suga_junkie BSN, RN

A couple of antibiotics such as Gentamicin and Vancomycin

Well no really, its not. What a registered nurses does when practicing under their license is their responsibility. You are certainly accountable for your own actions as a student, but the RN you are assigned to has the final responsibility to both p...

I would say that the reason the NCLEX pass rates are so low for foreign educated nurses is that in the US, the entire nursing degree is geared at passing it, with exams etc having NCLEX style questions. Obviously this is not the case in Australia. We...

Wow, on my ward we don't even assign patients on cytotoxic precautions d/t an oral methotrexate dose within 2 weeks ago to a pregnant nurse! Granted, we don't usually have more than one or two such patients at a time, and we don't do IV chemo at all,...

This is what we do in Australia. It is pretty much impossible for an RN to get a job in a hospital without doing a graduate program, usually 12-18 months long. We get comprehensive orientation, supervised shifts in the beginning and then lots of extr...

On my ward we generally withhold BP meds if the systolic is

I'm Australian, we say "de-bride" also. If anyone pronounced it "de-breed" they would definitely get funny looks! I've never heard it pronounced that way. I guess we say it the British English way :)

A bottle of wine and a Christmas lunch

A bit OT, but on my first ever hospital placement as a student, I also cared for a patient with tetanus. He spent a week in ICU and was then transferred to the ward. Initially he was bedridden, catheterised, NG tube fed etc. They expected to treat hi...

Unless you have any actual evidence to support your allegations, I suggest you mind your own business. If this student is in fact cheating, she will either be caught at some point, fail her clinicals or eventually fail the boards. Its not your proble...

I was still a student and doing a rotation on L & D. I was spending the morning in theatre watching Caesarians. That day we happened to have a rather infamous (d/t drugs, scandal etc) ex-football star's partner giving birth. He was present, of co...

In the public system the government pays our wages. The government gets a lot of that money from our universal healthcare tax (the Medicare levy). Sure, they might try to keep the costs down, but the difference is they are not trying to make a profit...

I work in a private hospital in Australia (so similar to the US system where the hospital is running a business as opposed to public hospitals here) and that sort of behavior would never fly. Security would be called and patients can be and have been...

Ah I know what you mean! I'm 23 and look about 16! I'm used to it though, people have been surprised to find out my age since I was 17 and it just keeps getting worse every year as I get older but still look the same! I have just finished my BSN and...

I'm Australian and I find it interesting that there are 2 different RN entry level degrees that result in the same responsibilities and pay (is that right?). Here we only have a (BSN) RN degree undertaken at university for 3 years or an Enrolled Nurs...

I live in Australia. Here nurses do: - all respiratory treatments including managing ventilators in ICU (no such thing as respiratory techs) - all vital signs inc BSLs - assist patients with elimination and hygeine - make beds - turn patients - every...

I am a 3rd year nursing student in Western Australia. When we learnt IM injections last year, we practiced them on mannequins padded with fake skin. The only needle-type practice we did on ourselves was testing our blood sugars, and we had to do our ...

In Australia, we don't have CNA's. RNs do vitals, bathing, toileting etc as well as everything else. We don't have Respiratory techs either so do breathing treatments, vents etc as well. I have to say I prefer it this way. I enjoy doing all the patie...

Not a grad yet (still a student!). Right at the beginning of my first shift on a new ward, I enthusiastically volunteered to take an IV out, wanting to show off my skills to the nurse I was buddied with. I didn't realise how long the cannula was and ...

At my hospital we are required to do a hand hygiene certification annually (online test). There are also alcohol gel bottles on the end of every bed, outside every room at the door and on many dressing trolleys. I'm just a student but having them so ...

That's unfortunate. We've had changes implemented in units because of student's feed back. In fact the units I started with are different now because they regularly evaluate and improve them. Any instuctor worth their salt would take constructive cri...

At the end of every semester, my university sends out unit surveys to every student, which they encourage us all to fill out (we get a million reminders!) The surveys ask us our opinion on the content of each unit and the instructor's quality of teac...

Interesting.. I'm a nursing student too and here in Australia you have to have 5 years experience in "floor nursing" before you can apply for a NP degree. Other students in my year have only expressed vague interest in doing this maybe in the distant...

Ooh yeah I didn't think of that, thanks! I'm definitely going to modify my top 7 nursing diagnoses. Choosing just 7 is turning out to be quite difficult!

I have a case study that I need to write a care plan for, and I'm having trouble choosing 7 nursing problems and prioritising. I feel like we've been thrown in the deep end as we haven't been taught really anything on care plans These are the ones I...