SweetLikeSugar

So you feel that heroin, crack and crystal meth should be legalized?? Seriously???

We have a urologist that hates to be called after 10pm. I had to call him a few months ago for one of his surgical patients. I made the mistake of calling at 10:15pm. He yelled at me for calling that late saying that "this is something that could have been addressed hours ago." Well, yeah....if the problem had presented itself hours ago!! He then came in the next morning and came up to me and said "some of you nurses just don't understand how hard we work. We get up at 6am and see patients and do procedures all day and it's very hard to be called that late at night." I smiled and nodded and told him that I was also very tired after my 7p-7a shift and unfortunately patient care isn't a 9-5 job. He replied that he didn't want to talk about it anymore.

I have a neighbor that asked me to do a dressing change for her after her spinal fusion a few years ago and honestly, it never occured to me to tell her no. But, it was just a 1 time thing.....she called and told me that her husband was out of town, she had a fever of about 102 and just generally felt like crap. I took over some gloves and 4x4's from a camping first-aid kit and removed her dressing. When I saw that there was a ton of purulent drainage from the wound, I just covered it with the dry dressing and told her son to take her to the ER. Turns out she had a staph infection and required about 3 months of IV antibiotics from a home care RN. She was so grateful, I can't even imagine telling her that wasn't in my scope of practice. Maybe I'm too naive or too trusting, but I really just saw this as doing a favor for a friend. And I would do it again. Now when I lived in my apartment, one of my neighbors found out I was a nurse and kept knocking on my door or stopping me in the parking lot asking me questions or for medical advice.. I repeatedly told her to consult her own MD.

We had a 92 year old man on our unit about a year ago. He was so cute but soooooo confused. He kept calling the nurses into his room and telling us that we had to call his mom because she had no idea where he was and she was probably worried sick about him! We all commented that he must have been a really good boy when he was young to be so concerned with his mother's worries. :redbeathe

My parents put my grandfather in respite care at one of the many many LTC places in our community so they could go on a vacation for a few days. My grandfather was about 89 years old with dementia. When he had stayed there before, he was always placed in the locked alzheimers unit. This particular time, there was no bed available in the locked unit. The director assured my mom that the nurses didn't have high patient loads and that the CNA's would have no problem checking on him every 15 minutes throughout the night. My mom fell for it hook, line and sinker. I told her repeatedly that that most likely wouldn't happen, that they just wanted to fill a bed and get the $$$. But she assured me that the director "promised her. And she seems really nice." My parents left for their vacation the next morning and after about 2 hours on the road, they got a call from the director herself that my grandfather was found at about 6am at the bottom of the stairs covered in blood and was being sent to the hospital for a head CT. They had no idea how it happened. When the director was asked by my parents about the q15 minute checks, she had absolutely no answer. She did however continue to call my parents every week for about a month checking on my grandfather's condition.

at the hospital I work at, we are timed on how quickly we answer the call lights. A timer was installed at the nurses station and as soon as the patient hits the call button, the timer starts. The timer doesn't stop until we physically go into the patient's room and climb behind their bed and press a button to cancel the call light. Pie charts are displayed in our break room letting us know the results of our timeliness. :icon_roll

On the last unit I worked on, one of the nurses came up to our floor after her aunt passed away on the oncology unit downstairs. She informed our nurse manager that she would need 2 bereavement days for that week and our manager's response was "Oh s**t, you've got to be kidding me" She did later apologize to the nurse for saying that, but come on....use your brain before you open your mouth.

This is an issue on the floor I work on. Usually it's regarding overtime pay. Our NM will pitch a fit if a stand-by RN who works 8 hours a week is there 15 minutes past the end of her shift. Doesn't matter if she had 2 rapid responses and 3 admissions during her 8 hour shift and is catching up on her charting. She's cutting into the budget!!! But there are several full time nurses who "milk the clock" and purposely put off doing their charting until after they've passed off report to the oncoming RN and that's no problem. One of these nurses recently told me she had almost 15 hours of overtime on one of her recent paychecks. On my unit, it just depends on who the manager is friends with outside of work.

When I was a fairly new RN, I had a direct admission come in from her GI doc's office. Direct admission = no H&P, no orders, nothing. The patient states her doctor told her she would be "PON for her ursupp the next day." WTH?? I literally started sweating because I had no idea what she was talking about. It took me a minute or two to figure out that she was to be "NPO for an ERCP." She had a relative that had recently had a CABG and heard the nurses pronouncing it "cabbage" and she thought that all abbreviations were just pronounced phonetically.

We have had handheld devices for passing meds at my hospital for years now and I haven't heard of any stories of anyone stealing them. They're just kept out at the nurses station on the charging docks. They get dropped occasionally, but they're pretty sturdy. A lot of us were against getting them at first, but now I really like them! We also have computers in every room and about 12 computers at the nurses station and 4 computers in the hallways. I don't have any information about All Scripts....sorry!

I'm going to start out by saying that I'm not asking for medical advice, I just need some opinions here. My parents have been seeing the same PCP for about 15-20 years now and they really like him but I am starting to wonder if this doctor is kind of blowing off something that could be more serious. My dad recently had an x-ray for lower back pain and the radiologist saw an "abnormal widening of his aorta." That was then followed up with a sonogram and his PCP called him back and said that the radiologist was wrong and that there is "nothing to worry about." He did confirm that there is a widening of his aorta but it doesn't require a follow-up of any type. My dad is beyond giddy with this result as he hates to go to doctors. About 5 years ago, my dad had some episodes of angina over a few weeks and saw his PCP for it. He requested a consult to a cardiologist but his PCP refused to refer him to one. My dad then asked him if he could have a stress test done and still the doctor refused. My parents ended up finding a cardiologist anyway and he sent my dad for a stress test and a few other tests which showed that my dad had had a prior MI. I suggested that they run, not walk, away from this PCP. And with this latest episode, I'm extremely frustrated with this PCP. My parents are very reluctant to leave him because "he'll just call in whatever prescription we want without even seeing us in the office...it's so convenient!" I don't know if I'm overreacting because it's my dad, but it's MY DAD!! I'm not quite sure what I'm trying to get at with this post, I just needed to vent my frustrations to some other nurses!! Thanks for listening!

My nurse manager won't even double check insulin or SQ heparin anymore. She claims she's not allowed since "she's no longer a bedside nurse." And the last time I saw HER boss at one of our staff meetings, she told us we "better start acting like this is a Hilton Hotel and please the patient at all costs." Then she mentioned Press Ganey, job security, blah blah blah..... I'm very thankful for my weekend night shifts.

Every year for Christmas and for nurses week we get one of those huge canisters of popcorn that everybody walks by and digs their hands into....from the Infectious Disease group. And one of our GI docs always sends up a big bag of pistachios or some other type of shelled nut. And an endocrinology group has been known to send a 5-lb box of chocolates. We are so grateful for the treats but it makes me wonder if they're just trying to keep the patients coming in!!

I'll be working 7p-7a tonight. It's the only reason I'll be up at midnight....otherwise I'd be in bed by 10p!! LOL Happy New Year to all my fellow nurses!!

I work on a post-surgical floor so all of our patients are ordered PRN pain meds q2-3 hrs. When we give a pain med, we must reassess in 1 hour and document their pain level on a 1-10 scale. I have had many post-op patients that request that I just bring in their PRN pain meds when they're due. I don't usually make it my practice to do that, I always assess them first as I've gone into many rooms 2 hours after a pain med is given and the next dose is due and they are sound asleep and snoring. I never wake a patient up to ask if they have pain. But I definitely try my hardest to keep my patients as pain free as I possibly can.