learner1108

I am glad to see these. I can't think of a thing I would add. You have listed them very well. I also do all these practices. Even though case management can feel overwhelming at times when you have more cases than usual, it is a wonderful job for helping people who need your help.

Posters, She is new to the profession. She is asking a question based on her observations. The question shows she is worried and probably scared. She is probably asking herself has she wasted all that money taking prerequisites and nursing school tuition. She needs reassurance that all nurses are not "mean girls" or guys. Reassure her that she may not understand what she is seeing and the next time she has clinical, she may see a different scene. Please DON"T jump on her and tell her to suck it up or get out of the career. She is new to the profession. If she were a 1yo who could talk and was beginning to walk, she might ask, "Why is the ground outside so bumpy?" That would not be disrespectful and the attitude and answers of those who are answering her would not be like some of these answers to this student. She is new and scared. Nursing school is hard. Instructors can be scary to students because the students' whole future careers and incomes depend on those instructors' opinions. Be kind to her. She is new. She will learn and become accustomed to the various hospital scenarios and units. Please don't be so hard on her at this stage of her development. We are the experienced nurses and know how to calm those who are scared, generalizing a few happenings to a whole set of people, and making untrue assumptions. So let's do it. To the OP: Not all nurses are hateful to each other. You will be fine because you seem sensitive to those around you and their attitudes. Use this sensitivity to learn ways to positively react to people. The why they are that way at this time (perhaps this is a terrible time) is not as important as you learning how to react to the negative activity and/or words. Talk with one of your instructors who is a calming, nurturing person and get some tips from him/her on how to react during such behaviors. You will be fine and as someone already said, notice what you don't like and try not to be like that throughout your nursing school experience and career. I wish you the best, sweet new nursing school student.

I have embroidered and sew by hand for 40 years. In all that time, I have accidentally stuck my fingers many times. There is a sting when the needle goes in, but then it doesn't hurt. Make sure you have the right size needle for the vein, then get your angle right- about 30 degrees and when you see the flash, don't push farther unless the blood doesn't continue to flow. Don't raise the needle, just hold it steady as long as you get a flow. Butterfly needles are easiest to keep steady. You will get used to it and will feel happy and proud when your patient says I barely felt that. You can do it. I was scared at first too.

The family members are the ones who will live with their end-of-life decisions they made for their loved ones who were not able to make those decisions themselves. They will remember the rest of their lives what they decided and they will question themselves many times if they should have done something differently. Their decisions are theirs to make and live with. If they made the decision out of knowing their loved one's desires and they followed those desires, they will be grieving, but at peace. If they made the decision out of being pushed to the decision by someone else, they may not be at such peace. The decisions to feed/not feed, extend life/not extend life when it is or is not painful is owned by the surviving loved ones. No other person knows before hand what they would do intil they are in the situation. I've been there. Advise the relatives, comfort the relatives, grieve with the relatives, but the final decision is theirs. I think you are doing a wonderful job for people in distress. A nurse like you helped my siblings and me make a difficult decision at that time in our lives. I hope there is a nurse like you to comfort, advise, and grieve with my children if they ever have to make that decision (end-of-life care for a legally incompetent or unaware loved one) about me.

On my Ortho unit, we clocked out for lunch and in like we were supposed to, but didn't leave the floor or actually sit down in the break room to eat for longer than 5 mins.

I'll take natural body odors and regular odors anytime over the stomach-turning air deodorizers. The air deodorizers also have particulates which disperse in the air, so they aren't healthy for some people.

I like the Maya Angelou quote. Thanks.

Two things to consider. First, if the patient is in severe pain, they will not be yelling and cussing. My very experienced nurse aunt told me that the quiet ones with severe injuries or pain were the ones you had to be aware of, not the loud ones because the quiet ones were so injured that they couldn't complain. From my own experiences with severe pain, I agree. It takes energy and concentration to scream or cuss or yell, which someone in severe pain doesn't have. Also severe pain messes with your brain and makes thinking and speaking hard. Someone more experienced in ED confirm or contradict, please. Second, unless the OP was in the room the whole time with the patient and hubby, there is no telling what wife was saying to hubby to make him ashamed of being weak or not standing up for her and he had to show her that he was a STRONG man by lambasting the health care staff. The real source of anger could have been with himself for not showing how manly he was to her (which could have an ongoing problem in her estimation of him and messing up their marriage) or at her for berating him and she was in pain so he couldn't yell at her. Lots of things going on before the ED visit, possibly.

Hollybobs has some good points. If your patient is scared, angry or very stressed, you must calm down. Speak in a lower calm tone and have slower movements. Don't slow down just don't have jerky quick movements. The patient in pain is physiologically in a high alert situation. When I had the most excruciating pain with my third episode of kidney stone, I could not speak for the pain. I could not think. When the doctor came in and asked me a question, I was in so much pain I could not comprehend what he was saying. It was awful. I received a shot of toradol and the pain gradually lessened and went away. Anyone who is scared is in extreme stress and should be treated like a very frightened child or animal.

Nurses worry about serious stuff enough. Sometimes nurses just wanna have fun. This thread is funny.

I love this thread. I'm laughing. Everyone is so witty. We were scared like this in nursing school. What a pity.

This kind of advice is what new grads need when looking for jobs. It would be nice if nursing schools education included these tips for nursing students.

I haven't read all the comments, but the first few. Okay everyone, she wasn't whining about the work. She was saying that her preceptor was criticizing everything she did. She is trying. In case you all don't remember what the orientation was like, a new nurse is under so much stress... first job of her chosen career, wants to do good, 3 12 hour days in a row, worried about patient, worried about preceptor's opinion and evaluation of her... enough stress there (especially if she is really conscientious and wants to do everything perfectly) to put her in a category of extreme stress. One can't think clearly and quickly when they are in extreme stress. Now add to the stressors she already has a preceptor who probably only tells her about her mistakes and makes snarky, unnecessary remarks about her i.e. "just because you made it through nursing school doesn't mean you are going to be a good nurse". Let me ask experienced and new nurses both. Whatever specialty you are working in now, suppose you were to have to change to a new unit in which you had no prior experience - say change to Psychiatry from Med Surg- and you had a preceptor who told you one time what to do and then complained if you didn't do it right the first time to the extent that other nurses noticed, would your thick skin help you feel good? I think only if you already had success as a nurse. I experienced that, had a preceptor changed. I learned lots from the new preceptor, but she wasn't very welcoming. Nurses, we new grads don't have the advantages of the same kind of clinical experiences that you might have. In my school, I never got responsibility for a patient with an overlooking nurse. I also was more a CNA. I think preceptors of new grads need training for helping new grads. It is not the new grads' fault that she did not get more experience in clinical procedures in nursing school. Give her some slack, for pete's sake.

I so agree with Not A Hat Person. In my senior clinical, I had a wonderful RN, but I did not get to plan for a patient one whole shift. I could have practiced on how I would care for a patient, and he could have checked everything I had written down and discussed it, but he had patients. I don't think he had time. He had three patients, only one less than his fellow nurses. Not letting a student nurse plan and talk about how he/she would care for a patient, much less get to actually do something besides bed baths, means the first job she gets and her first patients after she passes NCLEX is when she learns. The education of nurses must include more clinical time and opportunities. If not, I like the idea of a reduced pay scale for new nurses while they get maturity in experience.

When I was a youngster, as the oldest child in the family, I had to clean up our two cats' messes while they were learning about litter box. That was my mom's directive if we wanted the cats. There is no way I ever got used to the smell, but this is what I did to make it possible: First I put on cleaning gloves and laid two layers of paper towels over the whole liquid/solid mess to lessen the smell. Then I used two more paper towels to scoop up one small part (with the original paper towels still on the mess). Threw that small scoop in a paper bag, two more paper towels to scoop up another small part, and continued the whole ritual until there was only the stain left. Sprayed the remaining scum/stain with soap and water mixture, used two paper towels to wipe it up one portion at a time. When that was done, I wiped the whole area with soap& water and paper towels again. I used the same technique when I worked on med-surg floor at the hospital. Patient in bed, poop pool around his lower body, gloves first, folded sheet over poop part, pad under patient, wiped patient from the outermost portion of poop toward inner most portion. Wiped as many times as needed. Used pads as needed to keep the pad under the patient's skin clean. Then I wiped bed under the sheet and patient, changed sheets (pts body still on pads), changed pads and wiped pts body a last time. I nearly vomited each time a pt had an unexpected poop or vomit. I just got the smell covered as quickly as possible, then cleaned the patient. What got me through this was knowing how embarrassed and humiliated the patient might be. I knew this because when I was a preteen, I had a serious GI problem. Had to wear diapers for the three days I was in hospital. Embarrassed beyond belief when the nurse had to come clean me and change diapers. Almost every nurse made a comment or had a look. I remembered my experience as a patient when I became a nurse, and I decided I would clean a patient as thoroughly, quickly and gently as possible without making faces or remarks. They really don't teach us in nursing school any way to clean poop. Never came up in my studies, but I learned from my cats' experience. Just writing about it makes my stomach want to heave. Hope this helps some.