cjmiller29

Oops, I thought this was a new post. Sorry about that.

program and it was brutal. That is the nature of the beast. You are taking care of lives so you need to learn your stuff. In order to evaluate a nursing program looking at just how many complete the program is too narrow. You need to look at the nursing board pass rate of the graduates. I know my campus has had 100% as long as I've been teaching there. I will admit to a little bias of being a clinical instructor at one of the campuses (no I will not say which), but I'm not selling the program. I have a job as long as there are students to teach. As for the week long vacation, it depends on when you plan it. If you expect to be able to take a week off during the semester, no program would allow for that, not just HACC. There is a finite time to teach a lot of material. It's not like cutting a computer class. Again, it is the nature of the career path you are chosing. Nursing is not like what you see on Nurse Jackie or House. But if it is during a break, yes you will be able go. Good luck as you start your new semester. Think of it as a type of boot camp :)

I will also add that the MD's have also found when they haven't listened to me and I was right, they will receive no quarter from me also. You can ask the idiot who was booted back to Canada when he caused the demise of his patient due to treating him as an OD and using medical malpractice by not checking his head CT before performing an LP. I've never had so much satisfaction putting someone in their place after that one. I was dancing after he left. I guess I've just been doing this so long, I've developed a thick skin and frankly don't care when people act like children. It just doesn't bother me anymore. Not being listened to when the situation warrants it, now that does.

My answer will be it depends on the situation and how I perceive the situation. My primary goal is to take care of the person lying in that bed. Whatever it takes to meet that goal is what I do. If a doctor treats me disrespectfully or walks away, I just don't let it bother me because he/she is the one that is in the wrong, not me. I've seen people run to the bosses if DR So-So did XYZ with the result of completely losing the MD's respect. It was more important to me to earn their respect by doing my job irregardless of even their behavior. It is now to the point that they will usually listen to me because I've saved their reputations too many times. As for patients, I can take a lot of from them because for the most part, they are usually unaware of what they are doing. Even an AAOX4 patient who is flinging poo is not right in their head when you think about it. Who in their right mind would do that? I will say if I know the person is aware of what they are doing and are just rude, my treatment of the situation is much different then if they are confused. I don't need glory or care about the opinion of others, I just want to be able to look myself in the mirror at the end of the day and know I've done the best job I could do at the time.

My patient did not code, but had one about a week before he died. It was an older man with end-stage COPD who was supposed to have died home on hospice, but his family couldn't watch him die so they called the ambulance. When he woke up intubated on my unit, he demanded they extubate him. The first night I met him he was on BiPAP and slowing circling the drain, so to speak. While I was in my other patient's room late that night, he got very agitated and was trying to climb out of bed. He kept asking me, "Why did you leave me?" and I kept telling him I never left. He eventually calmed down after I talked to him a while. The next day when I came in, one of my co-workers told me what he had told his family. He had a near-death experience and visited with his son who had been dead for 11 years. He was quite descriptive about his experience and told his wife when he was going to die. His whole demeanor to me changed also. I had just lost my sister a month prior, and although he never said anything to me, everytime I came in, he would just get very excited. I would swear my sister visited him also. He passed away later that week on the very day and almost to the minute he said he would. I just happened to be there doing some paperwork when this happened. He is one of those patients who will always stay with me no matter how long I am a nurse.