MECO28

This whole case is horrible. I cannot wrap my brain around how many things you’d have to overlook to make this error. Did she look at the bottle at all? It’s marked as plain as day. And even if it was Versed…why on Earth wasn’t the patient being monitored? Only those of us trained in conscious sedation give Versed in my hospital and we monitor closely after giving it. What a horrible way to die. Yes, I think the facility is to blame as well for their handling of it. But I just can’t muster a lot of sympathy for this nurse. That is next-level carelessness and while I don’t agree with jail time, she absolutely deserves to be stripped of her license.

All of you are freaks. Ok...fine. The med room fridges and Flonase. ?

I’m a float nurse who was being floated to another unit for my last four hours of work and I got stuck giving report to the most crabby, burned-out nurse ever. The ENTIRE report was punctuated by her litany of eye rolls and complaints. I had an older gentleman with advanced lung cancer who in a moment of panic requested that his code status be changed from DNR to full code. It happens; most of us are scared of our own mortality, etc. I paged the MD and after confirming that was what the patient wanted the code status was changed. I relayed this in report to the crabby nurse and she glared at me and said “people like that should be shot”. I smiled sweetly and replied “well then you’d have to code them, wouldn’t you?” I never had trouble giving her report again.

Clog zapper smells disgusting and it doesn’t work. I can’t count the number of times I’ve been sprayed in the face with it; it smells like vomit! Coke works so much better...although it’s generally frowned upon these days.

Oh man. That beats the note I saw that described in graphic detail, a patient’s abdominal pain d/t constipation, the bowel regimen given, and ended with this gem: “Patient felt better after having large bowel movement, however the b.m was so large it got stuck when flushed, necessitating a call to maintenance”.

If I'm ever dying, please steal my dog and bring him to me. So sweet!

When I left the patient was up and walking and seemed a bit better. But I'll probably never know the outcome since I'm a float nurse.

OK, this should be fun! Mine happened this weekend. I had a colorectal surgery patient who, while stable was not looking especially good. The patient's abdomen was getting more distended, they were having more pain, etc. The patient's family was pretty anxious and of course none of the colorectal team were available on the weekend; all requests had to go to the junior surgical resident who was a first year family medicine doctor on surgery rotation. She was helpful and very sweet but freely admitted to me that she was a bit out of her league so after doing her best to calm the family down she told me she'd page the senior resident who works closely with the colorectal team and have her assess the patient. Of course the senior was busy and of course I'd already attempted to reassure the family by telling them that the senior resident was going to consult so I found myself in the uncomfortable situation of text paging the senior directly to beg her to come (a big no-no; they're big on the chain of command where I work.). In desperation I promised to buy her coffee for the next month if she came by and she reluctantly agreed. Being a nurse of my word I bought her a Starbucks gift card which I gave to her when she finally showed up. She muttered an ungracious thank you and went to see the patient. No good deed goes unpunished; the family complained to me that the senior surgical resident was short with them and I got out a half hour late because of the time I wasted begging and finally bribing this doctor. I want my twenty dollars back.

Yeah, well, I started out young and thin but 4 years of nursing school, 3 years of being an NAC, and 6 years of being a nurse have taken a toll on me. I've gained twenty pounds, have a bad back and knees, and despite running half marathons every few months, I feel woefully out of shape. But hell, I'm a way better nurse now than when I was young and thin and at least I rarely get hit on by creepy patients now. Plus, I make more $$. There are perks to aging.

I'm not saying higher education is useless, by the way. It's just that some programs really have very little to do with the reality of the job they're supposedly preparing us for. PS: APA can be useful....more useful than role-playing how to tell your coworker they smell offensive which was another thing we did. God, I hated that communication class!

My BSN program was not especially useful either. The community college I received my ADN from was way better than the highly-ranked, competitive university I earned my BSN from. Seriously, we spent our first day constructing towers using spaghetti noodles, marshmallows and string as part of a "team-building exercise". It put the "BS" in BSN, all right. However, my job paid for it and now I have those all-important letters behind my name so I guess it was worth it. Sometimes you gotta jump through the hoops. (Even when they're stupid.)

I don't mind if people speak another language around me; it's not their fault that I grew up in an ethnocentric country where it isn't encouraged to be bilingual. This is maybe a little off-topic but it's my favorite Tagalog language story: One of my co-workers is an older, American male nurse who gets very enthusiastic about various things. He's funny and a hoot to work with sometimes! Anyway, he was psyched about a CE event that hosted a free dinner at an upscale hotel and was trying to recruit others to join him. The name of the CE dinner was "Save a Limb, Save a Life" or "SALSAL". I was finishing up my charting that day when I heard peal after peal of laughter from the nurses' station. I went to investigate and three of my Filipino coworkers were busting their guts laughing while the aforementioned nurse's face was as bright red as a tomato. Apparently, "salsal" is Tagalog for "masturbate". Whoever decided on that unfortunate acronym should really have consulted their Filipino coworkers. Welcome to the SALSAL dinner! We encourage you to choke your own chicken and husk your own corn!

Float pool, baby! We swoop in and save the day! 😎 Also, flight nurses are pretty hot in those blue jumpsuits.

My hospital has something called the "Five Bests" and periodically, administrators will corner us and ask if we know what the "Five Bests" are, generally while we are running around doing patient care. Also, "experience excellence". Those make me eye roll so hard. And nope; I still don't know what the "five bests" are but my annual review has been good so I guess it hasn't hindered my practice thus far.

Float nurse here to chime in. At my hospital and most others I know of, float staff are paid a differential because there are stresses involved with floating- needing a broad knowledge base and a roll-with-the-punches attitude that allows you to navigate various units and their individual cultures. In other words, float staff get paid more to deal with more crap. If people aren't as friendly as you would like you kind of need to suck it up and rejoice in the fact that you probably won't be on the same unit tomorrow. Emailing the manager was overkill. Just let it go, man! Life's too short.

PsychGuy: Are you for real? You're a bloody psych nurse and you have no problem with gays being "locked up" or "fined" because you don't agree with our marriage? I hope to God you're never my nurse. Perhaps a profession where you aren't expected to have empathy would be better? Let me guess, you're a pissed off white male with a whopping sense of entitlement who thinks women and minorities have gotten too uppity. Reading your posts makes me want to vomit. I'd expect your level of discourse in the comments section on yahoo news but I'm pretty disheartened to see it on a message board of fellow professionals.

MECO = main engine cut off; when the space shuttle reaches low earth orbit (space!) the engine is turned off.

Oh God, those poor children. This is why I cannot work L&D, post-partum, NICU, or peds.

Sigh. Choose something with a base, people! We had an eggplant on our unit...

Dude.It's like you read my mind.

This guy sums up how I feel. There's some rather spicy language so if you're easily offended you might want to skip it.

I enjoy the medical unit I'm on now with all its craziness and unpredictability. Give me a big, gnarly abscess to pack any day or a frail, bed-bound geriatric patient, or even a psych hold. Least favorite: I hate ortho! No knees, no hips, no way, no sir. I hate coaxing painful post-hip replacement patients out of bed and working around everyone's PT schedule to get my tasks done. Yuck. The worst. :)

Our school used the updated Nightingale Oath that doesn't have all the God stuff in it nor the sexist "serve the doctor in his profession" line. (barf.) Rest assured, you can be a nurse without thinking it's some kind of "calling" from God. I'm an atheist and I'm pretty sure it doesn't hinder me in my career. You might want to find something to like about people, though. You'll deal with a lot of them no matter which unit you end up on.

I work with some eccentric people but nothing like what y'all are describing! Oh no...maybe I'M the freak!!

Wait...for real? Not just in a "my cat is cute and cuddly" way?? Like maybe they just shared a bed, you know...platonically?? And do you mean literal honey, like what bees make? Oh God, so many questions, so many answers I don't actually want. People are freaks.