OLDTRACKMEDIC

Simple.. I climbed out of my ambulance and walked into the ER. I was a 5-year Paramedic, and decided it was no job for an old man. I am proud of my ambulance heritage. I was difficult, because the nurses I worked with had an issue with paramedic-RN. I did find out that nurses eat their young, and ER nurses are among the worse....

Yes, I have been assaulted by patients. That is why I have a funky rib (fractured while restraining a 15y/o psych kid) and a screw in my thumb (gamekeepers fracture, due to a suicidal patient who didn't want to give up her cigarettes). I have punched, kicked, bitten by patients. And each one I have had arrested. And in the county I work, the State's Attorney plea bargains them down to misdemeanors. The BEST assault was when one of my co-workers (an LPN) in the ER, thought I was gay and making passes at him. So he brings a LOADED GUN and points it at me, telling me to stop making passes at him...( I didn't know I was). He was arrested, plea-bargained down to simple assault, and lost his job. BUT he kept his license! I filed a complaint with the Department of Professional Regulation, but they said the complaint was "unfounded"..and come to find out..HE was gay, and had a crush on me!!!

I always tell new nurses not to get discouraged, ER is a very dynamic, fluid environment. When in nursing school, or coming from the floor, you took care of the same-type of patient, be it Geriatric, Pediatric, Ortho, Med-Surg. Now you are taking care of all those patients at the same time! You are used to working from doctors orders, where ER nurses just "do stuff". Well, the stuff we are doing comes from many years of experience. Do we look down on you because you can't....yet? No, we remember when we were in your shoes. As time goes on, you will become more and more comfortable. Don't be discouraged. Hey, Rome wasn't built in a day....

All those are good, but remember, find an older nurse and latch on to them. They have seen and done stuff you will never have the opportunity to do ( because in most states its illegal now) and will always be a great resource too in your career. Don't be afraid to say, "I've never done this, will you come hold my hand?"

while working triage one evening, i had a mother, and grandmother bring a 4 y/o little girl to the desk and announce "her water just broke". they swore that the little girl was pregnant and delivery was imminent. i tried to explain that it wasn't possible, but they wouldn't take no for an answer. so i directed to a patient room and notified the doctor...and then called dcfs. i also received a patient via ambulance because "fuddawadame fitta de hea" and he told me this three times while i was trying to clarify the complaint. so thats what i wrote as the cheif complaint: fuddawadame fitta de hea. the doctor looked at me puzzled, and after seeing the patient, agreed. yep, thats what he said "fuddawadame fitta de hea" i can't remember the number of times i responded to ambulance runs when i was a paramedic. i went to a home one night for a girl who had swallowed her tongue. i arrived to find five teens holding the girls tongue out of her mouth to keep her from swallowing it. all of them in a dead panic. i grabbed on also, assured them i wouldn't let go when they did. well, they let go, and about five seconds later, so did i...she lived...