wsuRN2009

Thanks for all the feed back and advice. Been seriously thinking this over for the last month or so. My small hospital has a system of larger hospitals in larger cities close by. I am going to talk with my manager and explore the possibility of moving somewhere where my heart would be in the work. There is nothing worse than dreading to go to work. And I have learned so much and gained confidence in my nursing skills over the last 2 years....but the last 2 weeks especially I have dreaded to go to work. That is not fair to myself or my patients I don't think. We'll see where this takes me...

Had no idea I posted this under nursing humor. Sorry! I think that I definitely need to look elsewhere....thanks for the input. And yes it is so scary to do something new. But I think I am ready for it. Cubbieblue I totally agree.....I love every RN I work with on nights in my small hospital. Everyone is so supportive and such a great team. My manager is great too and I have been so greatful for the support and opportunity to work where I do. Sadly if I want to work in peds or OB I'll have to move hospitals. I finally feel comfortable where I am but I think I am ready for a different population.

I just wanted to add that in addition to all the patients that have tested my patience....I have met and cared for some amazing people who truely appreciate the time and energy I have spent taking care of them and making sure their needs were met.

I have worked on and ortho/surg unit for almost 2 years now in a very small hospital. In nursing school I always wanted to do peds or L&D. As a new grad the only job I could find was in ortho/surg so I decided to take it as a learning experience and do the best I could. It is getting exhausting...all of the ETOH patients, confused, demented, combative, SI, drug seeking patients. I am physically and emotionally drained from this job. Because it is such a small hospital we admit all kinds of patients (not just surgical) to my floor. When I envisioned nursing somehow it did not involve tying a cute little old man to his bed so he wouldn't pull out his foley and IV. My question is do other RNs feel the same way? Has med/surg drained you? And also how hard would it be to transfer to peds or L&D when I have been doing ortho/surg and have no specialized experience neccessarily?

So....the consensus was this was simple as hypoglycemia. I am completely dumbfounded by this. CBG at 0330 was 85 and lab draw during the code at about 415-430 was 26. What happened? Now I feel even more incompetent that I can't do a simple blood sugar. Can blood sugar really drop that quickly? Or patient be unresponsive with a BS of 85?? So confused....I felt like I did everything I could before I called the rapid response and it was just blood sugar. Really??? PS the patient ended up to be fine and went home a few days later. (I feel good about that) but still am feeling bummed about the whole situation. The charge RN also spoke to me about the MD wanting to write me up for the innaccurate blood sugar. How could that be blamed on me?

The last set of vital before I called rapid response were about 105/60 hr in the 80s resp 22 and 93% on RA. As the rapid response progressed the MD felt she could not maintain her airway anymore. Her lungs and respirations almost immediately became really wet sounding and she needed to be suctioned and that is why the code was called. She never stopped breathing or had a change in her heart rhythm, NSR. She was warm, pink, good pulses.

I have been a med/surge nurse for about a year and a half now. Last night was the first time I have been involved in a code where I was the primary nurse. I work 11pm to 7am. I came on shift to 5 stable patients. The one I ended up transferring to ICU was 70 year old POD #3 from a joint surgery. No complications whatsoever, vital signs stable since surgery. At 11pm she was snoozing away resp even, unlabored, no signs of distress at all. I let her continue sleeping then the CNA did vitals at 3am, again they were stable but the patient slept through it. She is diabetic so I checked her blood sugar-80 and would still not wake up, I called rapid response then eventually a code....she was intubated and transferred to ICU. It all happened so fast. I am kicking myself thinking I could have done something differently. I left not even knowing what exactly happened with this patient. It wasn't overdose on meds/narcotics, narcan was given just in case even though she only received 10mg oxycodone all day. The patient had a history of a CVA 4 years ago but the CT after the code showed no bleed. I am just so confused as to what could have happened and what I should have done differently. Any ideas? I am just so torn up over this. feeling responsible, and am praying that the patient pulls through.

I am a brand new nurse on a med/surg floor. I have been orienting with a preceptor for just about 3 weeks now. My preceptor was out sick so I was assigned to worked with another nurse. Last night I had a patient that was supposed to get a biopsy done the day before and somehow it was not ordered in the computer correctly and was not caught by the 3 different shifts of nurses that took care of this pt before my nurse and I came on at 11p. We made sure it was ordered for the next day. So anyways we went about our night and it went very smoothly. Stable patients no major issues. So at 7 am the day shift came on and the MD that ordered the procedure was there also. I was waiting to give report and happened to be the one the doctor took his frustrations out on. Why wasn't the biopsy done yesterday? This is ridiculous. He ordered me to get my supervisor immediately. That happened at shift change, and paging two doctors for 2 other patients with abnormal labs a half hour before. Anyways it just seemed like all this stuff happened at once and everyone looked to me like how could I have let this happen. I felt completely incompetent and responsible. I was so frustrated with the hospitals charting system (all paper) and amount of mistakes by several different people to let this happen. But it all fell on me. Thankfully it was not life threatening but it was an unneccessary delay. I held it together until I saw my manager in the hallway and she asked me how my night was. I completely fell apart. She was so great and rushed me into her office to talk about it. But I cried like a baby. She made me feel better and said it happens to a lot of new nurses, and it will get better. On my way home I felt even worse for breaking down like that over something that doesn't sound like that big of a deal. It was completely unprofessional. Now I am questioning if this is for me. If I can't even handle one frustrated doctor over a non lifethreatening situation am I going to make it as a nurse? Did I completely waste the last 4 years of my life to get here? I would really appreciate any suggestions or anything to help me through this. Thank you