials for all 3 shifts for a week. I wrote incident report after incident report, keeping copies of each and a ledger. Want to know how the story ends...well, this was termed a "personality conflict" between the two of us and one of us would have to be moved from the unit since we obviously couldn't get along. The icing on the cake was when she called me a liar in front of staff and residents regarding a notification of a family member of an incident that occurred. I had charted I had left a message on the family members answering machine to call the facility and talk to me. Well, this nurse announced in a very loud voice, "They said you didn't leave a message and I would never believe you over them." Later it was proven I had left the message and another family member had erased it accidently. Well, I had enough and demanded this nurse be dealt with. So here I was, a nurse who had never been written up, verses a nurse who had been written up 20 plus times in less than 6 months by me and other nurses. I got to stay on a hall I had worked for over four years, only because I had 3 days more in the facility. What a crock!!! I knew I was fighting a loosing battle because this nurse had lunch daily with the DON and Administrator and it was well known, they were all pals and this nurse was their snitch. I guess I should feel lucky I didn't loose my job for trying to set this nurse straight but I'm happy to report that nurse no longer works there, nor does the Administrator or DON. She went on to be floated from hall to hall, being wrote up repeatedly and nothing ever happened. She didn't get fired, she quite to work at a local ER. Now does that make you feel secure of what!!!! All of this taught me a big lesson. Always write it down, keep a copy and I also keep a ledger of incidents that occur. I work very hard at my job, triple checking everything I do to prevent mistakes, so I cover my backside because the ones that can't do their job, know who's backside to kiss to keep theirs out of trouble.