EmmaZ06

I am a lot like you, and have found that people take calmness as a weakness. If this particular CNA is a problem, document her behavior and turn it over to the manager. I've dealt with CNA's that for some reason think it is ok to be rude, intimidating, and lazy. It is not. It is not only unfair to you as the nurse, but also to the other hardworking caring CNAs who have to pick up her slack. It seems like you have tried to work things out nicely, but she still won't cooperate. She needs to shape up or go. Document, document, document, and give it to the manager. I worked with a CNA who was terrible, she would not follow instructions, horded equipment (refused to give me the only glucometer on the floor when I suspected my clammy diaphoretic patient was hypoglycemic, because she was GOING to eventually go do routine sugars. She told me I needed to be patient and wait my turn. This was after I calmly and politely explained the situation, I did not just walk up and demand the glucometer. I eventually got the glucometer only by physically taking it off her cart, but the whole ordeal wasted valuable time that should have been spent treating a patient. When I took the glucometer she had a stunned look on her face, she thought she had intimidated me into backing down because I refused to stoop to her level and get into a screaming match in the hallway. I'm pretty sure she considered chasing me down the hall but there were witnesses, instead she spent the rest of the shift pouting and refused to do any work.) and spent more time in the bathroom than a patient with cdiff. When I spoke to the manager she said that she was aware that this CNA was a problem but her hands were tied because even though people verbally complained, no one wrote the complaints down. I wrote my complaint down, the manager had a meeting with her, and the next week when I returned she was much much better. Not perfect, but I think the idea that she might lose her job gave her the much needed push to actually work at work. Unfortunately some people take kindness as weakness and respond only to authority. Don't waste your time, she is acting unprofessionally.

Don't be too hard on yourself!! For the most part you have actually been correct to goof on that word. If you actually read the whole dictionary post to the end it basically says that it is a word, but only in speech, and it is still not generally accepted. The final sentence in the Merriam-Webster online dictionary definition actually says, "Use regardless instead."

One of the wisest pieces of advice I ever got from a nursing instructor was, "If it would upset you to drop something in the toilet, I don't wear it to work." It has worked out well for me, I'm never the nurse frantically going through the trash looking for something they lost, because it was too expensive to just say "forget it I'll get a new one".

102 on a m/s tele floor. She was still with it and a full code (I checked with the MD and the patient, who both confirmed the code status was correct). I have never had my eyes so fixated on a tele screen in my entire life. Thankfully she was discharged home the next day.

If I could make one suggestion it would be to shadow an RN for several full 12 hour shifts before you decide to pursue nursing. The images that people in one field of healthcare have in their heads about what the other fields of healthcare actually spend the day doing are often not the reality, even though they work side by side. Nurses are awesome, and the job can be very rewarding, but you should really see for yourself what it is like before you spend the time and money on nursing school. Also be prepared to take a huge pay cut, new grad salaries vary from place to place but you should expect to start out making around $20/hour if you are working the floor, although your pharm degree might increase that a bit.

Don't quit, it is easier to get a job when you already have one, but I would start looking around for something else. Update your resume, and send it to some hospitals with open dayshift, or at least day night rotation positions. It seems like part of your misery is directly related to nightshifts, and part of your misery is the hospital itself. I have been where you are, I was a traveler for 5 years and can say from experience that not all hospitals are created equal. I have gone from wanting to quit nursing altogether to actually looking forward to going to work by simply changing hospitals.

How many patients do you have?

I wouldn't let a psychiatrist operate on my heart, so it makes sense not to take mental health advice from a heart surgeon.

It seems like your facility may need to review it's med administratin policy. My guess is that if a seasoned nurse did it twice, it has happened to other nurses as well, who may have been too afraid to speak up about their mistake.

You are comparing a flu shot to a lobotomy?

Oh you are totally correct, I would recommend that you follow the rules. Just venting!!!

Ok, off topic I know, but seriously this post annoys me. Not the poster, but the policy. I can understand making a student buy a specific color, because that has happened to me in real life, uniforms are part of nursing, but as long as a shoe properly supports and protects the foot, why would a school rule out an entire line of shoes that are perfectly acceptable in every healthcare facility I have ever seen? Because they are called "clogs"? As long as the heels are covered I can't think of any evidence based reason not to allow Danskos. They are comfy, they protect your feet from blood and body fluids MORE than the sneakers with mesh, which your school seems to have no problems with, and they are easy to clean. It is stupid, and exemplifies the "because I said so" reasoning that makes nursing school harder than it has to be. School is expensive enough, why make students go out and buy new shoes? By the way I'm always open to learning so if anyone has any facts that would back up the no-clog-even-if-it-has-a-heel policy let me know.

It is more about the individual hospital than the state. For example I traveled to 2 different systems in Pennsylvania. One was awesome, one was miserable. Check out turnover rates. I work in Massachusetts now, and love it. It is rare for me to be working a shift without at least one nurse who has been at my current facility for 10+ years. It says a lot for a facility to hold on to its nurses that long, not to mention the fact that there is always someone trustworthy to answer my questions. Ask the nurses how long they have been there. If everyone is new that is a red flag, or if all of a sudden there are a bunch of open positions on a particular unit, try to figure out why. You also should ask about nurse to patient ratios. I tend to add 1-2 patients to whatever they say in the interview unless there is a cap where they stop taking patients if they can't make the ratio (I have only worked in one facility that capped and it was wonderful 3:1 was the true nurse patient ratio 4:1 was the exception, and after that they stopped taking admissions, but it was a world renowned teaching facility so don't expect that everywhere). Look at the assignment board to see how many patients the nurses REALLY have. When I worked in North Carolina if a dc order was written the patient no longer counted, so you could end up with 6 or 7 patients on dayshift when the "max" was supposed to be 5. So to answer your question after traveling for 5 years I can honestly say there is no "best state" although Massachusetts is pretty nice, and I admit I have not traveled to California so I can't judge them. My experience has been that the northeast is more nurse-friendly than the south, but that doesn't mean everywhere in the northeast will be good and everything in the south will be bad. Research the individual facility carefully.

As a floor nurse I thank you!!! What are the issues they don't want you to address? There is nothing more frustrating than getting a patient and realizing the minute they get to the floor that they belong in the ICU (you have a full patient load and on top of that you have to do all the extra work to transfer/monitor a patient who never should have been on your floor in the first place). PACU needs more nurses like you. It sounds like if you can stick it out you would be a great mentor for the other nurses on your floor. If the patient is awake and stable but they might need something repleated or a transfusion it is ok to send them to the floor. The key word is stable! I don't mind hanging a med or starting some blood on the floor, I DO mind having to push narcan 5 min after they get to the floor because their RR is 6 and you can't arouse them (yes that has happened more than once), or sending them to the ICU because I can't get their pressure higher than 70/30 after fluid boluses (yes that also has happened more than once)Don't let them discourage you. If you are really unhappy and you don't feel like you are in a place where you can advocate properly for your patients due to the culture of the unit go back to ICU. There is no such thing as being too skilled or having too much knowledge! Is management backing you up?

An RN, even with a BSN, typically doesn't make $105,000/year in Boston. Salary.com Salary Wizard- Do you know what you're worth? of living is also much higher here. If your goal is education and you have children you might want to consider loans/grants to go to school (grants don't have to be paid back, and if you make less than a certain amount a year a Pell grant can go a long way to funding your undergrad education ) so you don't have to work full time. Nursing isn't the best track to med school. You dont need a BSN to go to med school, you just need a bachelors degree in any subject with the proper math and science classes. After med school you have to do a residency, where unless you went to med school on a scholarship, you will be a couple hundred thousand dollars in debt, work full time hours, and make less money than the nurses for 3-6 years depending on your specialty (think about making $50,000/year and being in debt to loan companies that don't let you wait until residency is over to start paying them back). I'm not trying to discourage you, I'm just trying to help you look at the reality. You might want to consider nurse practitioner or nurse anesthetist as long term goals. You get a significant pay increase in both, and compared to med school they are much cheaper and flexible for a single parent. I'm also not saying not to go to med school, I just think you should pick either doctor or nurse, because becoming a nurse won't speed up the process of becoming a doctor, in fact it may delay it because you will have to take extra courses to meet the med school requirements. You should contact the universities that interest you and talk to someone in admissions before you make any life altering decisions. Med school will be enough work, don't add to it more than you have to!

Soooo I'm feeling a little confused. Why was a patient who had been there 20+ days discharged at that hour? Seems like an issue between the MD and management. I doubt it wasn't a surprise that the patient was ready to go home. I am trying to look at all the possible scenarios, and I am just not finding one where there is no option but to send a patient home, who has been in the hospital for 20+ days, in the middle of the night. NO ONE on dayshift was aware that the patient was ready to go home? After 20+days did those magical 4 or 5 hours make the patient stable to go home? Even if they were waiting on test results or something the MD could have written "DC patient if ____ results are ____" then dayshift could have just called and gotten a final verbal discharge order. After 20+ days the patient should be ready from a CM standpoint so that shouldn't be an issue. You were put in a bad position, and there is no excuse for your supervisor to make you come back to the hospital on no sleep after working all night to reprimand you face to face. That goes beyond bullying, driving that far on no sleep can be deadly. You didn't hurt someone, there were no missing narcs, she is just abusing her position. If I were you I would be looking for a new job, and I understand in this economy that can be difficult, so I would at least turn my ringer off during the day.

It is pretty competitive here. I don't want to say it is impossible to work in a hospital without a BSN, but it will definitely be a challenge. I know a few hospitals that won't even look at you without a BSN. Do you have experience? If you do that will be a big help, if not you will have a difficult time getting into a hospital (LTC and home care are a different story).

Just keep in mind that not all nursing involves working in a hospital. There are lots of options out there, so don't get too depressed yet!

You are right, we are not going to change each others minds, but I really hope that you take our this thread into consideration when making decisions. There is nothing wrong with boosting your immune system. Not all alternative therapies are fake, but not all mainstream medicine is bad for you either. My biggest problem is with so called "studies" is that they scare people into making uninformed medical decisions. I have read so many "scientific" articles against the flu shot that have no real basis. Too many people are mistaking psudoscience for real dangers. I understand that science will keep changing, but the fact that there are mercury and aluminum free influenza vaccines available will not change. As nurses it is our job to keep up to date and informed about the medications we are administering.

You have posted a list of common vaccine ingredients from the CDC website, NOT the ingredients of the flu vaccine. I did not say that there is no aluminum in any vaccines, I said that it is not in the influenza vaccine. If you read the actual ingredients of the influenza vaccine (it is all in the chart that I previously posted) none of brands contain aluminum.

I feel like nursing is becoming a contest of who can tolerate the most deplorable conditions without accidently hurting a patient. Just because things are worse in another state doesn't make poor working conditions ok in the OP's state. I feel bad for both of you!

There is no aluminum in the seasonal influenza vaccine. It should not be that difficult to find the mercury free flu vaccine since they only put the thimerosal in multi-dose vials. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/B/excipient-table-2.pdf If my doctor was telling me not to take the flu shot because it contains mercury and aluminum, I would consider another doctor, because they were either lying or uninformed about the options. I am not trying to be offensive, but there is no debate about the aluminum, it is simply not there. Have a wonderful day :)

You have the right not to get the shot, but unless you physician is telling you that it is contraindicated, the facility has the right to say that you can not work there if you refuse. I can see a person with an autoimmune disease being nervous about a flu shot, and it is something that should be discussed with you physician. If your physician agrees that you should not get the shot then the facility should not make you; however as I stated earlier if there are no contraindications healthcare workers should get the shot. I am actually a strong proponent of treating the whole patient, and I don't think that modern medicine has found all the answers, BUT the flu shot has been tested over and over on large populations. It took approximately 30 years to find that DES was harmful, but they DID find out it was harmful. The flu shot has been around more than twice as long and they have yet to find a concrete reason not to get the shot. GBS risk is slightly increased but the benefits of vaccination outweigh the risks. Even if it only reduces you chance of spreading the flu by a third, that is a third less chance you have of spreading a potentially deadly illness to a patient.

Dr. Hugh Fudenberg has had his medical license revoked http://www.casewatch.org/board/med/fudenberg/1995order.shtml Dr. Boyd Haley attempted to put a chelator into a pill and market it as a "dietary supplement" without any evidence of safety, when the FDA questioned him he pulled it rather than come up with the evidence. FDA warns maker of autism supplement - UPI.com As far as the mercury issue, get your flu shot from a single dose vile and there won't be any thimerosal CDC - Seasonal Influenza (Flu) - Questions & Answers - Thimerosal and 2012-2013 Seasonal Flu Vaccines You can find an "expert" promoting just about any opinion you have if you google it, which is why it is so important to consider the source. this comment was in response to the articles posted by Brightfuture4us, but for some reason they didn't get quoted in the reply. Dr. Hugh Fudenberg and Dr. Boyd Haley were the doctors linking the flu shot to alzheimer's.

I apoligize for offending, but the flu shot has been around since the 1940s, and it is still believed by experts that the benefits outweigh the risks. How many of the meds that get pulled each year have been around for 70 years? Each year thousands of people die from the flu and flu related illness. If you don't want the flu vaccine that is your right, but it is not your right to potentially spread a potentially deadly illness to vulnerable populations.