tinnekke

Part of me hesitates to bring this up, but I feel that I must. Today the 2nd shift nurse and I were informed by our DON that corporate was going to be initiating some new policies as part of some efficiency drive. Now I am all for ways to get work done in an efficient manner, but rules of safety still need to be followed. Apparently part of the new policy is that we must somehow compress shift report, counting the narcotics, AND auditing the MARs into 10 minutes. :stone (no that's not a typo). Our DON has already expressed her feelings on this matter and a couple others that are similarly chowderheaded to the higherups before even mentioning them to us. My relief nurse for tonight, who is an RN and a LNC with many more years experience than I, flat out told our DON that she would be doing no such thing with her license on the line, and I concurred. Our DON agrees with us, yet this policy is due to be implemented in the near future. Heck, I timed myself this afternoon giving report to the tape recorder and it took 15 minutes just to do that, and that was doing a very condensed report on a fairly uneventful day. It normally takes us at least half an hour to do report and count narcs and audit the MARs, since I rarely if ever have time to pre-record report, and shift change is rarely, if ever, uninterrupted. We work in an at-will state, for a company that shows increasing tendencies to make very arbitrary policy changes that make no sense in the field (including the one where the DON gets written up for having PRN narcs in the drawer that someone higher up decided that doctors shouldn't prescribe). We're both worried about our rights and options at this point because neither of us wants to lose our licenses trying to make a go of this ridiculous policy but we face being written up if we can't. Any advice would be greatly useful.

I hope you win, Tom. Sounds like you have been royally screwed. Many hugs and much encouragement from this baby nurse.:)

Wow, my instructors must have been weird or something. I've only been out of school a little more than a year, but we had to learn 3 measurement standards and the conversions between them: Metric, Apothecary, and household. I can convert grains to milligrams, ml to teaspoons and drams and reverse them... some of my patients go to doctors who regularly prescribe using apothecary or household doses.

You just described the day-to-day behaviors of one of our Residents. (I work LTC.) The woman is NOT demented. She is a little hard of hearing, but that's it. She will hit the call light say she needs a nurse NOW, and when I get there she wants her slippers or she wants her blinds closed. One time she called the midnight shift saying she needed to get to the bathroom. When the CNA got there, she asked the young woman what time it was. When told it was just barely midnight she told the CNA (and I am not kidding) "Go away, I don't need you." When she's out in the common areas, she will just yell "nurse, nurse" whenever she wants something, and if you try to find out what might be up with her, she loses all patience with you and tells you to go away. One time she knocked a PRN med that she requested out of the hands of one of the staff because she decided after she asked for it that she didn't want it. I tell you, my days would be much more relaxed if I didn't have that woman as a daily thorn in the collective sides of all the staff. :angryfire She really drives me crazy. Each day I go in telling myself today will be different, and inevitably, no matter how calm I keep myself, at some point that woman has me needing to go outside and get some air before I yell or cry. She rode me so bad one day, even the CNAs felt sorry for me. I was so close to tears, she even noticed and let up on me, and actually asked me why I was so upset. I finally got to tell her that I just get incredibly frustrated because she will complain about not feeling well and not let me do anything to help her, but get more and more unpleasant because she isn't feeling well. Oh well...

I came back from a coma nine years ago. I was comatose for about a month, I guess. That's what I'm told. I can remember weirds bits of conversation that happened around me. It's very disjointed. And yes, I did check with the people I thought I heard, and I did hear aright. I can remember bits of my roommate (RL not hospital) apologizing for causing the accident that put me in the hospital. I can remember hearing my best friend's voice. At the time of the accident, he was 500 miles away at school. When I came to, he was not there. He came to see me while I was in the hospital. They said he spent four days in my room, and the only thing that took him away was having to go back for finals. I thought I was seriously out of it that I had heard his voice until my roommate said, yes he'd been there. I even remember hearing an announcer of some kind issue a tornado watch. That one I was sure was some weird dream, but that was real, too. The last place I could remember being was the middle of Kansas, but when I came out of it, I was at a hospital in New Orleans. Don't ask me how. The last I knew it was January. It was February, and there had been a tornado watch in New Orleans while I was in my coma, and my friends had been watching tv in my room and heard the announcement. All very strange for me, but yes, there are people who remember hearing stuff. Like I said, it's all very weird and disjointed, maybe not everyone mentions it because it'll sound nuts. I know it sounded nuts to me, but I asked. I didn't have alot of inhibitions for a long time after the injury, and I just said what was on my mind.

Oh man, this is my a-number one peeve right now. I work LTC, and most of my Residents are a delight. However... there is one that drives all the staff up a tree. She thinks that everyone is there for her sole benefit. We have a call light system that is connected into our phone system so all of us have portable phones we can use to answer the lights wherever we are. This means that I can pick up when she rings the light and be all the way across the building doing patient care on someone else. If this is the case, I will tell her that I am with another Resident, but that I'll be there as soon as I get finished with what I am doing. This just causes her to ring the light constantly until someone gets there. (Not that she doesn't do that anyways, I swear she thinks we can teleport or something...makes me think of the genie in Aladdin "poof! what do you need?") She won't tell us what she needs when we ask, just says "get me the nurse" which means that the CNAs can disregard the call because I have to respond to the light personally. Then I get to her room and she wants her slippers!!! :angryfire She treats the Hospice aides that come in to help with her like they are stupid, and she is so RUDE!!! I cannot stand rude people, and she wouldn't know how to act courteously if you gave her training videos. I know it's uncharitable of me to say it, but I can't wait until she's out of my hair.

I work in LTC, and I have several Residents who remind me frequently why it is that I love what I do so much. One actually told her son the first time that I got to meet him that I was her favorite nurse. That made me melt. :) I have another who calls me her Angel on a regular basis. Then there's the gentleman who always calls me Cookie. That gets me smiling every time. :balloons: It's also nice just to be doing AM med pass in the dining room and hear the ladies at this one table talk about what a great nurse I am and how much they all feel I am always there for them if they need me. It definitely makes up for the rare Resident who treats me like a servant (and we have one who does...thinks nurse is another word for lady's maid and wouldn't know the words please or thank you if they bit her on the rear end).

I am relieved to hear that. I've been reading all the replies before making mine, but this makes me feel much better. Thank you and bless you for being a proactive parent. :balloons:

Me neither. I went to Marshall Field's once to get a lipstick for a special occasion to wear with the foundation which is the only makeup I wear even on special occasions otherwise. I let myself get talked into having some eye makeup and such applied just to dress me up. The look on my husband's and son's faces when I got back to where they were was priceless. Of course, my husband scored major points when he told me his objection was that I am so beautiful without makeup that he thought putting all that goop on my face just hid my natural beauty behind a bunch of paint. Needless to say I went home and washed it all off then just put on my normal dressy bit of foundation plus a light brush of lipstick, and both he and I (not to mention Peanut) were all much happier with the outcome. :rotfl:

I feel your pain and also feel astonishment at those "convenience moms". I gave birth back in 2001, and the hospital where I had my son had all the rooms set up for couplets. They also have a class III NICU in its own area of the maternity floor. (Basically NICU is in a quiet area between L&D and Mother/Baby so that they don't have to be taken off the floor, just down the hall.) The NICU has its own area for moms so that they can stay in the hospital with their infants instead of having to leave to make room for healthy couplets. The Mother/Baby unit should rightly be called the family unit since they not only condone fathers staying the night, they outright encourage it. The Mother/Baby unit nursery is mostly for observation and doing infant care like baths and assessments, but moms are told to bring their infants down if they need a little time to themselves. I gave birth on a very busy weekend, (I labored in one of the OB examining rooms most of the night.) but you wouldn't have known it if you walked by the nursery. Other than a few under the warmers after a bath, there were no infants in the nursery. They were all in with their parents. Just about everyone there rooms in. Even I got to, and my son ended up being a c-section. I don't see why both the NICU and the observational nursery concepts couldn't be made to harmonize, especially if pregnant moms were given support during pregnancy to realize how good it is for them and their infants to room in after delivery. I loved it. It also gave my husband and I a perfect chance to get acquainted with our son's rhythms while we were in a place that was supportive and allowed us the opportunity to get rest if we needed it. (We never did, but it was nice knowing it was an option.) By the time we went home, we were already in synch with his sleep/wake schedule, and the sounds of his different cries were already firmly set in both our minds. I don't want to have any more childrem, but I do remember his earliest infancy very fondly. It was an incredible experience. :)

That really has nothing to do with whether or not someone can find peace in her life without Jesus. She said to try findong peace without him and tell her how you do. So I told her that I am doing quite well. I am happy for those who have a fulfilling spiritual life as Christians. I am pleased that it works for them. My path works just as well for me. Implying that I cannot find peace without following a particular path is a touch insulting. I didn't say anything about Christians needing to be ashamed of their gospels, nor did I condemn proselytizing. I only stated that I found peace on my spiritual path and that I would thank her to remember that it is possible. She is welcome to her path, I just wish to be left in peace on mine by those who feel that they are the sole keepers of truth.

Speaking as a non-Christian, I'm doing very well, thank you. I'm quite at peace, and my life is right where I want it to be. While I respect your right to your religious beliefs, it would behoove you to recognize that others have their own beliefs, and that they are just as valid for them as yours are for you.

Wow.... Thank you to everyone for their support. It's still a very emotional subject for me when I discuss Craig. I always feel like I am laying my heart bare. I just felt I needed to respond to someone who had honest questions about how someone could do what I did.

"I think one has to question a woman who can give a child she carried for 9 months away.... god knows pregnancy is hell and the protective bond is strong for most, so I have issues with the concept." Ok, I'll bite. When I was 24 I gave a child up for adoption. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done in my life. However, my reasons were all based in a deep love of that child. Here's the story: I found out I was pregnant while my fiance was over in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War. He was an Army medic and from what we could tell of the timing, the baby was a good bye present. Now, when I told him, he was thrilled. We had all kinds of plans for the baby, and he was trying to be able to be home to be with me for the birth, but it didn't happen that way. When I was 4 months pregnant, he was KIA. At the time, I was a college student trying to go full time while not overdoing it. you see, I was a high risk pregnancy due to an injury to my uterus when I was 19, and it was rough going at times, so I had to quit working because the added stress caused me to have a couple close calls early on, so I had to go on welfare when he died. Why? He had been sending me his pay from Saudi while he was alive, so I had had an income, but since we weren't married, I didn't get any benefits from the military, and his family, who didn't approve of him marrying out of his religion, cut me out cold, not caring that I was carrying another member of their family within me. I took a long, hard look at where I was and what I could offer a child in that kind of position. It wasn't much. Love is many things, but it doesn't put food on the table nor keep a roof over one's head if something bad happens beyond one's control. So I chose to give my child up for adoption. I worked with an agency where I got to learn about the prospective parents and pick a family I thought would be good for my child. I sent them letters, and they replied. We talked on the phone, and they even visited a few times. They did help me some financially with things welfare wouldn't cover like maternity clothes. I felt very good about the people who adopted my son. They were even there for the borth - not in the room mind you, but at the hospital at my request. I just didn't want a cast of thousands in the room with me as time closed in because it was a teaching hospital, and I'd had my fill of people coming and going, so at the end it was me , my coach, my nurse (I still remember her name , it was Becky.), and the doctor who was there since my doc was doing an emergency C-Section. Afterwards, I had my son with me for the time I was in the hospital. As crazy as it may sound, I had him room in with me. I wanted to give him all the love I could while I was able to. I even nursed him. When I left, I wrote a long letter to him and gave it to his new parents to give him when they felt he was ready for it. In it I told him how much I loved him, and how I chose these people to be his parents because they could give him a life that I couldn't at that time. I left the door open for him to contact me if he ever wished to, and I got pictures from his parents for quite a while. Sadly, we fell out of touch a few years later because the Dad got transferred several times by his job, and I was in transition at the same time due to being stalked by an obsessive ex. I still think about him, and love him very much. If I can ever find them again,. I will reestablish contact, and let him know about his little brother. I think Craig and Tadziu would really like each other.

"I still believe we would appear more professional and would make progress towards the public becoming more aware of how few R.N.s are on duty AND that there is a distinction between the professional licensure of the staff. " There are so many ways I wanted to reply to this, all of them potentially inflammatory. I am an LPN, and I respect the hell out of my fellow nurses regardless of their licensure. Why? Because it takes a great deal of heart to work in this profession with some of the insanity we face on a daily basis. But I have had it UP TO HERE with RNs who think that they are the only nurses who matter. There are those who are fantastic and treat all nurses as colleagues, and they have my appreciation, but there are far too many who treat me like a glorified CNA because I am not an RN. In regards to the use of the word client, to me it seems more appropriate in the Home Care/Private Duty setting than in a hospital setting simply because of the more choice-based setup. However, regardless of what they are called, they are all people who look to us to provide them with the highest standard of care possible. Now this may be mitigated by those who refuse prescribed treatments or other things that would benefit them, and goodness knows I've encountered my share of that, but nevertheless, it is still our responsibility to make the options available to them even if they will be turned down flat. It's our dedication to these standards that marks us as professionals, not what degree we may have.