Mini-Murse

Principal. Aston. Good luck finding an Ashton Martin. Where do all you people saying youre gonna buy a house and buy a $75k car think you're gonna get the money? RNs make decent money, but you're not exactly instant millionaires. You have student loans, then you have bills, then you have certifications, etc.. then MAYBE you can have some money left over for frivolities. But you really think you're gonna be handed a check for $200,000 the day you get your license?

I'm incredulous. You work in an ICU and you don't know the laws and your hospital policy on restraints? Needing an order for ANY restraint is the first thing they teach you in your Ethics section of Nursing Fundamentals I. I really hope none of my family members are ever patients of yours - I don't want their nurse to be making up his or her own rules about restraints, treatment, etc. I honestly recommend going back and taking some CE on ethics, ICU, and restraints ASAP.

if the bleeder is pregnant, shes priority #1. if not, the abd pain. could be aaa, could be mi, could be gi bleed, could be gallstones, could be constipation, could be cancer, but it also could be a ruptured spleen, or a bursting appendix. the kid is #3 for the simple fact that, 99/100 times, a broken arm is not life-threatening. but dixie has the right idea. though, you cant just say " send the kid to xray, draw labs & get an ekg on the abdominal pain, labs and pregnancy test for miss vag bleeding." because then you're still prioritizing. is contacting radiology more pertinent than getting the ekg and labs, or is the pregnancy test higher priority. i still think the abd pain is #1 just for the sheer number of etiologies.

Im just starting a job as a PRN PCT in the hospital float pool (the only positions they were actively hiring for), but my goal is to be an Emergency Nurse, and I REALLY want to get tech experience there. Can you guys toss some advice on the best way to get the transition? Should I work a few months in float before asking for a transfer, should I ask right away, or should I just forget it? Difficulty: I'm a 2nd semester nursing student, I dont have an EMT/Paramedic or a CNA license or anything. Thanks!

Wow, that's some bull.. Id go talk to your nursing supervisor about that, you dont want it on your record.

Sorry about your dad Is there a reason you list cognition over wound care & mobility? Is she really out of it, or just a little? If she's completely bedridden and immobile, I (as a new student, mind you), would consider the risk for pressure wounds pretty high. She's not moving, unable to ambulate. Her surgical wound seems to be well taken-care of.

Doing it once is a mistake. Doing it every week is an intentional, conscious choice to say "Eff the rules, Eff HIPPA, and EFF YOU!!" She knew the HIPPA rules, chose to ignore them multiple times, and not only ignored them, but put her partner (the OP) in danger of being kicked out of school as well. If she had been caught by the instructor, and said "Well, Lexie knew I was taking them home.", Lexie would also be an ex-student, and that hospital would very likely sever the relationship with the school, hurting every. single. other. student. The ONLY correct course of action was to inform the instructor. What if it wasnt pt info? What if she violated safety regs by leaving a bed up and siderails down, and the pt had rolled out of bed and died from a head trauma? It's happened. What if she OD'd the pt on heparin or insulin? That's also happened, and nurses and students have tried to cover it up or ignore it. Would you say that lexie wouldve been wrong to turn this girl in had she done one of those? Think not as a nursing student or a nurse.. think as a patient. If you found out this person had taken your legally confidential information out of the hospital and did God knows what with it, how would you feel? I bet you dollars to donuts you'd be on the phone with your lawyer within an hour.

Ahh ok, yes, bish. lol I think, based on what Ive read from the OP's situation, that if they had confronted her about it, she wouldve denied it, and possibly threatened to implicate the OP in it as well. And respect needs to be earned, it's not just given blindly. If she's cheating or being unsafe, classmates arent gonna respect her. If students dont respect her, it'll show in their dealings and interactions, which will become strained, which leads to people treating people poorly, like in this situation.

Near impossible to say without knowing the scores of your cohort applicants. IN my school, the TEAS was taken into account only as a Pass/Fail of a certain score. My scoring in the 98th percentile was equal to someone scoring in the 48th percentile. In my school, for my semester's admissions, the lowest GPA that was accepted (as far as I've heard) was a 3.2 or 3.3. There were 12 4.0 students, and it went down from there until every seat was filled. If your cohort applicants have similar overall scores out of the 90 max, you have a good chance. If they're higher, you have less of a chance. But you have zero chance if you don't apply!

you should never be bored as a student nurse on a floor - you should never have downtime. You should always have something to do - what about "Med, Fed, Bath & Bed"? Med admin, breakfast/lunch feeding support for pts that need assistance, giving a bath to a patient who hasnt had one for a few days because the nursing staff has been too busy (or taking 3 minutes to help them brush their teeth and rinse with mouthwash, make em feel human again), and changing sheets after the bath or at least re-positioning the pt in the bed to smooth out the sheets underneath them to help prevent pressure ulcers? If your 2 patients dont need ANY of these things (which, admittedly, is highly unlikely as pts will rarely turn down a bath, and changing linens and performing pericare helps the RNs more than almost anything you can do), then ask if you can be assigned to a patient who needs more assistance, or help another student with their MFB&B. Making yourself available to the nurses to help with other pts is a great thing, but your patients' needs come first. Only after all these needs are met should you be moving on to other tasks.

BI? Bi-sexual, or am I missing something? Cause noone mentioned that And no, this person would NOT have been a good nurse. She would have been a danger to patients. She didnt think the rules apply to her. Rule #1 is YOU DO NOT VIOLATE HIPPA. Every other rule falls below that, even Pt safety. If this girl thought nothing of taking home HIPPA-protected documents, do you think she'd bother to follow sterile technique when inserting a foley? Or having another Nurse double-check her insulin or heparin syringes before admin? Most likely not. Do you think she would ever go out of her way to take care of Pt comfort - taking the 3 minutes to perform oral hygiene or give a quick wetnap bath to a post-op? Probably not. The OP was in the wrong in getting the girl on speaker, but at least there were witnesses. If the other people in the class have such a problem, they should be appraised by their own clinical instructors, who should be thinking "If they dont think Student X was wrong in taking home those papers, why? Do they do the same thing?" I feel better as a student, and Id feel better were I a patient, knowing that a dangerous student will never become a dangerous nurse.

So today was my very first day ever of clinicals. We were paired with a partner just for today, as opposed to going at it alone. Was a real eye-opener - so many practices that we are taught in class that aren't used in the hospital - even our instructor told us "we teach one thing in class, but you need to practice another in the hospital," which kind of made me angry.. Our pt was a LOL, A&Ox3, was the nicest, kindest LOL you could ever meet. Every pill she took, "Down the hatch!" with a little smile. The only problem was that she was contact for hx of MRSA, but that wasnt that bad to deal with. Two weeks till we go back (doing LTC and simlab next week), and I can't ******* wait.

I've thought about that, one or two, I give no thought to, but every single occurrence catches my notice

Honestly, no personal attacks, but im curious.. I see posters on this forum who can't spell "cough" or "aspirin" or "Morphine" correctly.. and it really concerns me. I'm not really a grammar nazi, but when someone who claims to be an RN for a number of years and can't spell basic medicine or procedures, it makes me wonder how much harder it makes the job for their co-workers. Thoughts?

In the ED I volunteer at (and hope to get a tech job, then a nursing job in), the ratio is 4:1, with 1 tech per 8 beds; the techs start IVs, draw blood, and run cardiac enzymes, as well as assist the nurses in whatever else they need. It's a small ED, 25 beds with 2 overflow, but it's popular with squads, so they stay hopping every day.