Imafloat

Make sure you let us know when you hear something! I got all caught up in your thread and I'm wondering how it went.

It drives me nuts when they don't pay attention to what I'm saying because they're asking questions that I'll answer by giving them report.

Make sure that the questions you ask you know why you are asking them. The nurse you are following is just a person doing their job. They aren't evaluating your interest in the Nicu, they know you want to be there, otherwise you wouldn't have applied. I have had candidates job shadow me, and I have had people ask me lots of technical questions that they looked up on the Internet that had nothing to do with the patients I was taking care of that day. I felt it took away from getting to know me, and getting to know the unit.I'm not sure about every facility, but at my hospital a job shadow is an opportunity to see how you might fit in in the unit, sort of an informal unit interview, lol. Try to observe as much interaction as you can between different disciplines to see if it fits into your ideal. Do the doctors and nurses have mutual respect, do the nurses help each other out, are the assignments fair looking. See if it's a place you can picture yourself.I hope they have you shadow a person who is good at it. Be yourself, ask questions you are generally interested in knowing the answers to.

I teach my students and orientees, blood pressure before temperature. They question me, and I tell them, you'll see...they get the temp and totally get it.

I've now been a nurse for 6 years! I come back and read this article sometimes when I'm burned out, because it takes me right back to that time. I've left the NICU, because, get ready for it....... I was BORED! I'm still at the same facility, just another job. I am considering a move away from the bedside, but I love taking care of kids so much I'm not sure I can leave them.I hope all who have struggled have found peace and all who are currently struggling find solace in the article and the comments.Good luck everyone!

I don't have a problem with all new grads. I was once a new grad too, a new grad who absorbed everything like a sponge, who didn't tell the veteran nurses that what they were doing was wrong, who saw things that were different than she learned in nursing school, who's preceptor took really long lunch breaks, and who had ideas of how things could be done better. I just did my orientation, kept my mouth shut and once I had been there a year or two I saw how things were on the other foot. I made my practice unique to me, and I can sleep well at night with the job I do. I've seen a lot of self righteous new grads eating their veterans. They don't usually last.

There was a PCA on my old unit like this. I worked in a level III NICU. Once I had a surgeon call and tell me he was on his way up to do a rectal dilation on a patient in 10 minutes and to gather everything. I went to the nursing station and the PCA was standing there, talking to someone about vacation. I said, excuse me, Dr. So and so is coming up in 10 minutes to do a procedure on Baby Jones, can you please go get an open bed warmer and take it to room 24? I've called CSS for the dilators and I'm getting the Fentanyl and Versed. She looked at me and pointed to the storage room and said, "see that door right there, it leads to the storage room, and there are all the open bed warmers you need in there, what you do is get one and roll it to your room." I was a new nurse and new on the unit so I thought that somehow I was a problem or had done something terrible to this person. I was flustered because the surgeon was rude and pushy and he would be obnoxious if everything wasn't ready when he got to the unit. I looked at her with shock and another nurse overheard what happened and told her that it was her job to do it and she needed to go get it set up. She went and set it up, she later came to me and told me it was her job to help me, but if she was busy that I needed to wait for her to be done. Over time I realized that this is how this PCA was. She treated all of the new people like this. I finally sat down with her and our assistant manager and aired my concerns. Nothing changed except how I dealt with her. I learned to phrase things so that it was her choice to help me. I hated that I had to do that, but sometimes it's easier to deal with people like that than deal with their constant drama. Administration isn't doing their job by allowing that to happen, but it's not my problem anymore, I left that dysfunctional unit. I feel like the equivalent of this behavior would be a nurse telling a doctor no when they wrote an order.

I was on it for migraines. It stopped the migraines, but I had to go off of it. My side effects were that I felt like I was starving all the time, numb/tingling hands and feet, mental dullness, and I couldn't find all of my words when I needed them. At that time I was in the NICU and I was so stupid I had to go off. I admitted a baby with an imperforate orifice and the resident was talking about the potential level of the defect, yammering on and on with nary a breath. I looked at my student and said, I have no idea what the heck she is talking about, do you? I had to go to the resident and ask for an explanation. That was when I decided that I needed to go off, because honestly, imperforate orificees are a dime a dozen in the NICU and I should have totally known what that doc was talking about. It was a glimpse to me of what the parent experience must feel like when we bombard them with all that information.

I am pretty jaded when it comes to the negative politics and crap at work, but I love the reason I went into nursing. I love seeing those cheesy commercials, because they go through the hard walls of my heart, to the tender place and make me proud of what I do for a living. I also selfishly love when my kids see those commercials and I am in the same room. My kids are beyond the age of thinking I am all that, but they aren't old enough to appreciate me yet. They see those commercials and they look at me with a little appreciation, which usually only lasts a moment, but I like the glimpse of humanity I see.

I truly believe Magnet is a way administration can pat themselves on the back for a job well done. The patients can't even tell the difference between, housekeeping, nursing, respiratory, even doctors, do you think they understand what magnet status is.

Our facility was nominated for the best workplace for working mothers award. The survey for that came the week before my employee (dis)satisfaction survey. I had no idea and was leaving anyway so I was very frank in my answers. Oh my, was there pie on my face when I received an email later in the week with a link to the employee satisfaction survey. I wonder how many people made the same mistake as me.

Call me evil but when faced with those questions on a survey I looked to the most brown nosing, administration favorite, know it all, in your face, smug nurse on the unit and matched my demographics as closely to hers as I could.

I don't understand why they came to urgent care if they already had themselves diagnosed and knew what they needed before they got there. They could have better spent their time online at a Canadian Pharmacy getting the meds they felt they needed. I think you did an excellent job, and your decisions and rationale are right on. People drive me batty with their Google MDs.

Feces.

They will say that all the women who were forced back into the nursing field to support their families are now able to become stay at home moms again. They will say that the older ones were able to finally retire.

Peds is where it's at! I love kids. I worked in a NICU for years and loved it, but I decided to stretch my wings and am working general peds now. I, like you have a knack for kids. I don't know where it came from or how it works, but kids respond well to me. These kids crack me up. I've been working in peds oncology and I think this is my favorite. Most kids have good outcomes with pediatric cancer. It's such a well funded field that it is always changing, there's always a new challenge and the OCD parts of my personality are well served with the Chemo schedule and refiguring up every single dose. I took a little girl for a walk to the snack machine and she put her hand out for me to hold and told me I was her new BFF because I like bubble guppies and helped her clean her room. How awesome was that, I got to watch a really cute show with a really cute kid while her mom got a much needed break, and I got paid for it. I get annoyed with the politics at work, but I won't leave because of the rewards I get from the patients. That little girl made my week when she reached for my hand. Peds is pretty rewarding, and I think part of the reason is that kids are so pure and honest, they let you know when you do a good job.

My facility is pursuing magnet status right now. The magnet committee is all rainbows and unicorn poop, they are so far removed from bedside nursing and the lack of satisfaction it's pathetic. We have shared governance now, so we all have unit councils. The unit council meetings are used to address stupid things, whenever they bring up the staffing problems, they are told the same old song and dance number. Our biggest achievement at the unit council meeting was to get a pair of scissors at the hopper to cut the IV bags open so we didn't have to sit and wait for the IVF to drip out of the spike hole. This was even brought up in a staff meeting it was so earth shattering. Hmmm, we also got permission to do a group order of a certain holiday print scrub top. It's a joke and I feel like the unit council is for looks only. When we bring up safety issues, the educator and management argue with us. The turnover numbers look fabulous. In the beginning of the recession, our hospital cut 50 FTE nursing positions. Jobs are hard to come by in my area and you would be a fool to leave a job where you got paid every week. So, we all suck it up and put up with it because we are just happy to have a job.

Tiring

I'm sorry for your loss. I hope you can get your questions answered and find some peace.

Ewww. What if pus shot out, eww, yucko, gross. I've never been tempted to pop a nasty pus filled anything.

We use the Infant Star 950.

I get what you're saying, but look at it from her point. She may sense your personality conflict and every time she talks to you, she feels like you argue with her. The bottom line is that she's your boss. Maybe the patients family was anxious when she was in there, wondering why the NM is in their room. Every example you give is something that she is within her right to call you out on. The patient wasn't alone, but you delegated to someone that you shouldn't have delegated to. The piv was expired, maybe she wants you to be more proactive in the future. Your actions, whether positive or negative impact her and her job. She probably is trying to break you in now that you've got yourself together as you get close to the 1 year mark. A lot of times in life I've had personality conflicts with people that I've had to overcome. I've overcome them, only to realize it's harder to overcome them in people with a similar personality than you. I can tell from what you are typing that you are independent, intelligent, and may have a wee bit of a strong personality (that's not a bad thing ). Your manager sounds like she's got a bit of a strong personality as well. If she wanted to get rid of you, she could, she could be writing you up for all of these things and counseling you and making you miserable. She seems pretty smart too and chances are, she's trying to put you in line. It's too expensive to hire someone else and train them, and they may not be as smart as you. Not sure if you want advice, but I'm going to give it. When B says something, use it as a teaching moment. Be all like, " I'm sorry B, I'll get right in there and talk to that family" or "what would have been better than leaving that patient on the toilet, should I have made the phone call wait?" use your manager as a resource, she has a lot of experience and knows how she wants things done. Chances are she's establishing boundaries with you and once she gets you where she wants you she will back off. She actually sounds like a decent manager, my manager wouldn't know an expired piv if it slapped her across the face. She is so far removed from patient care she has unrealistic expectations for her staff. If you like your job except for this I think you should stick it out.

I hear it all the time. I work in peds and the parent will tell their hospitalized child that if they don't behave that I'm going to give them a shot. I usually smile and tell the chid that I only have mommy and daddy shots today.

Take care of yourself!

If the babies are on the little oscillator, we let them out to hold. If they are on sensormedics, it's not going to happen. Those kids are usually so sick that they are a touch me not. Besides that, the tubing is so stiff that I can only imagine the kid becoming extubated.