rudeRN

A gal at work had the same problem and switched gloves and that helped ALOT! She also uses cornhuskers. The type of gloves does make a difference.

I work nights and I do have an occasional glass or 2 of wine in the morning after a long shift. But, I live 16 miles out into the middle of nowhere, so the drive usually relaxes me. I am very good at leaving the stress at work, not worth the trouble bringing it home.

We haven't ever used skin prep at our facility, but betadine. How does skin prep work on tape blisters? Some of our patients have terrible reactions to tape after surgery, and it seems there is no good way to treat the blister.

We don't have a CCU at our Rural Hosp, but we have a Jehovah's Witness nurse who will not take care of a pt who may need a transfusion. I guess we work around it due to our small hosp and limited nursing staff. But, it can be difficult for the other nurses, especially when you have 4 nurses on the floor and 2 of them are LPNs who cannot start it and the other is Charge and has other duties. Usually it is not an issue.

She had a bad perm! Her scalp was fine, mostly having to goto work with bad hair was the issue.

My 1998 Corvette.....and travel.....and of course I LOVE to splurge on the kids and hubby!

"I burnt my hair" I honestly heard that one when I worked in LTC.

Definately suction...wouldn't you think that would be under comfort cares? That's what I would do, even though that is the only thing that really gives me the willies.

We were hunter green pants during the week and top is our choice. Weekends is free for all, only on sat and sun. I try to keep it unique, but tasteful. It is fun to see everyone's personalty come out in their style of tops.

...sometimes you need to have a sense of humor to keep from going off the deep end, especially now with insufficient staffing. On slow nights you can only do so much stocking and cleaning and charting, especially if your patients are taken care of.

LOVE this topic...I am night charge and am always looking for ideas to get my co-workers on those slow nights. One night we had a "on call" nurse sleeping down the hall, we taped his door shut. We also try to make mysterious sounds in rooms at night, like a call light going off and not actually happening, stuff like that. It really gets some of the nurses.

Do we work at the same place?? We did, however, get a bunch of flowers from the hospital board to all staff for hospital week. A simple Thank you would be welcome, especially when we have all been picking up extra shifts and working like mad for the past 6 weeks. We are 3 night nurses down, that is a lot for a rural hosp. Maybe an email would be nice...haha...easy enough, but someone would have to do it.

Small VACATION!!! That usually helps me. My family and I get away as much as we can, even if it is going camping for one night.

The other day, the accuity even said that we needed another nurse, but she denied we did, and she likes to follow the numbers it has on paper. Right now we are out 3 night nurses and we have 3 full time nights right now picking up the other shifts, all extra shifts are considered "hight needs pay". She has even said, before the "high Need" shifts were out there, that we need to not worry about the overtime, she just doesn't want people to work more than 5 days in a row, but it is ok to do 5 double shifts in a row, mostly talking about the 8 hr shifts. But Since I have been employed there, OT has not been an issue. Talking to her is like trying to nail jello to the wall. May seem to stick at first, but then it will all be gone after a min.

I don't mind the 6 PTs, just usually no time to chart and do paperwork, hope and pray that a Laboring mom comes in or that we have a chest pain walk thru the door. It take at least 10 min for our on call staff to get here, even the doctor. i would love to have 3 nurses on at night, and 0 care techs, then at least you have extra person who can do nurse duties if needed. Our care techs are awesome at night, just wish they could do the admitting part. thanks everyone for the input.

I would like to get an idea on what other hospitals consider a safe Pt to nurse ratio. I work in a small rural hospital, last night we had 14 PTs, 3 nurses until 1am and 2 care techs all shift. This am, I talked with my DON and said it was too much to have 7 PTs, and the PTs were not getting the care they deserve and so on. I had a fresh surgical, bilat TKAs and c-section and abd hyst from the day before and 4 nebs and I could go on. It was crazy the beginning of the night, but did settle down after the 3rd nurse left. We are also responsible for the ER and doing all the paper work, that goes along with admits and ERs. The point I am trying to make is that I expect myself to deliver a certain level of care to my PTs, and I couldn't do that last night. When approached, the DON, said that according to the accutity of PTs, we have enough nurses and with not having enough nurses to fill in, it would have to do. Monday night, she allowed an inuction to go on with only 2 nurses and 12 PTs, fresh c-section. It was "OK" because we had 2 care techs. I called the doctor and she was mad because, if she had known about the staffing issue, she would have cancelled the induction. The DON got mad because I called her in, she had to cover "on call" Well, it was crazy, almost one of the craziest nights I have had. I would like some ideas on what you do in these situations. I am at a loss. I am so frustrated with this DON, I could go on and on, she is not a good leader and she is clueless about how to do her job (this is her 1st DON position, and talking to staff at her other hosp, they say she was the same there, but in QA) HELP!! I am ready to walk away from this job I love and the staff are awesome! We are all in the same boat.

I have never seen that, but would LOVE IT!!!!

We had a guy come scraming to our ER entrance and falling on the floor, grabbing his head. We got him an exam room, and he told us there is "something in there" and then grab his head and thrash around on the cart. We finally got it out of him that something was digging in his ear. We put some mineral oil in his ear and a 1 inch black beetle came scurring out! It still creeps me out thinking about it. Reminded me of a horror movie.