wooh

We don't, but those that work in the city rather than the suburbs get the joy of paying for parking. Strangely, I don't find that as bad as charging patients/visitors for parking. Which the bigger hospitals in even the suburban areas around here do. I guess I just feel like they already pay enough to be there to have to pay for parking too? But that's apparently how they pay for the parking decks. The company that builds them gets to charge for parking instead of the hospital having to pay to build them.

It's a bit better than the hospital constantly hitting the staff up for donations. But not much. :)

One: You probably need to get that on a medic-alert bracelet. Because in a trauma, even if it's in your pocket, nobody is going to see that until after they've cut your clothes off and are looking at shocking or intubating you. Two: If you'd prefer death to a woman seeing your nether regions, then it's good you realize you're an "extreme case." But I think you need to consider that because of your feelings and past experience, your perceptions of interactions will also be a bit skewed. It's true for any of us that have raw nerves on a subject. You don't want staff to act crazy about your requests. You need to be the same way. I find when I'm making a bit "out there" request, being apologetic (even if not necessary) helps get the other person on my side. For example, when I make a weird diet request at a restaurant, I say up front, "I know this is weird, I'm sorry to be difficult, but can I get it [enter crazy order that evokes memories of Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally]?" Servers then want to get it right. (The local Chili's even has my usual order memorized and I don't even need to say all the crazy stuff anymore. Which probably means I eat there too much.) I guess this is a long way of saying, get future staff on your side rather than automatically assuming you'll be victimized, and you'll probably have more luck.

A billion years ago when I worked at a nursing home as a CNA, I had an awesome DON that happened to be male. We were short one day and he was working the floor with us lowly aides. Went to change and clean up one of my fave little old ladies and she told him, "Now I know you're used to doing this with cows and horses, but you're going to have to be gentle with me!" Off topic, but your comment reminded me of that nice memory. :)

I'm not sure why hospital CPAP can't be used on a med/surg unit. It really doesn't require more monitoring than I'd be doing anyway except for responding to the occasional alarm.

You can at least close a door.

Is there anything being said here that is being taken as "Perhaps next time we do a survey, we could do a better job," or is it all being taken as, "People here are too stubborn to realize what a wonderful survey it was!"?

I've got a few male coworkers that have their stuff together. Don't mind working with them. Perhaps I should rethink my desire of not allowing men to be hired at all.

If one needs to stay in their area, then one needs to research the job market in THAT AREA before getting a degree. It's like saying, "I want to be an astronaut but can only work in Arizona, why won't NASA hire me?" Does it suck to not be able to get a job doing what you want to do where you want to do it? Yes. But if you can't move, then you have to deal with the market you're in. And before getting an education, you need to make sure it will give you a marketable degree in the area you can't leave.

Obnoxious doesn't equal lawsuit worthy. If it did, I'd be suing half the people that post on allnurses. (And I'm sure some would be suing me.)

Because as a billing department, they don't have to do anything without orders (and thus reimbursement). It's like, "Why does nursing have to troubleshoot instead of PT coming to do it?" Because without an order for something they can get reimbursed on, PT doesn't get involved. We're part of the room charge so it falls on us unless we can get an order to dump it on a department that will get paid to deal with it.

Two staff in the room is for the protection of the provider. If the patient doesn't want that, as a provider, I'm going to be telling the patient to deal with it or go elsewhere. Whatever my gender or the patient's gender. Not to mention, sexual harassment, unless you have some weird state laws where you're at, not something you can sue your healthcare provider for.

Legal action for what? What shall his attorney put as the cause of action?

Reminds me of that episode of That 70s Show where Eric saw his parents and was traumatized. Ewwwwww!!!!!! Hahahaha!

I had a family member with a home bipap machine. Was told something about a valve was different and thus why the hospital mask we brought home wouldn't work. I don't think every machine requires its own mask, but could see there being a few different kinds. I don't know, will defer to the RTs in this thread on that one. As for policies and liability: RTs don't mess with home bipap because RTs get to bill for their services unlike nurses. So while we're tucked into the room charge, everything the RTs do can be reimbursed. But if they're just helping with home stuff, they're opening themselves (and the hospital) up to liability for things they aren't being reimbursed on. What hospital is going to allow that? When nurses help with non-hospital approved/biomed checked equipment, we're also opening ourselves up to liability. Do you know if the machine has been maintained? (Especially if you can immediately see problems with the mask/equipment, what else is going on with it that you can't see?) Anytime we have patients/families that want to use home equipment they bring in, it has to be checked by our biomed team first (which can at times be ridiculous, things like a feeding pump are pretty obvious when they aren't working right, but with breathing equipment, not so obvious so I'd agree a good thing to check) and generally we can't touch them, patient/family has to do all the adjustments. Unless there is a really good reason the home equipment is superior, using hospital equipment is just easier and avoids all sorts of liability issues. The bigger question is why on earth does CPAP require transfer to ICU? It makes sense if a patient out of nowhere is requiring it (because why they suddenly need it likely requires close monitoring), but on a patient that regularly uses it at home?