NurseeTee

Hi everyone, I also graduated from St. Vincent's a few years ago. Now I work in New Haven on a surgical floor and I love it!

I have a patient right now who also uses a Shiley #6 Extended. They are disposable and should not be washed and reused. As for policy, we change the inner cannula once a shift, which is once every 12 hours. Obviously if the patient has a lot of secretions or really thick secretions we will change it more often. Trach ties are PRN.

We have profit sharing that coincides with Christmas, so we get a check in the amount of 1-3% of our yearly salary about the 2nd week of December. The amount depends on patient satisfaction, discharge cost, etc. It's not technically a holiday bonus, but it acts as one.

I work on a trauma floor where we utilize float pool nurses and aides frequently. They ALWAYS say they are dumped on, but it's simply not true. The whole entire floor is heavy and the assignments are evenly distributed for isolation, acuity, etc.

That's funny. I have had people refuse Reglan because it makes their stomach rumble too much, but one person who refused said to go ahead and give her Ativan because it eases her abdominal pain

I work at Yale and I LOVE it. There's tons of opportunity, the benefits are great, and there are multiple locations within the health system if you wanted a change of pace.

If I called a code for a pt with a low blood sugar, I think that would get me in more trouble than bottoming out the sugar in the first place! Codes where I work are for respiratory or cardiac arrest only (or someone who is darn close), so to picture the whole code team coming up with the intubation kit and defibrillator and chaplain and the whole works...well it's unnecessary. He got his D50 and blood draw. People make mistakes - you didn't do anything maliciously or even negligently in my opinion. Next time you will call the MD to clarify orders, it was a learning experience and ultimately the patient is OK, lesson learned. I really hope you get nothing more than maybe a slap on the hand.

My story is from when I was working on my current floor, but I was a nursing student working an evening shift. Our actual floor was having a new call bell system installed, so they moved us to another floor in another wing of the hospital while the work was being done. Our temporary home used to be a pediatric floor, and we knew before we even went there that it was supposedly haunted. Something about a pair of red shoes that people always saw under beds...supposedly some of our nurses saw them while we were up there but I never did, so I can't attest to that. What I CAN attest to was the other rumor, in which one particular room at the end of the hall was supposed to be especially haunted. Nurses said the water in the sink in the room would always turn on by itself (I also never saw that happen) and the call bell would always go off. This one evening I was working, lo and behold, that call bell kept going off like nobody's business. There were no patients in that room and I walked back there each and every time to manually cancel it, only to find the call bell lit, tv on, and an empty room. They say it was a bored child, maybe the one with the red shoes...? That was a few years ago; we are obviously back on our normal floor now, which is in the newest wing of the hospital. I keep looking for signs, anything, but I work busy day shifts so the only thing I can add is one long-term patient who was made DNR. She told us that she saw her sister and her husband standing "there" (end of bed?) waiting for her, and she died within 24 hours.

While I can't find exact figures, it seems the standard number is that 80% of all lung cancers come from the person smoking. Other factors can include second-hand smoke, asbestos or other toxic exposure, or even just bad genetics. While I admittedly don't have a huge amount of experience with lung cancer, I do have a good amount, and have never seen someone live more than about a year after diagnosis. It's very sad.

Why is that? Have you made errors in the past that required you being checked?

I personally would report it, and here's why. When errors of any kind are reported, they are also compiled, and the hospital (or any facility) can make improvements based on those errors. Maybe others have made your same mistake and they can suggest that the pharmaceutical company make a different concentration, or the packaging can be changed, or pharmacy can put a special label on the bottle. So I wouldn't worry about your mistake since no harm was done, but I would report it just so your employer can make improvements in the med administration process.

I would never ever give something that someone said they were allergic to. I don't need that over my head IF something were to go wrong. Better safe than sorry - if they say they are allergic, it's up to the doctors to order something appropriate. Funny story though...there was a patient on our floor once whose patient care summary printed up with an allergy to alcohol. Reaction? "Dizziness".

What I find amazing is that people are still spelling it HIPPA instead of the correct HIPAA even after someone pointed out the error. No one can claim to be an expert or "police" on the subject if they don't even know what it stands for.

Just curious why the OR floor would have call bells?

Bottom line is, nurse managers are there for a reason. They have specialized management training and skills, as well as resources and knowledge of certain policies, procedures and laws that us "floor" nurses don't necessarily know about. The least you (and anyone else who witnessed anything) could do is just fill in the manager on everything. She is responsible for the floor and everyone on it, so it is only fair that she is adequately informed. I would even just print out your post and let her read it. You are obviously trying not to pass judgement on anyone, you would just be giving her all the information she has a right to know anyway. Besides, if this nurse did end up trying to falsely accuse you of something and THEN you came out with all this info, it would look simply retaliatory and lack the credibility it deserves. Good luck.

I tend to think it's an institution policy that would dictate...? I would assume that the MD performed the procedure which enough was alone for documentation purposes. And if you did nothing outside your scope of practice, then it doesn't seem to me that it should be a problem if you were present and assisted in minor ways.

Sometimes they just don't work well for us where I work. Occasionally you can get it work by moving the line and/or the patient's position around a little. As long as it flushes OK, then the line is still fine for infusions, you just have to poke the poor patient for blood . And no, the questions NEVER end! That's the fun of nursing!

I dunno...I think that what I learned in nursing school - all of it - was a critical foundation that may not have been the most exciting string of lessons, but I need(ed) to know all of it in order to make my decisions now as a nurse. The critical thinking is what I learned as a student nurse (as a job, not through school) and by just being in certain situations. It's not really something you could teach a class on, to a certain extent. You have to be in the moment and see which decisions work and which don't. Knowing about Florence Nightingale is something every nurse should know about...Clara Barton too. And just look at Maslow..again, not exciting, but crucial. So I am not sure I would change much except to STRONGLY suggest a student get a student nurse or student tech job at a local hospital, because clinicals just aren't enough.

Just like any other group of people. They are just that - people - and there will be some you love and some you don't. The ones I work with, they all have their strengths and their weaknesses, just as we RNs do. One thing I have learned very quickly though is never trust them with YOUR license. Just a week ago I caught one faking every single vital sign and every single blood sugar on our acute care (surgical) floor. Who knows what else...urine, intake, etc. Turns out she had been doing it for months and no one caught on...

Let's see...I had to wait about...two weeks :). I walked into the Admissions office of my school one day and started classes within a few weeks. That was four years ago, I understand they have a wait list now, but it's not that bad...maybe a semester. And it's a very good school.

Even though the issue has been resolved, I will tell you that just last week I cared for a patient on our floor. He had two arms, but one of them was completely useless (an attacker had stabbed him several times and ruined nerves). He also, as a result of the stabbings, had a new colostomy. I never personally watched him do his care, but he was completely independent with the colostomy. Apparently instead of emptying it using the bottom of the pouch and re-rolling it up, he just took the whole appliance off the wafer every time it needed emptying and did it that way.

Yes, that is true that no ovulation and no period with these pills. I don't need the pill either, but I started these just to have less periods!