cpilny

It's not sad, it's progress. Medicine is progressing, and the knowledge base that an RN needs to practice today is far more complicated that 25 or 30 years ago. When I started nursing 25+ years ago, an ADN was sufficient to practice on many if now all units in a hospital. I worked for many years as a Cardiac and ICU nurse at the Cleveland Clinic with an ADN. With the advances in practice and the increased responsibility and technology today, my education would not have been sufficient. My regret, and I never regretted the decision to become a nurse, is that I never pursued the NP degree. I did get an MSN in Nursing Education, but the NP is more recent. I guess it's like a commercial I recently saw on TV....what if we had settled for the first thing? We'd still be using 3 pound cell phones, phonograph records and "really slow" computers instead of smart phones, iPods and iPads, etc., etc.

Quite a few of my 25 + years in nursing were spent in a Cardio-Thoracic surgery and interventional Cardiology. I've done my share of sending patients off to surgery for CABG's, Angioplasty, etc. Most came back, recovered and went on with life, and some did not. Imagine my surprise when I needed a triple by-pass, and 2 years later an open repair of a Thoracoabdominal Aortic Aneurysm! I will tell you all that it was humbling to find out first hand just how weak and vulnerable you are after 4 hours on the operating table for a by-pass. Walking just 20 feet or so without support was almost impossible (and here is the guy that badgered his patients to move, cough and deep breath). The Aortic repair was a miracle, as I caught the 6.8 cm Aneurysm and asked my doctor about it, otherwise it would probably have killed me. The 11 + hour surgery and 6 days in ICU was and entirely different experience. I now have a new perspective on many things, including hallucinations caused by medications (let me say that they seem very real to the person having them). So, Kudos to all the nurses in ICU every where that do such a great job day in and day out keeping their patients alive, after the surgeons have performed a near miracle and repaired damage that was once irreparable. Kudos also to an old friend and nurses aide with years of experience in her field who said to me 10 days out from surgery "Lord you smell terrible, if you get an order from your doc, I'll find a shower chair and scrub you down good". That shower made me feel like a human being again. I guess the moral of this is.......Doctors are important, Nurses that really know their business are important, but so are those who realize that the simple things in life (a shower when you are smelly) are also really important. And, don't forget that while we know that getting up and getting moving are so very important to recovery, it does not make it any easier to do, so Be Patient with your Patients.

I was not speaking to the nurse that hung 7 out of 8 IVPB's wrong...... That is not a mistake, and clearly the charge nurse needs to examine the competency of this particular nurse. I was speaking to the nurses who know how to read a med label and MAR when I suggested that you "write yourself up" if you make a mistake. 7 out of 8 at one pass is a problem, not a mistake.

Excellent advice for the new and experienced nurses. I would only add "write yourself up" do the incident report yourself, including who was notified, what action was taken and how the patient reacted". This way, when one of your colleagues tells you they are "going to write you up", you can tell them not to bother.....you already did!

While I would not see a need to flush a continuous IV, if you are going to piggy-back or push a drug on the line, always make certain the main line fluid is compatible with the piggy-back or IV push med. Some drugs will form a precipitate with certain IV fluids like D5. Better safe than sorry!

ICU nursing takes excellent assessment and problem solving skills, a very wide knowledge base and quick judgement. ICU nurses are very sure of their skills and in a crisis situation act calmly and surely. These are learned skills not taught in school, they are learned on the floor over time. The average graduate nurse is not that calm or skilled. Attend a code in an ICU and many times you will not even know that there is an emergency in progress. There is no other area of the hospital setting where the patients life is truly in the hands of the nuirsing staff as in an ICU. And that is the basis of my statement. Oddly enough, ICU nurses also excell in the Home Health setting, as there is no Doctor standing by to tell them what to do, they have to rely on their own skills and judgement.

I quit my first job out of nursing school too. It was a med-surg floor on the night shift in a community hospital. The head nurse, nursing instructor, and supervisor all were of the "let's eat our young" variety. This was a second career for me at age 40, and I thought I had made a "huge" mistake. I ended up on a Cardio-Thorasic surgery floor at the Cleveland Clinic, and later was the float nurse when ICU needed help! Don't let them terminate you, resign ASAP. I was a nursing instructor for Case Western for a time, and I will tell you that I do not believe "any" graduate nurse should begin his/her career in ICU. ICU nurses are at the top of their game, and usually have years of experience. If this is what you really want, then go out and get the experience in med-surg or another area that interests you, then go back to ICU when you are ready. There are as many ways to practice nursing as there are nurses, don't be discourage. Figure out what you love to do, it may be long term care, rehab, home health care, or geriatric (here's a growing field). Do what you really love, not what seems the most glamorous.

What he said!! I am now 65 years old; I've been a Registered Nurse since 1985. I have worked in a variety of settings from Interventional Cardiology in the late 80's and early 90's to Home Health Care. I've been a nursing instructor, and I'm currently doing staff development for a small, but very good home care agency. The one thing I have to say to all those who are thinking that Nursing is an easy buck.....It is not by any stretch of the imagination easy, nor is it for the "faint of heart". If you do not love the work, then you will not be good at it, and you will not last long. PS: you got a lunch?? WOW, good for you!!

I changed careers in my late 30's! I went back to school and worked at the same time to get my RN in 1985 (so now I'm an old nurse). I have "never" regreted going back and have "never" been unemployed since I finished my RN. Not many people can say they never had a problem finding a job in this economy, but for nurses this is true. Just one thing, nurses do what they do because they love the work, and not for the money. While we are fairly well paid, you can not be a nurse unless you like the work, as it is not always pleasant. We see and do things that make other people cringe. We watch people suffer and die, often on a daily basis. But we help people to get better more often and we (if we're lucky) get to save a life from time to time. So...if this is for you, by all means go back to school. If you love it, you will never, ever regret it!