CaregiverGrace

It's a medication. Yes, they are being unreasonable. The risks of hanging a bag of chemo are so minute as to be laughable, certainly compared to many of the other "accepted" daily routines of nursing care.

Fair enough. Personally though, I'd at least be looking at one of the countless LPN-RN online programs. This would be MUCH more amenable to a full-time work schedule.

lol, I doubt your employer is going to support any "at-work" study times, even if you are not particularly busy. They are after all paying for you to, you know, work.

Anyone else think it just seems unhygienic to be putting meds into your pockets? Who knows what's been festering in there after a few hours on a shift. I can vaguely look past the diversion issues, but the infection control issues here seem concerning.

I know this is never a great option, but have you considered taking out student loans to pay off after graduation? These loans of course can include money to cover aspects of your living situation. You may need to still work part-time, but a loan can at least help off-set some of the hours. Otherwise, I think a part-time work and part-time school program would be ideal. Nursing school such as at Northwestern will be highly challenging, and not passing a class or two because of lack of study time would be a real setback imo.

Is it any wonder that nursing is on such a downslide as a profession when clearly no one stands up for themselves? I see many other professionals in the healthcare industry that have not bowed down to management the way that nurses have, and they have maintained reasonable working conditions. There's something deficient in the typical nursing personality-type that wants to be the ever vigilant downtrodden saint in love with their own passive-aggressive self-sacrifice. There's no need for unions or even a unified front, simply a more self-respecting attitude amongst nurses.

Well, it's not hygienic and it looks unprofessional. However, we've all done it and if there's no one around and your surface is wiped down, I don't see the problem. The habitual eaters that sit there, eat, and gossip for half an hour are the ones management is going after, and I can understand why.

Again, not true. From the Statistical Abstract of the United States: "The wealthiest 1 percent of the population earn 19 percent of the income but pay 37 percent of the income tax. The top 10 percent pay 68 percent of the tab. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent—those below the median income level—now earn 13 percent of the income but pay just 3 percent of the taxes."

For every occasion that I've entered a higher tax bracket, I've paid a higher % of my income in taxes, for every lower tax bracket, I have paid a lower % all the way down to zero. This is a system that penalizes financial success. SS is just one spoke on the wheel of a broken system.

This argument lacks logic. Those that make more money still pay more taxes, and those that make the most money pay the most taxes, and those that make the least pay the least (or none). There are some corporate tax deals that I disagree with, but for the most part, every rich person I know pays a much higher % of their income to the govt than every middle class or poor person that I know. To say that, because you make more money, you should have a higher percentage of your income taxed, is inane.

I don't see anything wrong with pointing out that a large percentage of the population abuses the system, and a different, large percentage of the population ends up paying for it. "Life is not fair", I get it, but at a certain point you have to say that the system is so broken that is it no longer serving the interests of those that fund it. When you mention things like roads and police officers, that is such a small percentage of your tax money that it is laughable. It is sad but true that often the most demanding customers in the healthcare industry are the ones that are paying little to no money for these services. I don't feel like this is inappropriate, or unreasonable to point out.

I guess I'm not sure why a doctor, who has spent probably hundreds of thousands on their degree, and which they're still probably paying off, owes the public "freebies". I can't think of any other profession that is expected to pay so much for the education, and then expected to provide "free" work to potentially any customer that comes in. If she wishes to offer free care, then good on her, but it certainly should not be expected or required. You know, I have insurance, barely make ends meet, but still pay big $$ for medical bills that the hospital and physician groups send to me. It honestly doesn't even cross my mind to say whoa is me, I'm sick and everyone else should pay my medical bills.

Well, again though, you're missing the point which is that this nurse wants to do MORE bedside nursing. Going into nursing informatics is a bad idea for someone that prefers actual bedside nursing. Just because someone is good with computers, does not imply that they like working with computers, or want to have a job using them. My guess is that if OP wanted to work on computers and designing software, he would have pursued that as a profession, and not nursing. The OP may very well be good at nursing informatics, but may be miserable at it, so it would be a bad road to take imo. Since bedside nursing is what this nurse wants to do more of, finding a field of nursing that is more patient-based and less documentation-heavy seems like the most logical avenue.

Not to be devil's advocate here, but why would you suggest nursing informatics as a career choice for someone that simply wants to do more "true nursing care"? Being frustrated by computers because they take you away from the bedside is certainly not a good reason to commit more time to computers, away from the bedside. I agree that the computerization of nursing needs smart and talented professionals, but if someone has a serious dislike for the documentation aspects of nursing, going into that specifically seems like a bad choice.

I guess it would be like if I was going to buy a used car and the dealer said he had a couple good deals, but they had permanent bumper stickers such as "93.7 KDFM FEVER!" or "I HATE STUPID PEOPLE". I'd probably say, you know, these are ok cars but I'm sure I could find similar ones without the dumb pictures or slogans imprinted on them by their previous owner.