Meg, RN

Definitely EGD! A patient laughed when us when myself and a fellow nurse were doing walking rounds. The other nurse said, "Hi! My name is ****, and I will be your nurse today! Are you all ready for your EGD?" (Cue the patient looking at us, all confused.) The lightbulb comes on after a second, and the patient says, "Oh! The scope thing into my stomach? What's that stand for again?" Me and the other nurse said together syllable by syllable "E-so-pha-go-gastro-duo-den-o-scopy!!" The patient about died laughing at us struggling to break it down for her! I think she just wanted to hear us try to pronounce it, lol! Gets me every time!

Phew! I'm so glad someone else feels the same way! I just applied to transfer to ICU after working Med-surg a year and a half, so I'm a little intimidated to say the least (it took me three months to put in for the transfer)!! I heard the preceptor in our ICU is tough, but really good. I really want to learn from her. My thinking is that ICU is where the sickest of the sick go, where the buck stops, and I want to learn all I can in nursing, "be the best I can be" so to speak. I love learning new things, and love the technical aspects of nursing. I hope this means it'll be a good fit! The encouragement from this post was much-needed! Thanks! I figure the worst that can happen is that I'll hate it and at least know from now on that critical care isn't right for me...

Holy cow! 7-8 patients! I work on an ortho/med-surg unit and that's plain ridiculous for experienced nurses, much less a new grad! I mean most of the time, we don't have a nurse tech/CNA either so it's wild; juggling post-op patients in a lot of pain that can't ambulate to the bathroom, and most of them are extremely heavy (300 lb+ people) and have to pee all the time! Sometimes with 5 to 6 patients it's really tough! I feel your pain. The only thing that kept me sane my first year is that I had such a level-headed preceptor, the same one, day-in and day-out, that had no problem answering all my questions during a 12 week orientation. I made sure to ask questions about my hospital's orientation and expectations during the job interview (I had heard horror stories from other new grads). Anyways, don't feel bad at all! Just take this experience and learn from it! The first year is the hardest, and mine was an emotional roller coaster for sure! I had two nursing instructors myself that told me I should quit school and save myself the trouble. But I ignored them and pursued nursing anyways, and there's nothing in this world I'd rather do! :) I love it!

Haha! R!XTER, that's exactly what I'm talking about! And I know in ER, I'm sure ya'll have to deal with that crap constantly! Apparently, they have our establishment confused with the local Marriott...and even there, they wouldn't put up with that yelling nonsense!:smackingf

Had one of my patients who had been terribly nasty and demanding every time I went into the room all night (and he had been there for a month already because of certain "unhealthy lifestyle habits" shall we say.) And him and his strange son kept me there about 30 minutes every time I went into the room doing stupid stuff. So when I went in one night, having 4 fresh post-ops, all of them on the call bell for pain medication at once, and I went into this gentleman's room to just stick my head in an check on him, and he demanded that I give him a back massage!!! :rotfl: I seriously thought they were joking, and giggled a little before saying "Is there anything you actually need? If not I'll be back later! " They just stared at me when I left...(then it hit me that they weren't actually joking) Oops!

To the very needy patient: No this is not a Marriott. (or) No I am not your waitress. About me and my nursing career: We have a love-hate relationship! To the big headed doctor (you know who you are): You aren't God's gift to women! (or) Your jokes aren't funny, so stop!:grn: Nursing as a whole: There's nothing else I'd rather do!

Hi everyone! I am in need of some encouragement here. I've only been a nurse for about a year and so I feel stupid like I missed something and can't forgive myself. On my first night working this week, I had an older adult female (patient A) 61y.o. that was assigned to me. The day shift nurse told me that the patient was somewhat confused at times (alert to person and place most of the time but couldn't tell you the date), and that she could walk to the bedside commode with assistance, but that she was a big lady and really needed persuading to get her out of bed instead of using the bedpan like she prefers. She had a colon resection the day before and did have SCDs and TEDs on. Upon entering the room at the beginning of the night, the lady demanded (not asked) that she have some Ativan because she was feeling very anxious, so, after assisted her up to the BSC and back to bed, I gave her 1mg to help her anxiety. Anyways, as the night progressed, the lady tossed and turned in bed, and tried to get up a few times unassisted so I put her bed alarm on and continued to check on her frequently throughout the night (at least one to two times an hour). I checked her vitals around 0400 and I had a little difficulty obtaining her bp, but that's no surprise because our vital machines malfunction frequently (old pieces of crap), so I got her vitals manually and didn't note anything unusual for her. I gave her bath around 0600, and checked on her again around 0650 She made it fine until the end of my shift and after I had passed off report at 0700 and got ready to leave, a nurse tech went to go check on her and do the morning vitals and found patient A unresponsive and blue. After calling a code, we tried to resuscitate her and managed to long enough to get her down to ICU where they put her on a vent. When they did a CT scan they found that she is severely brain damaged due to hypoxia and her family decided to remove life support. Now, it's been three days since this event and I keep replaying events in my mind over and over, trying to figure out what I missed. I had just thought that the lady's agitation was related to possible sun-downers or that she had reacted strangely to the Ativan. Now maybe I think she was in distress and I didn't even notice. I feel so stupid and inadequate. The doctors said that they think that she may have had a PE and said that there was not much I would have been able to do anyways, but I still feel terrible. The family came up to our floor and thanked us for trying our hardest to save her. I just keep thinking wouldh've/couldh've/shouldh've and it's hard for me to let it go. Now I'm scared to go back to work for fear that I'll miss something again.

Haha! I'm the same way CASTLEGATES. I have a raging crush on a surgeon at work. He's at least ten years older than me too! (I love older guys!) I think it's the bad boy flirty thing that he does. And his butt looks cute in those surgical scrubs! I try to avoid him because I don't want to act stupid when he's around, but somehow, he always ends up finding me, even when I walk off down the hall when I see that he's at the nurse's station. My hands always get ice-cold and I always drop stuff when he walks by! (Hopefully nobody notices!) He's married and I work with him so it's totally off limits, but flirting with him means I pretty much get my patient's needs met asap whenever he's on call! The older nurses poke fun at him because of it lol! It makes going to work a little more bearable! I'm so glad someone posted this because now I don't feel so weird to have a crush on a doc!

Not to exhaust the topic, but I'm looking for the most comfortable kind of shoes for a person with high arches that underpronates? With every kind of shoe I've had (Nursemates) the "squishy" wears out within a few months, leaving my heels and the arches of my foot sore. I'd like to have a light-weight shoe with a closed back (I'm clumsy as it is, without having to worry about my feet falling out of my shoes, lol). I understand that I get what I pay for, so I'm willing to spend a good amount so my heels don't hurt anymore! Any suggestions welcome! I've heard good things about Alegria shoes, has anyone with high arches tried them?

Hi everyone! Thanks for the input so far. In response to some of your questions, yes, we do keep a call off log on our unit, so that everyone is called off in rotations. Also, yes, everyone wants to keep their hours; even the people that would normally love to be called off, have been called off so much to the extent that they want their hours. :-p No, I was not promised 40 hours in the contract. As far as working on other floors, our hospital has a "Bidshift" program where you can bid for extra hours. The catch- you must have a year of RN experience at least, to be able to bid. So I know when July rolls around, I will try that option as well to rake in some dough, and more experience. No, I don't have a family, I'm single and lovin' it, lol! For those that have traveled, do you have an agency that you would recommend? Also, is it better to travel with a buddy? Or alone? I'm slightly elated/terrified about travel nursing, I think it would be a blast! I'm pretty sure I would be traveling solo. Thanks again!

Hi everyone! Just needed a little advice: I've only been a nurse working full-time on a med-surg unit for the past nine months (I'll have a year's experience at the end of July 2011). I signed a contract (ends in January '12) with a sign-on bonus at this hospital. I like my job, however, the problem is that my floor's census has been so low that we actually had to close our unit this week so everyone is being floated somewhere if you don't get called off. I keep getting called off every week, which is hard because I barely have any PTO to compensate anyways. I've been trying to decide what to do: find a new full-time job somewhere else? I've considered a prn job somewhere else in addition to my current job? I'm really just trying to gain enough experience for the time being in order to become a travel nurse (heard that I need around two years of experience). I'm not sure what to do. Any advice would be appreciated!! Thanks!

Yes, our hospital has closed some of the units (not mine, a med-surg), but our problem is that they're calling off some of our full-time people to put float people in their place, which sucks. So essentially we'll have two nurses working from my unit, and then two float nurses filling in from other units. I understand that the nurses on the closed units have to earn a living too, so it's hard to complain. I feel like if they would just reopen some of the units, they would actually fill up. It's probably a way for our hospital to cut budgets. I've already been called off twice and it's only halfway through April.

Maybe like you said, you can work part-time or prn. I worked as a student nurse tech PRN through nursing school to get my BSN. I'm sure your NM would rather have you on part-time or prn instead of quitting altogether, but you do what's best for you and your children. Nursing school is difficult, but feasible with a job. I didn't have children going through nursing school so I can't really tell say...but good luck, and I'm sure you'll find a way to manage that works best for you! You can do it! Congratulations and God bless!

-horseback riding lessons -reading outside is my favorite when the weather is warm -watching Netflix -retail therapy! -tending to my plants I too drive to Sonic often and have a milkshake while talking on the phone to a friend or my mom :-) It always puts me in a better mood -sleeeeeep -gym! -planning my next vacation (usually to the beach!)

Question: I'm trying to figure out how to revert back to a regular sleep schedule on my days off. Is it better to sleep through the day and then try to sleep through the next night? Or do ya'll just stay up all day after your last night shift and then sleep through the night? Where I live is not interesting enough to make me want to keep the vampire lifestyle, lol. Me and Benadryl are BFFs