JenTheRN

Actually upon further thought I would choose three. I hate getting up at the crack of dawn and then driving a while to get to work. :)

I guess I would choose number two. Driving an hour to get home after a 12 hour shift can be awful! Even if it is only two days a week.

You win, hands down!

"why you do drugs when pregnant"? Insert funny-looking why-you meme here.

What we really need is a FCS. Fecal Containment Specialist. That would be a specific healthcare personel to take care of all the *gasp* poo that we would otherwise come in contact with.

oh my dear lord! i almost snorted out my coffee. weenrhelpr.com

Like many previous posters, please students, do not take up the valuable space at the nurses station by the computers! I need to chart and put orders in. It is difficult when you are there checking your email (I know not everyone does this but it has happened!) Please offer your chair to the weary nurses during report. I also love having students that are willing to learn! But I have encountered some who don't seem to realize or aren't aware that the computer / space at the nurses station is a valuable comodity for us.

Personally, I don't like working 12's. One would think that if I only work three days a week I would have more time to do other things. That's just not true. My 12 hour days are totally shot...meaning all I do is work, come home, and go to sleep. If I worked 8 hour shifts, I would be able to do something after work. Plus, on my days off I am so tired I can hardly function. Also, when I have to work overtime it usually ends up being 13, 14, or 15 hours. Personally, I don't think the human body is designed to work for 12 hours straight. Not mine anyway. But, I have a good paying job, so I put up with the 12 hour shifts.

Ok...I know my hospital provides it. Just a thought.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't your hospital cover liability for all its nurses? Unless you are a travel nurse, I would think what the hospital supplies would be sufficient and supplimental insurance would be a waste of money. Your situation may be different tho.

We are required to take symptoms when the person calls to track any infection control problems. Usually I just ask if it's GI or Flu like symptoms or "other". The weirdest call-off I ever witnessed: A woman's daughter called and said to call her mother off sick for the next day as they were "kipnapping her" and "making" her stay at the water park hotel they were at. Nothing said about a sickness. I never talked to the employee. She got fired for that one. It could have been solved so easily if she would have called in herself and said she had the flu or something!

Occasionally it is necessary. The other day I had to run to the cafeteria, grab a tray, run back (well, maybe walk briskly) and try to inhale it at the nurses station before all craziness breaks loose. I managed to eat some cookies and part of my soup. But that's what you get on a unit manned only by two RNs and no ancillary staff.

Sometimes those 37 week babies need a bit more time to transition. Sounds like this one had some TTN (transitional tachypnea of the newborn). 92% on a newborn is not really that low, with some grunting and retractions it bears watching. I would have let the charge nurse know, and asked her what she thought. IMO, sometimes babies just need some time to transition, and unless they are in obvious distress, need to be left alone (so to speak) to do what nature has intended.

The important thing is to get her bleeding under control. 1st thing to do is massage the heck out of her uterus. By two weeks pp the uterus should be quite far under the umbilicus. Yes, she will need some pitocin, methergine, or another drug to make her uterus contract, but if she has bleeding that far after delivery I would think she would need a D&C as the most likely culprit would be retained placenta. I don't see that many cases of this, so maybe someone else could share some thoughts, but I think they were trying to stablize her so that she could go into surgery.

I was going to say a big spider I had to squish the other day... Not on my floor but when I was working as a nurse extern in the ED after graduation two little boys came in DOA after they set their grandparents house on fire from playing with matches. The grandfather died as well.