Aneroo

It is a great team. Call depends on the staffing at your hospital. If they do non-interventional caths only, you wouldn't do call. Since you guys so cardiac surgery at your hospital, I am assuming that you have a team available 24hrs a day. We have to do call about once a week and then once every 6-8th weekend. We also had call rooms with a bed and a bathroom (with shower) for staff that live more than 30 minutes away, so they can stay the night.

Nurses are encouraged to get a certification, but it doesn't have to be RCIS. RT's are encouraged to obtain their RCIS.

Biltmore Estate in Asheville. When we lived in the western part of the state we had a yearly pass out there. It was an hour away, and I loved to take day trips down there. My daughter loved the barnyard, and I loved the winery (haha) and the grounds. I loved finding photo areas and finding new angles to take pictures of the house. I'd love to stay in the inn there, but it is so expensive!

There is always time for lube! (Name that movie!)

What about the place you did your clinicals at?

I wanted to add- We started doing a modified Total Money Makeover system (Dave Ramsey). DH and I each get our own stash of money each payday. If I want to buy coffee everyday, it comes from my stash of money, as does clothes and any extras I want. We have a food fund, gas fund, play fund, and soon, a fund for season tickets for football next year. LOL

Thank you for asking me to ignore this (so I'd know you weren't speaking directly of me). I feel a little bit better since I have remember his horrible platelet count that we didn't know about (insert rolling eyes here). I know if anything comes of it I have policy to back me up, but I don't want something I did to complicate this persons recovery, know what I mean?

I understand! 1- Write down everything you're spending. You'll be amazed at the small areas you're spending money that add up. 2- Figure out ways to cut back. Do you really need 247 cable channels and 1500 cell minutes/month? 3- Cook! I hate cooking, but it saves us money. Cut coupons every Sunday. It takes a while to get used to coupons, but after a few weeks, you get enough saved up in coupons and you get some great deals. http://www.grocerygame.com is a great website to help start coupons and will tell you who has what on sale (you should be able to do a few weeks for free). I cook several pounds of ground beef (bought on sale of course) and freeze it. That way if I am cooking hamburger helper, spaghetti, tacos or something like that, I just have to heat it in the microwave while I prepare the rest of the food, instead of cooking more beef. I was shocked to see we were spending over $500/month on eating out between two adults and a preschooler!

I wanted to add- the foley was inserted all the way to the hub before inflating the balloon, and I was able to pull back some after blowing up the balloon (it wouldn't pull back if blown up in the urethra, would it?). We also later found out the patients platelet count was crap, so I bet a minor injury would have looked bad since he wasn't clotting well. *sigh* I just need to know he is ok and I didn't do something wrong.

It was cardiac surgery- the physicians were aware, but it was not the priority at the time. I am not sure what was done post-op once the patient went to the ICU.

I'm beating myself up over this, and I don't even know if I should be. I did a foley on a male patient today, after anesthesia induction, prior to surgery start. The cath went in without any problems, no resistance. I go about 25ml of clear yellow urine in return. Sometime between that point and the start of the major surgery (one minor procedure was done prior to that), there was hematuria. A decent amount too, the urine was more than just tinged. He was still draining urine well though. What could cause this? I would assume if there were an injury, I would have noticed blood when I first got urine back also. I'm scared to death I've caused harm to this man and it's going to bite me in the butt, and I did it all like I was supposed to!

Yep! My fave has to be the allergy to oxygen. Um- I don't think so. Reaction? It dried out their nose.

I call it the thumper. However, they are an awesome machine, and in a smaller hospital where there isn't as much staff (or readily available students/residents), they can really help free up some hands. During a class, one of the ICU nurses said "I hated this thing and thought it was stupid until I saw it in a code where the patient had an arterial line. Before using it, the art line was reading 20's-30's(with compressions). While using it the arterial pressure jumped from 60-90". WOW!

Chloraprep contains alcohol, therefore it should be dry before using cautery, to decrease the risk of fire. I agree with bolded. If they're using betadine paint and scrub, where they are much closer to the skin and could easily touch it, then yes, they should be wearing sterile gloves and then gown and reglove after prep. ETA- There are also different sizes of chloroprep. The large containers (26ml) are to be used from the neck down (I guess not an issue for you guys unless it's a central line, but we use them in the OR a lot), b/c of the alcohol content. If it's a head or neck surgery, we use a smaller (10ml?) container.

I agree!!!

Do you work at the same hospital as me? LOL Same here. We'll do cases so long as we have staff.

When you're at work, and NOT in the OR, what do you wear? Say you're going to the cafeteria to go grab a bite to eat, or the tube station is down and you need to run some records to another unit. Are you required to wear a jacket or cover over your scrubs? We are required to wear a lab coat over our scrubs when leaving the OR. I get it, but I don't. I understand we don't want to go down to the cafeteria or out in the hospital, and have our uniforms exposed like that when we're going to be standing next to someones open abdominal cavity an hour later. At the same time, I don't get it. It's a jacket, not a N-95 mask. Germs are going to get through it, and all it really does for me is to keep me from spilling soup on my uniform. I'm still exposed to germs on my uniform walking through the OR halls and sitting in the staff lounge, where I am not required to wear my uniform. Every staff member had a jacket, some have several. The racks are littered with these jackets, many for the same people. We also have disposable jackets that can be worn, but I can't imagine how much those costs. I can't imagine the cost for the jacket for each staff member, cleaning them, or the disposable jackets.

Thanks you all! I have been wearing Alegria shoes. I like them so far! I'd like to find some crocs, but all the stores carry around here are the beach type crocs with holes, and I don't trust sizing enough to order online.

I've always been one to write up more stuff than my coworkers, but didn't write down everything. To me, the incident report isn't there to get me in trouble (even though it might)- it's also there to alert risk management that there is a problem there. If an entire floor is writing up that they're having issues with a pump/bed or another department, flags will be raised and someone might say "Hey, there's a trend here. What can we do to make this better?" ETA- How long have you been on the med/surg unit?

Because some nurses wouldn't treat all patients the same way, the same reason we have EMTALA. So someone with no job and torn clothes can come in and they should receive the same care as the rich dude (HA). Similar to the waitress who tends to the well dressed proper family but doesn't spend an equal amount of time or energy with the family that appears to be poor.

WOW= Work station on wheels

Unless she was at the point where she needed to be bagged, I would have called rapid response. Throw her on a NRB at 12-15lpm (unless she's a COPD'er) and pray her sats come up. (Keep in mind I worked ER, so I don't know how it works like that on the floor, but we could get away with that in the ER)

Yes, it might be harder. What is wonderful about nursing is that there are a lot of specialities you can chose from. Continue your studies. We had people in my program with chronic injuries (graduated and now working in an ICU). I have a hearing loss and am still able to do my job. I know that's totally different than a back injury, but a LOT of us have limitations or disabilties and we still do it because we want to!

Oh, I hated Meditech!!! We used it in the ER! I'm not sure what system is used in the OR where I will be working, but the main hospital used a form of EPIC (the OR has not switched over). I'm excited about it. I worked in the ER just before the transition and was a trainer/superuser for EPIC, so I am going to try and do that again when the OR switches over.

I agree. Ignore what she said! I had plenty of people in my class who didn't know where they wanted to work when they started, or even when we graduated! I had several classmates who knew "I want to work ob/peds/insert specialty here" and got there and HATED it during clinicals. Some said "There is no way I could ever do psych/er/or/etc" and loved it.