Nellie Nurse

It's like you are me. I have been working in an ICU for almost a year now. I find myself more bothered with the things that go on here than in any other place I have worked. Having to participate in caring for patients who are rotting away in the ...

Not my pt but an event that happened the other night has me wanting to refresh my education and I can't find much info with a general web search. Pt developed rapidly expanding hematoma shortly after tx from cath lab. It was eventually discovered t...

Thanks for the reply. The hematoma was too large to mark; extending into the groin and thigh. It was a critical situation. Unfortunately the SWAT nurse present, the one that we look to as a guide for interventions in these situations, gave poor ad...

So I have been living out here in the Phoenix area. I would love to someday move back to West MI which will always be home to me. I feel as though that will not be possible due to the huge difference in pay. My base is 33 with 18% shift diff. If I...

That's surprising. Prior to moving out here I was working just south of the MI border, in Indiana and I figured their wages would be similar. Hoping to someday go to possibly the GR area.

It was announced in a staff meeting that it was determined that the cause of death for a patient who had died on our unit was air embolism caused by the IV. No further details were given as to the amount of air found, etc. I had always been told th...

Sometimes when a family member would ask me more questions than I could answer about the patient's plan of care by the physician who usually did not share that information with me I would give the family member the phone number to the doctor's office...

Is it just my idealistic view of what a nurse should be or does this bother other nurses? I have heard several times lately and have read articles of people who are going to nursing school, not because they want to be a nurse but because they want th...

So the hospital I work at recently instituted these DVT prophylaxis orders where each pt upon admission has a form placed on their chart for the doctor to review and sign. The form has boxes to check for increased risk of DVT such as hx of DVT, rece...

When I was in nursing school I did not take the scholarship for the reasons mentioned by the previous poster but the hospital I worked for also had an option for tuition reimbursement. Unlike the scholarship program they did not pay for the full loa...

- I wish that there was a headset device that you could talk into while doing the head to toe assessment of the patient that would automatically enter your assessment into the computer so I wouldn't have to do all of this darn charting. I could just...

I work on an ortho/neuro unit where the doctors are babied. Our med reconciliation forms used to be order sheets that the doctors could check mark DC or continue but none of them used the order form the right way. So now the med rec form is put in ...

I have 2 offers for travel positions, one for Banner Good Sam on the Ortho/Neuro, med-surg unit, and the other on a med-surg/oncology unit at Banner Thunderbird. I have never been to either of these facilities. I am wondering what to choose. Help....

I have had experience with a level 1 trauma teaching hospital as well as a level 2 hospital. I am most concerned about the drive and safety. Both facilities are about the same distance from where I will be staying but I have heard that the traffic ...

From a fellow Michigander I want to congraulate you on passing the NCLEX!! I myself was raised and currently live in Berrien county. I have worked at Lakeland, Butterworth in Grand Rapids, and Memorial hospital so if you have any questions feel free...

I work in a Ortho/Neuro unit with many ortho surgeries. The patients are given a choice preop of epidural vs. PCA for pain management postop. I can't stand the epidurals. I don't think that they have as good pain control as the PCAs, I find that I...

Our hospital just switched to Cerner. We had started out with using computerized MAR but we just went back to the paper MAR because pharmacy was totally unprepared for the change and a lot of scary things were happening- meds were being put in twice...

The unit that I work on signs us up for 1-2 extra 8 hour 3-11pm shifts per schedule. I normally work 7am-7pm. They don't let us pick which days to be signed up for and they are mandatory. If you can't work those days too bad, find someone to switch w...

I work on an Ortho/Neuro surgical unit and pain control is a huge issue. For total joint surgeries our patients usually have either a PCA or epidural with PO meds for breakthrough pain. If these methods are not controlling the pain and I have trie...

We were told that it was a peripheral IV but we were not told many details.

This is an update to my previous post. So I was orienting in the outpatient surgery center before I was to go to my permanent home, major OR, when I had an epiphany- I don't want to work in the OR. Now don't get me wrong. I love surgery. It's the coo...

Yesterday at work I was shaving a patient's face when the NA that I was working with asked me to step out of the room. She says to me " I specifically told the family that he could not be shaved with anything but an electric razor because he is on Lo...

Tommorrow I will be charge nurse for the first time. I'm nervous but excited at the same time. Anyone have any words of wisdom to help me through my shift. Thanks.

Well I was lucky, this weekend we were wonderfully staffed and not too many admits. We discharged a bunch of people and so my shifts ended up being fairly slow. I never realized though how many little issues would pop up that I would need to take c...

Do you work at my old hospital? I used to work on a neuro med/surg unit as a new nurse. Absolutely hated it because I would have 7-10 patients on nights with maybe 2 -3 nursing assistants for a 47 bed unit. I totally felt overwhelmed and awful bec...