Lorien_LPN

Hey nurses, I am in my last semester of RN school and we are discussing and researching the prevalence in my area hospitals of delegating to UAP's the removal of peripheral IV's. I have looked at the policy and procedures of two of the major hospitals, both Trauma II and both have almost a thousand beds. Both insitutions provide in their P&Ps for the UAPs to remove peripheral IVs. One of the insititutions includes removing peripheral IVs in their nurse technitian course they use to train new UAPs.The major issue that has arisen from this is a recent incidence of a UAP removing a catheter but a part of the catheter remained inside the patient's risk requiring the patient to return a week later with a severe infection. My question to you guys is at your facility is it permitted for UAPs to remove peripheral IVs? This is just out of curiousity not for a school project.

Hey Congratulations on making it into nursing school, that is a feat in itself. I am about to graduate my RN program this upcoming fall semester and just took my LPN exam last week and passed (in Oklahoma one can take the NCLEX-PN after a year of RN school as long as you have Foundations, MedSurg, OB, and Peds.) The first thing about any nursing program is to be somewhat organized. Try and incorporate the class calender into your own planner and if you have multiple calendars for different classes I would advise putting them all together on one calender. When you are in clinicals take any opportunity presented to do skills. I got to do loads of IM injections on my postpartum rotation because I just started asking nurses if I could help with the discharge teaching and giving vaccinations. I would also try and keep your paperwork in clinical light. Keep a brain sheet you can write all your information down and then put it into a format for an assignment. Have something you can do to decompress every once in a while, like reading a book or taking a walk. It can be something that just takes 15 minutes out of your day to clear your head and get some perspective. ALWAYS, always bring your stethoscope unless told otherwise. Same for a pen, paper, and a penlight. This is a good habit for the real world as well I have been told.

The NPs at the facility I work at usually do one of the following: John Smith APRN Family Nurse Practioner Or John Smith ARNP Family Nurse Practioner

No we did not go an talk to the professor grading our group presentation about you becuase we just dont like you, we talked to her becuase you: 1. Show up constantly late to group meetings 2. Show up hung over, drunk, or barely conscious 3. Come unprepared 4. Get us kicked out of the coffee shop we are in for talking loudly about partying the night before 5. Complain about how hard this assignment is, or how stupid it is and has no relevance to your future nursing practice Also if I hear the phrase, "why do I need to know this, I am going to be a nurse not a doctor" I am going to go postal. Yes you do need to have a good basic knowledge of meditations, disease processes, psychological development, and many other things that make nurses healthcare professionals. Quit complaining that the instructors are mean and trying to weed you out, for once you have professors who actually expect you to be responsible for your own learning and not be spoon fed information. You are going to be responsible for people's lives and well being. GROW UP! And the one thing in nursing school that has made me furious on many occasions. Those of you who decide to cheat on our exams. Thank you for ruining our test reviews as a class and the ability to ask questions about test questions. Thank you for pushing our professors to the point of having us inspected by security when we go to test. And since they decided to allow you to repeat, do not talk to me. Do not engage me, I do not care you circumstances. I have so much respect for someone who honestly tried and failed. If I am ever a patient in your hospital I will fire you as my nurse and inform your entire floor, charge nurse, and house supervisor while you will never, ever enter my room again or see my medical records.

To those who are repeating this particular semester of nursinf school: "Im sorry you did not pass the first test, but if you have the entire summer to study what you were not able to get last semester, and you knew what was going to be on this test I have little to no sympathy for you. How are you going to be a competant nurse without learning from your mistakes, and yes it is actually desirably to crack a book in Med-Surg I." To the girl who tries to latch on to my group by sucking up to us: "No we will not help you just bc you finally decide to play nice. And no, "helping" does not consitiute giving you all the answers gift wrapped" To my clinical group last semester, "am i really the only one who looked and learned all my patient's medications when the clinical insructor said not once or twice but three times in preconference and postconference that the following week we would be quizzed on the meds before we were even allowed to touch our patient's medications. And it is kind of awkward when you are the only one who knows you have to assess someone's BP when your giving a BP med

Omg! I want one. Where did you get that?

Hey fellow student, nurses, and instructors I have just started my first week of Med-Surg I and so far I have been really busy with studying and keeping up with assignments to get ready to go to our clinical rotations. When in the med-surg setting as a student does anyone have any advice about how to get the most out of the rotation. Last semester we finished up our Foundations course where we spent out clinical time in nursing homes, although a good way to start by working with one patient and slowly transition to two I am defiantly not running to start a career in Long Term Care. Nothing wrong with it, just not my cup of tea. Any advice is appreciated, and if anyone has any suggestions for supplies to carry that help in the med-surg setting that would also be appreciated.

Speaking as a future new grad, the reason I decided to take up nursing as a career was for bedside nursing. Working in the hospital setting and doing clinicals attracts me to the role of the bedside nurse. Although I have only gotten a watered down version of what it really like for that nurse at the bedside, I still believe it is where I want to be for a while. Advanced practice has interested me, but I think a good solid foundation in nursing practice is essential to the success of an advanced practice nurse. I personally love going to a nurse practitioner for their highly developed assessment skills and the 'nursing' approach to treating me. And in my opinion, and this is just coming from a nursing student's point of view as well as a consumers, I do not think someone can develop that level of nursing expertise in only two to three short years. Just my opinion btw.

It is a great class to take if your wanting to eventually go to nursing school. It prepares you better than just taking a CNA class especially since you get exposed to much more than just a CNA class. For example we did clinicals on a floor at a local hospital and then had a couple specialty rotations: ER, EKG, Lab, Wound Care. Here is the scope of practice for a PCT(AUA) http://www.ok.gov/nursing/aua5.pdf

Look at Tulsa Oklahoma and Oklahoma City Oklahoma. I cannot gurantee a ped position there are some good cardiac and medical floors needing nurses. The hospital I'm workig at is openig a whole new step down unit to meet the patient demand. The starting pay for RNs out here may sound low at 19-21 base but some hospitals give sign on bonuses to people who move here from out of state.

I don't know about Oklahoma ctiy but all the hospitals in Tulsa offer 4-5$ diffrential for nights and a 4$ for weekends. And if one looks at the average amount for a luxary apartment with all appliances supplied at around 800-900$/ month it's really not that bad to start at 19$ base

Would you be willing to share your report sheet?

Thats a really good idea!

I have three pockets on my scrub top and to pockets on my pants: Scrub Top Pockets- ID on my V top. Penlight Sharpie Pens Stehoscope around my neck Tape on Hemostats attached to the end of my top Small notebook Patient papers Pant Pockets: Wallet Cellphone Keys All the clinical related stuff is in my top pockets and my personal stuff is in the pant pockets. I kinda wish I had a locker to put some stuff in.

In oklahoma CNS's can apply for prescriptive authority within their specialities

I realize the subject as been discussed over and over again but I think it is a really important issue to discuss. I was wondering what some people thought is a safe an appropriate nurse to patient ratio? For med-surg? Critical care areas? Also what is the nurse to patient ratio on your floor?

Starting in my area, northeastern Oklahoma is about 10.50$. Thats without differential. CNA's get about 9$ to start with. We are a centralized monitoring unit so we watch the whole hospital from our unit. Everything from med-surg tele to a couple of the ICU's in the hospital. We also do bed charging and patient census. We also monitor continous pulse ox's and sometimes we help nurses read 12 lead EKGs.

I have been a monitor tech for about two years now and I can tell you that you learn your rhythms extremely well. I also think that it is an excellent school job. Although being a CNA on a floor can give you valuable experience, being a monitor tech will give you a very specific skill set you can market to future employers. And to those people who are asking how to become a monitor tech, whee I work you have to take a basic dysrhythmia class and pass. We get paid about 0.50$ to 1.00$ more an hour than CNA or PCTs out on the floor.

Here is a soultion to the nurses being confused with other hospital personal. One of the hospitals in my area requires the nurses both LPN and RNs to have their first name and their title embroidered on ther scrubs.

Ok people let me paint a picture: I am a nursing student and work as a monitor(telemetry) tech at a large local hospital. I used to be proud to work here but within the past couple months I am almost done. I do not want to start my nursing career in an enviromen such as this or be hospitalized in this enviroment. Tonight we had a patient on the monitor. He was on a cardiac/telemetry floor and been doing okay. Atrial Fib with rare PVCs. Well about shift change he started having runs of torsades de pointes. We informed the nurse and she promtly with an attitude informed us he was having tremors. We shrugged this off and continued to document it as torsades. The runs continued for another hour and everytime the nurse denied any problems. Then the patient went into sustained torsades and then v-fib. 10 minutes later the patient died. This same evening another nurse decided to place the patients PO medications on the side table next to him all shift. At shift change again this patient begins to have problems and is coded but does not make it. Again this is a cardiac floor with telemetry. It's very frustrating to try and help the nurse care for the patient and be snapped at because the nurse does not want to think something serious is wrong with her patient.

Yeah I like the navy. I really like the seafoam/powder blue that surgery uses for scrubs

Yuck on the eggplant! I like the navy blue, that's what we wear in school. I do not think I could wear white. It is kind of counterproductive, I mean what if you get (insert bodily fluid here), on it.

So far I have not had a problem with TCC's nursing program. The profesors have been hard but that's to be expected. It's nursing school, if you don't want to go to TCC why even apply for the nursing program. One problem I think is that the pre-reqs do not prepare you for the program, nursing class require a different level of thinking.

Just out of curiousity what color scrubs do nurses wear on your units? I didn't know where else to post this and I am just posting it for fun. In my city nurses mostly wear navy blue all the hospitals standardized the color nurses wear. One hospital however wears maroon/wine. Also nurses have the option to wear all white. Anyone have an opinion of what color best represents nursing as a profession?

Hey everyone I am needing some information about esophageal cancer. Here is a little background information. I am a student nurse about to start my second semester of school. I haven't had any teaching in regard to oncology and cancer treatment. Recently one of my family members has been diagnosed with esophageal cancer. She is 80 years old, is 5'9" and weighs around 100-115 lbs. She has been losing her appetite and has possibly lost additional weight. The doctors have discussed possible insertion of a PEG tube. She also quit smoking over twenty years ago. I have a friend who is an oncology nurse and he told me it was a rarer form of cancer and he had not seen it very often. He also told me it was usually related to smoking. He also mentioned something about chronic GERD being a related factor. Our family has been asking me and my mom(also a nurse, but specializing in critical care/cardiac) about esophageal cancer and I have not had time to research it further. What I really want to know is what the survival rate, quality of life for someone diagnosed with it, and whether it chemo and/or radiation would be helpful or hurtful for the situation. Any information would be helpful.