etaoinshrdluRN

Everywhere I've worked it is confined to no showing tattoos and only ears pierced. In my job in mental health, necklaces and large, rippable earrings are verboten.

I've heard it described as "sommmathetimers."

Before I was a nurse, I lost a mid-term boy from incompetent cervix, and the nursing care I received ranged from awful to bad (they were all clearly upset and unprepared to deal with my grief). Except for the one nurse who took care of my baby after delivery. She was the one bright spot: honest and encouraging, telling me what to expect, why he looked as he did, how he was perfect, what needed to be done, etc. She also gave him the dignity of a bath and a diaper, footprints, hand prints, portrait and so forth. She found him a hat, a tiny receiving blanket, and a sturdy white envelope box to contain him when we took him home for burial. I was glad to go back to that unit as a nurse, see her, and thank her for her good work. The key to her success, in my opinion, was to set aside any discomfort she might have had, forget herself, and empathize deeply.

Sorry, but your question is so general, I'm pretty sure no one knows what to address.

When I was in LTC care, my state began encouraging the care plans themselves to be written in the form of an "`I' Care Plan." The care plan team was encouraged to boil things down to a simple narrative that all personnel could quickly read to get a handle on a demented resident. E.g.: My name is Lester and I used to build bridges. I still love to look at blueprints and think about engineering projects. I like to walk a lot, although sometimes I need help remembering where I am welcome and where I am not. At night, I sleep well, but if I do wake up, I like to walk. Sometimes, I need reminders where the bathroom is. . . " and so forth. It's a terrific capsule that an aide can carry in her pocket.

On the nurse side, almost nobody is able to correctly pronounce "metoprolol."

Had a very elderly pt. request a "fizzik" when he felt his bowels weren't moving regularly enough. In his case, he was satisfied with MoM. I do think "physic" is an old term for anything purgative of the bowels.

I work in psych and I have a diagnosis of ADHD, which I have been able to compensate for fairly well. I especially appreciate having more than the usual share of empathy for patients who have an unseen illness, and it does help me in my work. It also helps that the work is interesting and while the time pressure of nursing work is there, the degree and nature of the pressure suits me better than my previous nursing job. If you consider psych nursing, keep in mind that your own experiences need to be kept in the background, useful perhaps only to you, directly; your patients need to be the indirect recipients of that experience, since you need to withhold so much of yourself in this kind of nursing. But do consider it; unfortunately a LOT of nurses stigmatize mental illness and mental health nursing and give it short shrift. I agree with those who posted before me about asking the BON in your state and otherwise investigating what needs to be done. Best of luck to you.

Unfortunately, LTC training is usually short, brutal and nasty, but a good facility will give you more than what you've been getting. One of the 5-star nursing homes in my area will not let you be charge for a year. The one where I worked as a new grad had everyone in as charge right away, and a lot of us, myself included, got reported to the BON for errors. In my case I was all right, but boy, I could have been so much road pizza under the bus, with all the risks they and I were having to take.

Holy crap! As someone who has been hyperthyroid a couple of times, I'd rather have a bareback root canal than deliberately make myself hyperthyroid. NOT fun, not healthful, either.

Sounds like "animal hospital" marketing to me. Heh. I've learned the hard way that what a vet does for 15 bucks a pet doc at an animal hospital will do for $1,500, without a drop of guilt. And I am speaking of a real experience with euthanizing two elderly, sick pets.

Look up "workplace bullying" and what the ANA recommends doing about it. See if your supervisors are doing all they can; there are real financial and health consequences to employer and bullied employee, not to mention patients whose nurses are otherwise distracted. Don't engage in lateral violence yourself, and that includes engaging in any kind of workplace gossip. Do engage the bullies frontally, and let them know that they may not treat you as they are.

I was working charge at a NH and the son of a resident threatened to come in with a gun and get even with "the people who took his dad away." The guy had a long criminal history. What really scared me, however, was that it was a weekend and management were nowhere to be seen; we just locked the doors, informed staff, and developed a code phrase among us, should the guy show up.

Being a CNA in a nursing home is just about the best basic nursing experience you could have; don't dismiss it too quickly.

When I was 4 or so, I gobbled up every bit of lit. on health, anatomy, surgery, etc., that I could find, and it was a passion that lasted for years. I never particularly wanted to be a nurse, though I became an EMT at a young age. Almost immediately, it dawned on me what an honor it was to be there for people when their lives were so out of control, helping to restore control. Over the years I realized that the only jobs I cared for or felt natural in were being an EMT and CNA, so I went for nursing.