nycegyrl

Finally..... a positive thread. I have been reading threads on this site for quite a while now and there is a lot of discouraging posts. I'm changing careers also. I'm scared out of my mind about what lies ahead. I know nursing is hard. And I know I will love school. My other job was hard. Some people are hard to get along with. Management can be a pain in the behind. A lot of stress to work faster and get everything done. Working conditions were the pits. The things we put ourselves through for a paycheck is amazing. I like to read the posts that are positive and the posts that are negative remind me of the conditions I am already familiar with from my past employment. And I know that some people are just very negative. I remind myself that this is a discussion board for people to vent their frustrations. I may be here one day venting mine from a hard day of nursing. Thanks all for the encouraging words to the other poster. You helped me out also.

The next time this happens go immediately to the Emergency Room. Do not wait until the next day. If you have to call the police yourself do it. Granted, all CNA's are going to get hit on one time or another. It goes with the territory. It does not mean you have to be hurt and just sit there and take it. I would recommend going in everyday. Doing my job like nothing happened. I would not discuss it with the resident. IF it happens again I would do the same thing. Go to ER. Call the police. Have ER call the police if you have to. Behave in a professional manner. The DON will get ahold of the residents Dr only so many times before they get the medicine dosage correct and or move him out of this facility. Mr Tempers family may have to have a talk with Dad and make him understand his temper tantrums won't work in LTC.

So would you agree or disagree with the wages that are stated? Do you make 25,000 a year or do you make more? This article could be rebuked if everyone compared right here online.

when i grow up to be a nurse i know i will make mistakes. i already worry about them. i made a mistake when i was a med tech. i put ear drops in a ladies eye. of all things. :chair:

I worked in LTC and I know how things have a habit of walking off. My Grandmother lived there and one of her dresses was taken and you know she never quit talking about it. She even thinks she knows who took it. She was so upset about it. I think it was an aide that did it like Grandma said. When I was working there I was doing a roller set on a lady after her shower and I used the rollers she handed to me. She brought her own rollers. Well when I took her hair down and gave her back her rollers she told me those weren't her rollers. I gave her the wrong ones. She went to everyone that would listen to her and I walked by the beauty shop later that morning to see her in there with the Activities Director. The AD was giving her rollers from the big tray that she said were hers. She told everyone I stole from her. It was awful and very upsetting to me. I think of it sometimes and how crazy the whole thing was. But there was no talking to her about it.

I agree. While getting my dosage just right or forgetting to take my medicine I have experienced unusal feelings. At times it felt like a bolt of electricity was going through me. I fear going off my medicine for that reason. I mean, every few seconds of your day you feel a dizzy feeling and an electrical charge. Followed by a feeling of anxiety. It almost takes your breath away. Has anyone else experienced that?

I have taken Zoloft and it worked very well for me also. I had to be used to it because it does make you feel dizzy at first. It made me tired in the beginning but I was so desperate for help I wouldn't have quit taking it for nothing. I have been on Paxil. It worked pretty good for awhile. If you need it you should take it. Talk therapy helps so much. 3 months after you are on Zoloft you will be glad you started on it. Good luck.

The mother is a prostitute and addicted to drugs and alcohol. The men that gang raped the 5 month old cut her from lady parts to rectum. She wore a colostomy for awhile. They didn't say if she had it reversed or not. Her internal organs were so damaged they weren't sure what they were sewing up. It is so unbelievably horrific. I am sure some of it is ignorance. But that is still no excuse to harm a child. I mean, for a grown man to believe that having sex with a baby will cure them is not even rational. The best part of her ordeal is that she is negative for HIV/AIDS. The Iraqi Extremist people would like to behead someone. I can think of a group of people who need their heads cut off for what they have done. Both heads. Starting with the small one first. So they can feel some of the agony they put those babies through. :angryfire

I read all the story at the links provided and I am speechless.

What is a unit clerk exactly? you can check out the department of labor and find all kinds of information on jobs around the country.

Oh I remember a lady like that. She was a pill. I am not sitting right. Move me here and move me there. Put me on the toilet take me off the toilet. My dress is bunched up. My socks are not in the right place. Ring the call bell to tell you she can't reach the call bell. My hair, my teeth, my socks, my dress. On and on every single day on every shift. It would wear you out. Her family had tolerated her behavior all their life. I don't know how. It was like she was spoiled. Like a little spoiled kid. The nursing home administrator as well as the nursing administrator had to a stop to it. They both sat down and talked with her after talking to her family. She would be adjusted one time. We would come in and redo what she needed one time so she needed to make sure it was what she wanted. After that she would have to wait awhile. But she got onto that. When someone different would walk past her room she would call them in. Whether it be housekeeping or Social Services or Activity director. LOL she was good. But it didn't matter to me as long as someone was pacifying her. I would walk past and see someone, even her roommate, bent over adjusting her socks to the right height on her ankle and I would have to chuckle. She never gave up. It got better. But she never gave up. It is like she would focus on something and obsess about it. And you have to take her seriously at times because she may really have to go to the bathroom again in 10 minutes. I know it must have been uncomfortable for her to be wheel chair bound with arthritic legs that were bunched up and having to wear a leg brace. Not being able to take herself to the bathroom. She didn't even want to roll herself to the dining room. But we would have to encourage her to do so. Good luck with your resident. I never thought it might be a mental problem. It gives me something to think about the next time I encounter someone like her.

I worked in a nursing home for 7+ years. As a Med Tech for most of it. I worked with Aides that were like that. And at times I may have been guilty of it too. Age is definitely a factor. Are they young? Education is a factor also. They need to be educated on their behavior and what is expected. It is supposed to be a family type atmosphere and people come from different backgrounds. In their family it may be loud and undignified. I think too that a meeting with the Nursing Supervisor is in order. Have all the aides there. You talk to them as well as the supervisor. Have these meetings regularly, like once a month. Let them know of progress they are making. Congratulate them on their "professionalism". Let them know there is a time and a place for everything and some of it might need to be talked about or laughed about at break time or after work. Maybe they could be taught to see what it looks like to the residents. They can have fun and enjoy their job but not at the expense of the residents. Sometimes they may need to be reminded to tone it down a little. As for not being enthusiastic about getting patient care done, they may be feeling like they have a lot to do also. They may have a routine in mind of who goes to bed when and what they are going to do next. And you can't really do that because something always comes up. Always. I think your helping is great. I always liked that so much. Yeah. You need to have a meeting. Even if it is after report. And follow through with what you will be prepared to do if things don't get better. The Administrator or nursing supervisor may need to make some suprise visits. That is always helpful. Get the attention off of you and on to someone else with even more authority. As time goes by you will be a friend to them. It will just take time. You seem to want that so I am sure you will be able to do it. Helping with passing out the ice water or helping them take someone off the toilet means a lot. Good luck.

I have been thinking about this a lot since reading the board yesterday on strikes. There are so many posts on staffing issues. Problems that are so severe and on going that nurses feel the need to strike. Health care workers everywhere are feeling this and it goes on deaf ears. This is not right. And everyones voices are not being heard and taken seriously. This is a crisis situation in my opinion. I am not a nurse yet and I am fearing what is out there and waiting for me. The only thing I can think of that would really get the attention of the hospital is for patients to complain. C/o lack of attention. C/o not getting the care they need. Many many complaints from patients would have to be addressed. BUT.....that would make the nurses look bad. It would result in disipline. It would have to be a unifed effort for all nurses to NOT over work themselves. To truly treat the pt or res with the best possible care at the time they are with them and move on the next one and do the same thing. When you focus on who you are with and give them the treatment or care they deserve and you are taught to do, you are being a great nurse. When you do as much as you can as fast as you can and skip what you can get by with, you are being a good nurse. I don't know how it makes sense. Either you do what is right or you do what will get you by. It sounds so stressful and intense. If it was just rush periods it wouldn't sound so bad but the way the board reads it is like this for all nurses every freaking day. Without support from administration. Think how much better your job would be if they cut your patient load by a few people. How much better care and understanding could you give someone. I wondered when I was in the hospital why I never saw anyone. I felt so alone and not cared for. I should have complained when I got the survey to fill out. Patients and residents and their families should complain. Complain a lot and complain often. That would have to be addressed. It could not be ignored. Then of course impecable charting and note keeping would be only thing to save your butt. (At such and such time helping so and so to the BR. At such and such time I was cleaning BM out of so and so's eyes. At such and such time I was irrigating this and turning so and so over and lotioning.) Every single detail would need to be noted of where and what you were doing. To show that you were so darned busy you couldn't scratch your nose. You know what I mean. (Like anyone has the time to do minute by minute note taking.) And it goes on and on. How will it ever be taken seriously and made better? Just my thoughts on it.

There is a lady that I worked with that had to go to ER because her and her dog were "stuck". The dog started clawing and biting her so she couldn't get away and had to call ambulance. She is forever referred to as the "dog Lady". I watch Jacka** on TV. One of the guys puts a little matchbox car up his rectum and goes to different emergency rooms to get X-Rays and get reactions. All of the doctors and nurses were very caring and didn't show any reaction of laughing or anger. They were all very professional. I got the biggest kick out of it. I have enjoyed the posts. Very entertaining. What one person doesn't think of another one will. :rotfl:

There is a lady that I worked with that had to go to ER because her and her dog were "stuck". The dog started clawing and biting her so she couldn't get away and had to call ambulance. She is forever referred to as the "dog Lady". I watch Jacka** on TV. One of the guys puts a little matchbox car up his rectum and goes to different emergency rooms to get X-Rays and get reactions. All of the doctors and nurses were very caring and didn't show any reaction of laughing or anger. They were all very professional. I got the biggest kick out of it. I have enjoyed the posts. Very entertaining. What one person doesn't think of another one will. :rotfl: