metal_m0nk

I actually get paid more in the ICU than I did on Med/Surg in the form of a "specialty bonus."

I tell them that holding on to all of that hate is terrible for their health. What's worse is when you have co-workers who actually defend their behavior..."Oh, they come from a different time. It was okay back then." It should not have been okay then and it certainly isn't okay now. Seeing as how I have to work to survive, I shouldn't have to got to work and be subjected to derogatory treatment based on something I have absolutely no control over. Nor should anyone else. Another one that works with the older ones is this: "I would say something nasty in return, but my parents raised me better than that." Get's 'em every time.

I have often wondered if that was the motivation...

What gets me is that she IS the experienced nurse in our small ICU. I am relatively new to critical care and to nursing in general by comparison. She's got 15 years on me at least. I am usually more than happy to help. And for the most part, our team is extremely supportive and we truly work as a team. But she seems to truly misunderstand what it means to work as a team. And the lack of reciprocation is wearing on me.

You know the one. They have fewer patients, fewer tasks, lower acuity patients, and still every small hiccup is a disaster. They routinely stay hours after their shift to wrap things up even though they have exhausted every other nurse on shift by hounding them, interrupting them, and guilting them into completing a large sum of their tasks. These nurses are also the ones who, when you are in an impossible situation and need a quick hand, can't be bothered...demand that you find someone else to help because they have patients of their own to take care of. Nevermind the fact that your own situation might have been a bit less dire had you not taken 45 minutes away from your patient load to help them through some emergency. Ugh. Getting too damn old and too damn tired for this ****. Does this nurse exist everywhere or just on my unit?

Another voice here recommending staying on top of your tasks and charting throughout your shift. I am relatively new to critical care and I notice that many of my seasoned colleagues are the types who are always scrambling at the end of the shift. And if they happen to get an admission or some unplanned event happens, the scrambling is even worse. I often get dirty looks at the end of the shift when I go around asking if anyone needs help because I have tied up my few loose ends. I'm not the type to stay late to chat and chart. I like to get the job done safely and efficiently and get the hell home. Anyway, to sum up, get as much done as you can when you can. Use your down time to get ahead if it is at all possible. Leave yourself time for the crap to hit the fan, so that when it does, you won't be worrying about what you didn't get done while you're trying to manage a stressful, unexpected situation. Good luck!

You use 3 mL syringes to draw on PICC lines? How many PICC lines have had to be replaced after you've had your hands on 'em? OP - Did the patient have saline running when you drew your labs and did you remember to postpone the infusion beforehand?

If you'd stop making excuses for why you can't do your job and just do your effing job, it'd be done by now, you'd have developed a sense of organic confidence because you surpassed your own grossly underwhelming expectations of yourself, and you might eventually find that you can be the master of your own fate instead of remaining a prisoner to cowardice and envy for those who have the audacity to just ******* GET IT DONE.

I'm not certain where you work or why the situation is so dire there. But where I work, preceptors are paid a $2.00/hr differential for precepting and are not responsible for any more patients than their preceptees are assigned - which is no larger a patient load than the preceptor would be taking without an orientee. "Finish their hands on training in addition to our own duties." ??? Huh?

I believe that happiness is not in what someone else can give a person. If I waited around for someone else to MAKE me happy, I'd probably be miserable too.

I think it was pretty clear that the OP didn't mean that ONLY nurses are miserable....She was just identifying the context of this forum....This NURSING forum. Miserable nurses are easy to spot....they're the ones creating things to get offended about.

I think at least part of the reason why what is widely considered as abuse is changing is because with the passage of time we are beginning to more fully understand the real physiological and psychological impact of our interactions with others.

Nursing is not an easy job. There are a lot of knocks to take when you're first starting out. The trick is to learn to take your knocks, reflect, and move on. This too shall pass.

It's as simple as the laws of physics which dictate that a person cannot be in two places at once. Unless each nurse cares for one patient and one patient only, SOMEONE is going to have to wait and it's going to be the patient that the nurse is not currently tending to. A very large part of a nurse's responsibilities (and one that I can tell you was a major focal point of the national licensing exam) is her ability to prioritize care. When I'm in the room with a patient who'd had a major, unexpected syncopal episode at the end of the prior shift, so significant that he soiled himself while unconscious...then I'm going to stay in the room with him, make certain I get a thorough assessment performed, a fresh set of baseline vitals, and do my best to reassure him and his wife who had to experience the whole thing. No I am not going to stop what I'm doing to go help the 18 year old 24hour s/p lap appy down the hall to the bathroom. If that doesn't meet to your liking, fire me. Slightly off-topic....your user name seems grossly misleading.

"I'm going to need a bigger tongue depressor..."