myk_RN

My hospital does a mix of 12 and 8, depending on the ward. I work at Med-Surg and our head nurse has tried to go with 12 hr shift but the senior nurses, who always works the 7-3 shift, vote against it. I'm okay working 8 hr. graveyard shifts but Id like to try the 12's and have more days off.

When I was in College, almost half of our BSN class (about 12) were males. We called each other "FOCKERS" from the ben Stiller movie "Meet the Parents"

ahhh! you beat me to it! ok, seriously... lowest one I've seen while a patient is still awake and talking is in the 40's

could you give me links/websites to where i can do that? thanks.

Thanks for the replies. We will be taking a vacation in September...to visit friends in Hawaii, Cali, Virginia, Maryland and NY. We'll see how that goes. I would say that Guam is a smaller version of Hawaii. Pay is not so good here but RN jobs are easy to find here. About $40K for starting RN. Our hospitals do get some travelling nurses in the ICU and ER departments. They do get pretty good pay though. As for weather....hot and humid (much warmer than Hawaii). Mid 80's at night... mid to high 90's in the day time. We only have 2 seasons... rainy season and summer.

I don't think I'm considered a "new grad" or am I? What's 5 years of floor experience?

Hi all, I'm a RN with BSN degree and have 5 years of Medical Surgical floor experience. I'm currently working on my Med-Surg certification. My GF is a RN/BSN as well with 6 years of Telemetry/PCU floor experience. She went to nursing school in Virginia and got her BSN at George Mason Univ. Worked her 1st 4 years in VA until she moved back here to Guam in 2009. We currently live and work in Guam, a tiny island with about 170,000 people. We work at the only civilian and government run hospital here. (The other hospital is a US Navy Hospital). In about 3 years, there will be a brand new private run hospital opening up here. I thought of living and working here for the rest of my life but lately, we've been thinking about relocating stateside due to many reasons. I need some info on how the job market is for RN's with our experience level in the states. We're looking at possibly Hawaii, California (southern), Las Vegas, Virginia, Maryland. Thanks in advance.

Ignoring the call bell is a NO-NO. But like whats been mentioned before, you can tell your patient that you wouldn't do petty things that they can do on their own. (in a good way of course) Now, about the non-medical related requests, it really depends. As long as I'm not busy and the request is valid enough for me, I don't mind. A few examples of valid requests I can think of are back scratching, making a phone call, buying magazines/newspaper, buying a prepaid phone card, etc...

Med-Surg nurse here! going on 4 years and I'm enjoying it. I've done ED and it wasnt for me. I havent tried ICU but I don't see that I'll like it much.

Our unit supervisor has been pondering to transfer into the 12 hr. sched. There are already some units in our hospital doing it. (They do 6 12hr shifts and 1 8hr every 2 weeks.) However, when she had the staff voting for it, many of the older (senior nurses) who are almost always in the 0700-1500 shift voted NO. So it was a no go. I really agree with what sameyjaney said above. It really depends with what you do with your time off. I work 8hr graveyard shifts and I can get more done this way, rather than having more days off. Go work, get off at 0730, do some errands, go gym, relax for a couple of hours and sleep at around 1500-1600. I don't think I would have the energy to do many of those things after getting out of a 12 hour shift.

They have crocs models that are closed toes and with heel backs.

There were 25 of us in my BSN graduating class and 12 of us were males. I work on the MS floor now with about 50 RN's, 1/4 of them are males, and 2 are gay. I'm seeing more and more male nursing students now when they do their rotation on our floor. As for the "tribe of men" comment . . . . I don't see it in our hospital. Although I've become good friends with my male coworkers, 3 of which I went to nursing school with.

25 when I got my LPN license...Junior in college 26 when I graduated with BSN. 27 when I got my RN license. I'll be turning the big 3-0 this year.

wow.... was the camera being recorded?

*bumps for updates on what the uro says....

This thread is useless without pics.... just kidding.

During my first year being an RN, I had an old catholic priest patient who had advanced dementia and was bedridden. Sometimes, he would burst out in anger and try to punch, kick, his nurses when they do morning care or change his diapers. One day, he yelled out "Go to hell you *****!".

Last week we had a patient with a history of septic arthritis which was healing and had started to have abdominal pain. CT scans, XRays, and EGD was done and findings were just gastritis and no bleeding noted. Patient continued to complain of severe burning abdominal pains. MD gradually increased PRN Demerol order from 25mg IV, to 50mg and finally to 100mg IM every 2 hours. Needless to say, patient would call on the dot, sometimes even 10-15 mins early requesting for his Demerol. I looked at his MAR and sure enough, he's been getting his 100mg of Demerol every 2-3 hours. Thats over a gram of Demerol per day! X 4 days already. This is where I sometimes dont like my job. I feel like I'm a drug dealer.

When I started working in 2006, I would have up 10 patients, 1 CNA in the swing shift. Possibly 1 more patient if there's a new admit. Our hospital has since worked towards JCAHO accreditation and was just granted full accreditation last year. Today, 5 to 6 patients is the average. But with all the charting and documentation that came with JCAHO, sometimes it still feels as if we do the same amount of work 5 years ago.

I wouldnt have given it. Verify with pharmacy and if no IVP Toradol is available, I'd call MD to change the route.

My GF is a Tele/PCU nurse and Im a nurse across the building in the Medical/Surgical unit. so far so good. Only gripe is our different schedules. She works swings/nights and I work graveyards.

Ha ha ha! Good read! well on point! I work with quite a few Murses, 3 of which I went to nursing school with. I had to print this out and put it in our staff lounge bulletin board. BTW, I'm Mike the Murse too.

Here' a couple that I like... "Nurses do it with care" and "Feel safe tonight, sleep with a Nurse"

A couple of years ago, we had a failed suicide attempt patient in the 4th floor pull out his ET tube, broke through the glass window with an IV pole and ran out, flipped over the balcony and off the building and into the MD's parking lot. Since then, strange things have been seen or heard in that same room where it happened. A few weeks after the incident, a patient watcher in the same room ran to the nurses station and told the nurse that she saw a man fall over the balcony.

low intermittent suction