Mary Austin

Any opinion on this? New nurse from LTC facility joins ortho, has been there for about 6 months now...carries own patient load, has a total knee patient who had not been medicated for 10 hours, poor woman gets up to potty in the tail end of the shift...

I encountered these tracking devices for the first time when I was floated to a med surg unit that was newly remodeled. The floor manager made us post 24 hour sheets in each patient room which were divided into hours and shifts. The instructions to e...

Ah yes, this is Big Brother at his finest. Not only do they track you but they tell admin how productive you are, where you are at each moment and if you have given a patient enough contact. They monitor your breaks and where you are at all times. ...

There are none.....hospitals are all the same in Western WA.....bottom line is PROFIT to any hospital and to get the most work out of a nurse and staff in the cheapest way possible. This means you work hard, burn out and move on. I have been doing ...

[

Ah yes, the million dollar question that employers will find the answer to later when there are not enough of us to do the work on the floors. It will be then and only then they might start to listen (maybe) A Nurse spends 8-12 hours per shift ...

Great Post and right on!

I just love paying for thier healthcare! After all I pay one thousand one hundred dollars a month for MY FAMILY's Health benefits EACH MONTH! How is that for contributing to THEIR health care! This is the reason why our country is going broke! The il...

Good for you! I AGREE with you all the way. We had a street person who injected meth into his shoulder. He was there for three weeks. He threatened everyone. I called the supervisor and he told me to "make sure the guy did not get between me and...

JWK....why you are absolutely right about all this...how crazy of me to believe that I was treated with Malice. You must be a member of the "old boys club" too.

All gone! It was only a dream.

CWK Not looking to complain buddy, just told my story.

It was only a dream.....

I think she meant "more respect from the doctors". This is my gripe too. These guys bombard the floor and many cannot even say hello after being greeted. Why? Because Nurses are below them. Doctors are gods! After all they float into their pant...

Ativan is thinner when warm and therefore easier to draw up and give IV or IM.

(My personal pet peeve: suddenly these pts 'forget' how to wipe their own bums! ) Isn't this amazing when this happens? You know darn well they have been doing it all along at home!

Worked in hospice for few years and this was a very common thing.

Go for the new job. I quit a job that was 20 minutes and 15 miles away from my home. I drive 60 miles one way now and take a ferry home in the morning after work. It was so worth it. More money and a much nicer place to work. That first job was ...

Ah yes, the GRID system....it never accounts for the involved care we give patients. It is a body count, ratio of patients to nurse. We are always short staffed on day shift and afternoon shift. (ORTHO unit) On Night shift we each get 7 patients ...

We are staffed according to "acuity". I find it interesting that there is nothing in the Van Slyke acuity system to capture the care and time that it takes to move and care for an obese patient on orthopedics. However a heparin lock gives us 15 poi...

Ah yes, the joys of nursing....this may be more sad than funny. Admitted a guy who ran out of veins for heroin so he injected into the scrotum. His scrotum was the size of a football and rather painful. The surgeon doing the I & D was just bes...

Well of course, respiratory illnesses should be revealed. I guess I would opt for PAID leave then. When SARS hits our hospital...I am out of there! I will just take an early retirement! Almost debt free anyway.....

I had to be fitted with this mask also. I never put down my meds I am on nor do I release any info about medical conditions. How interesting that HIPPA is in place and they come out with a form like this. Just leave the things blank or put none. ...

Get a MRI, sounds like a disc problem to me. Find a good spine doc. I will bet you have been misdiagnosed. At age 24 it is unlikely that you have osteoarthritis. I have these same symptom, mine is a buldging disc and I have the pain down the legs....

Great idea, I too shall try this when the going gets rough. Thanks!