RainMom

Surely they don't expect that every single phase II pt is ready to discharge by 45 minutes? That seems very unrealistic unless all the pts are simple things like cataracts or endoscopies which can often be discharge at about the 30 minute mark (our p...

True re: MAC but it will truly depend on the facility. Our local free standing surgical center does outpt TKR & my understanding is there is a push for doing more of these types of procedures as outpt. They also do a lot of urology & plastic ...

Absolutely! Recovering an outpatient is no different than recovering an inpatient when it comes to anesthesia. You may not be seeing more critical patients but your initial priority will always be airway & breathing. It takes time to become conf...

Wondering if anyone uses the ASPAN orientation program for training new PACU nurses? We don't really have a very structured orientation program for new hires. We will be filling 2 positions soon & it seems that I will be assigned as one of the p...

Do not stress over IV skills. Personally I would not sign up for any IV courses; you have the know how, you just need the repetition. You will have soooooo much practice in ER that before you know it, you'll be able to get an IV on pretty much anybod...

It's likely dependent on the school or program. Best bet would be to contact the advisor for the program to find out if your earlier classes & credits would be accepted or if you will have to repeat some classes.

https://www.skillstat.com Decent source for reviewing rhythms

Yay, Congrats!! No specific advice, just go in ready to learn. Maybe keep a small pocket notebook to keep quick notes in...passwords, codes for door entry, etc. Good Luck!

Have you spoken with the advisor for the nursing program? The ADN program I went to took that into account when accepting applicants. All but one student in my class had most, if not all, of the non-nursing courses completed prior to admission to the...

So my PACU just changed to electronic orders & scanning meds. Not a big deal for the most part except for the fact that we are now only allowed to give one dose from a vial of fentanyl or dilaudid & waste the rest, even when we will need ano...

Update: So, it took some time but they came up with a "safe labeling system" that we now use for narcotics (started around a yr or so ago). After pulling from pyxis, we then go to a labeling unit, scan our badge & then the vial. A label is p...

By now, hopefully you have settled into the PACU routine. While it can have some slow days where you twiddle your thumbs waiting for a pt to come out, I don't find it monotonous at all. Babies stress me out, so for me, it's definitely less stress th...

Our pre-op/same day surgery dept preps all OR pts including ICU. With add-on cases, PACU sometimes will prep a pt if SDS is short staffed & our staffing allows. If a pt is truly critical, they bypass pre-op altogether with the OR team/anesthesia...

Our PACU nurses also do pre/post-op; we also have one who cross trained to the pain clinic & another one to cath lab. The other nurses in pre/post are also cross trained to preadmissions testing.

Where I am, the PACU nurse continues care of an outpatient thru phase II as well & does the discharge for after hours. Our phase II nurses do not take call.

Small rural hospital, 10 room OR but mostly only using 3-6 rooms at any given time. We lost some surgeons over the past year (& before that really) & still trying to recover. Average day has probably 12-15 cases. For PACU, we take turn...

If this a block nurse position, I'm surprised it wouldn't require ACLS considering the potential for codes r/t LAST reactions. Our pre-op dept had one several yrs ago that did not end well ?

I'm in a small hospital (120ish beds) & I think in the past 6 yrs I've worked PACU, we've had about 3 codes in OR. We don't do trauma/cardiac procedures so shipping those pts out keeps our #s down I'm sure. Pts with complicated histories that ve...

Got my 2nd vaccine on 1/7. Mildly sore arm but nothing significant. I did have very mild tingling for a few seconds after the 1st dose; thought I was probably just freaking myself out until I read later that a lot of people have had some degree of...

I've read that the vaccine elicits an immune response 400x that of a natural response from infection & that it is expected to last around a year.

This is one of the big reasons I pulled thr trigger & took the vaccine. I'm reading more & more studies about long term effects from mild & asymptomatic cases. 4 different studies show that 50% or more of asymptomatic cases have some de...

Got mine today! I was quite skeptical about it initially. I'm in a rural area & really didn't think I would have access to it until a much later date. However, my county is one of the top 10 for fatalities per capita in the state, so we were a...

You should file. I just filed a few days ago myself (also IL) & one of the options you choose from states that you are still attached to your employer but are working no or very limited hours (or something to that effect).

Executive salary cuts of 30% & voluntary furloughs. No mention yet, but I'm sure there won't be any annual raises for a year or 2.

My facility sent this out to everyone to brush up for those staff that do not typically care for critical pts. http://covid19.sccm.org/nonicu.htm