Bezoars

LOVE my 12 hour shifts! When I first started doing them I thought I would hate it, but I actually love them. I feel like after making the 40 min commute into work, I want to just stay and work and get my hours in. I love my four days off! Now when I do an 8 hour shift... I feel like I haven't even worked =)

So they just put one of these things on our unit. It's like a stoplight that goes yellow to red when there is too much noise. We are a small NICU unit. Seriously? I'm pretty insulted to be treated like a child. I tend to pick my battles wisely but this is just too much. What do you think about the Yacker Tracker? [video=youtube_share;WyssV2MQsps]

FWIW, I do NICU and love it. It's not always low stress but a lot of the time it is. Also, don't pay attention to the student-haters here. Cue the "NETY" threads.

Just wondering what the significance of the timing of 72hours to one week is?

You save 21 weekers?

Just wondering... how is being on methadone for 9 years being "clean"? Back to magsulfate's question. 9 years????? Really????

I agree that I would definitely give it a year before you jump ship. After that... have at it! OR would be a completely different kind of nursing but you're young and just starting out, so now is the time to explore things. At this point, I have ended up in a place I never thought I would. You never know what you'll like.

2015 ~ State: WV RN: 5+ years experience (Per diem) Specialty: Float Pool Pay: $35/hr no benefits Housing: Decent 4 bdr, 2 bath home for $150k 2016~ Northern VA (moving here early next year) Job in NICU, Per diem no more money then Full or Part time. Based on experience, my base rate $31/hr. Housing: OUTRAGEOUS. Can't get anything better then townhouse for less then $400k

HUGE problem in our area too. We have our own unit for them now with 18 beds that says full ALL THE TIME. It's sad and exasperating. If we have a whole generation of women in this child-bearing age group who think it's nothing to gestate their baby on all this crap... what is coming in the future with all these drug-dependent kiddos? What will the long-term affects be? What a mess. I think they should immediately lose custody of the child and possibly do jail time for child abuse. I'm for bringing back orphanages, because that's what it would take to care for the influx of babies.

We use that purple stuff in the vial too... it's called Marathon. BUT, it has to slough off after several days and tends to look stained and yucky after a few changes. We also do desitin, powder, and the butt-in-the-air-to-light-and-heat method. I like the stoma powder and cream idea!

35 minutes. Always the same.

Loathe: ~ Doing vital signs (tedious) ~ Taking a patient out (hate that time waster) ~ Oral Care ~ Anything that has to do with feet ~ Ostomies LOVE: ~ IV's ~ Wound Care and wound Vacs

Occasionally you can get a recently d/c'd foley pt to pee by cracking an amonia tab into a pilgrims hat and having them sit on the pot over it.

The NICU where I work has become a "guy floor". There are lots of great guys around here and they add so much to the unit. A couple have been here their whole career. I caution you that NICU nursing is it's own specialty, so if you start there as a new RN... you're a lot more likely to get pigieon-holed into that kind of nursing for a long time. I always suggest the "dreaded" med-surg nursing to all new grads. Sure nobody wants to do it.... but it's incomparable experience, it looks good on a resume, and you will always be able to find a job. I'm so thankful for my time in Med/Surg nursing. I can always go back.

So my 17 yo, 185 lb, 5'10 son swallowed a 2" by 1" piece of plastic the other night that he was chewing on. He was just chewing on this hard piece of plastic that had broken off of his cooler or something. He started to choke on it, coughed it up and swallowed it. This happened two nights ago. I'm not an alarmist. I told him it will come through the gut and out in the poop. He has had no adverse symptoms as of yet and is checking his poop. I did talk to a nursy friend today who wanted to know WHY I didn't take him to the ER post-haste and have that thing removed. She was appalled that I didn't bring him in. Thoughts?

We also have a non-smoking campus and so the patients line the street sidewalk outside the building to smoke. I once saw a guy with two casted arms and two casted legs out there and his significant other was popping the cig in and out of his mouth. Now THAT is committment. Anyhoo. We make our patients sign a waiver as well (which I think does nothing to change our liability) and out they go. I will unhook their IV or whatever, but they still go out with an IV in their arm. I tell my patients that "no you can't go out and smoke, but no, I'm not going to tackle you in the hallway... this is America after all". Most of the docs will d/c IV pain meds the minute this happens but I sure wish they would make them sign out AMA. That would help a lot.

I've done Med-Surg and Perinatal Float Pool. Go for it because you will learn so much! ASK questions when you don't know something, because just because "they do it that way" on one floor, doesn't mean they want you to do it that way where you are now. You'll occasionally have confidence issues because you'll go to every specialty and feel like everyone else knows so much more then you at say Oncology, or Pediatrics, or Cardiac... but remember... your skill level will run very wide and diverse but may not necessarily run deep for awhile. That's okay. It takes a special person to float and most nurses don't want to do it... so they will secretly admire you for your adaptability and everything you know

I'm in the Float Pool. I've worked ALL over the hospital. The most steady, but slower paced places I've worked are Pediatrics and Pre-admit Testing.

I am a Perinatal Float nurse and work both Peds and NICU (among other areas). My advice is to go to PEDS. I LOVE NICU, but as others have said, it's a very specialized field. If you don't want to be a NICU nurse for the rest of your life, I would go to Peds. I absolutely love peds. You'll get to see so many different things from oncology, to heart issues, to traumas, to new onset diabetics, to respiratory illnesses. It's like all of med-surg wrapped up into one. You'll get good at all the skills you've learned in school and you'll love it. The patient load is usually smaller and the work is just better then anywhere else. Love it there. Do Peds.

Wound vacs can get complicated sometimes. My most complicated was a pt I had once who had an abdominal surgery and they nicked the bowel. Everything got infected and there were fistulas in several places. Her abdominal wound took up the majority of her abdomen under the ribs with large gaping crevices in a cross pattern. It leaked watery excrement and we had to pack it about 6 times a shift. It was the craziest thing. She was hospitalized for months.

Absolutely. I get it... but I can't go around wearing gloves ALL the time in my daily life and/or not being friendly to people (well, I guess I could, but I won't). I wear nail polish, but not when I'm working.... unless it's clear or flesh colored which we are allowed to have at my hospital.

I guess what I'm saying is that my hands are as clean as possible... always. I'm actually a bit of a germ-a-phobe. I actually wash my hands with real soap and water and try not to use that alcohol foam as much. I do wear nail polish and yes, I shake people's hands without gloves on, but I do that at church and the grocery store and the like. If I have a patient who is in neutrapenic precautions or who has something harsh likd C-diff... I'm gowning and gloving and all before I even enter their room. I am using the proper ppe in all of those situations. For everyone else, if I am doing anything with that patient other then shaking their hand in the hallway or touching their clothed shoulder with a word of encouragement... I am WEARING GLOVES. EVERY TIME. Therefore, I have always wondered why the nail thing has always been such a hotbed issue. If you are doing what you are supposed to be doing with patient care, your patients won't be coming in contact with your nails and you with their bacteria. I certainly don't dig in their wounds or change butts without gloves on... or any other procedure that would put me in direct contact with their bacteria.

Here is my question about all of these nail polish issues.... aren't we not supposed to touch the patient without gloves on anyway? I have always wondered why nails are feared be so unsanitary if we are using proper protocol. Anyone have a good answer to this?

My story is a lot like Mrs.Treharne's. I was blessed to be able to be a SAHM from the time my first child was born, until my second child started school. That is when I went back to school and got my RN. It doesn't matter what you do, you will get ridiculed about it. Many people said to me "WHY on earth would you want to get another job when you have the perfect set-up?". I'm not very domestic, so I needed to do something that was good at. Anyway, that being said, I'm a big believer in staying home with your little ones if you can. They grow SO fast. Before you know it they will be graduating High School (like my oldest). You have a few precious years to be home with them, if that's what your desire is.... make the most of it. Nobody can love your kids like you do, so if you have the means to be with them... do it. Jobs, a career, self-actualization, whatever... will always be out there. Your kids wont. You only get one chance at this time in life.

I always say "we're not here to save your ass anymore, we're here to kiss it". HCAPS is the destruction of healthcare as we know it. How many times do you ever give an "always pleased" or 10 out of 10 to ANYTHING? Heck, I wouldn't even give that to Disney World.