AuDDoc

Wow sounds like you are being expected to work as an experience cardiac nurse from day 1 and any mistake you make rather than being a teaching moment is an excuse for a write up. I would just keep my head down and get some cardiac experience and then transfer elsewhere to another cardiac unit in another hospital. I agree with another poster if you never had these issues at your previous place and this palce is that unorganized then it's most likely their problem not yours. You just need to go with the flow and cover your butt until you get your experience and can walk.

I've had kidney stones and I can't even begin to describe the pain. I've never had to experience childbirth, but I've heard they are the closest thing to the pain of childbirth a man can go through. So I can understand the woman being out of her head. I can also understand the husband getting irate. He is seeing his wife in intense pain and what is being done doesn't seem to be helping or fast enough (most people don't understand that pain meds in the oral form take time to work and think that it should be instant relief). I don't care who you are if you're kidney stone is large enough that a stint was put in then it would be awful and no amount of pain med is going to make it go away. That being said I guess to armchair quarterback it (yeah easy to say what I would have done when I am not being screamed at I know), I would have said to the woman, "miss I know you are intense pain and kidney stones are some of the most intense pain producing things we see. I have given you the doses of pain medicine I can currently give per the doctor's orders. They will take some time to take effect. I am going to track down the doctor as soon as I can and see if he can get you something for the breakthrough pain to make you more comfortable. The doctor is in with a critical patient and will be with you ASAP. Is there anything I can get you in the meantime?" To the husband I would say, "Sir I know you are upset and it's difficult seeing your wife in this much pain, but I promise we are doing all we can do to manage her pain. Once the doctor is finished with his critical patient I will see what we can do about managing your wife's pain better" Then if they continue to be belligerent that is when I simply step back, put my hands up, and say "sir I am going to step out and when you're more calm and willing to speak to me in a calm manner I will be more than happy to speak with you". Then I walk out. If they want to escalate further then security can be involved. I never threaten security. I find this is an empty threat. If I feel I truly need security I don't even mention it to the person being disruptive I simply call them.

No matter what medical field you go into, you're going to have some butterflies in the beginning when working in healthcare with people. People are unpredictable and your clinical skills are almost non-existent. It's going to be nerve wracking and scary. I remember when I started nursing school they put us in long term care our first rotation. Worst rotation ever. I hated it and most other students did too. We knew nothing and spent most of our time doing vitals, wiping butts, and doing normal care for folks. It was more like what a nurse assistant has to deal with and the nurse assistants were more than happy to have the nursing students do their work and flee the wing of the hospital. It was good though because it taught students to use their skills and do the not so glamorous parts of nursing. My second rotation was a surgical step down unit and was much more what I thought nursing would be. Then I had a peds rotation which was awesome. In the beginning though the first few months I hated nursing school and this is coming from someone who had thousands of clinical hours in another field and could walk into any room and chat up a patient without feeling nervous. I would give it a few months and see how you like it after you get over the butterflies and get some clinical skills and book knowledge.

Well if it's union good luck to them firing you for it or anything else!

Report it anonymously, but like someone else said, anonymous reporting likely doesn't even yield and investigation. I left the private sector because I got sick of the constant entitlement attitudes. When I was seeing the 4th generation on welfare who bragged about how they were cheating the system and saw welfare as a job. It was sad and it used to get under my skin a lot. I would routinely go home after my 10-12 hour shift of dealing with such nonsense and go sit in my crappy cramped basement apartment without cable TV and with the heat on 60 degrees and eating my canned soup or spaghetti because with my car payment, student loan repayment, and other bills it's all I could afford, and I would sit and stew over all the designer clothes and latest electronics and nice cars my Medicaid patients would roll up to the hospital in. I was a very unhappy person. I think if I had stayed in the field dealing with that patient population at that particular hospital I would have been very unhealthy. I changed over to the VA system. Guess what? The VA also has a lot of people cheating the VA disability system (which makes fraud in the Medicaid/welfare system look like a small inconvenience). It was very disheartening to see people faking things like PTSD, military sexual trauma, etc. and clogging up an already overburdened system just to pad evidence for more disabilities they wanted to claim. I just finally had to disconnect from thinking about the fraud and do my job. I report fraud when I see it (nothing is done usually) and go on with things. Life is too short to worry about other people and their crappy behavior. You cannot police someone else's morality. Report it and move on. In the end no one is getting away with anything and at least I can say I did my job, worked hard, and paid for everything I own and when I meet my maker I won't have anything to feel ashamed for like these folks will.

Screw em! It's your life! I've experienced this when changing jobs before. In the end you have to look out for you. If they are friends they will congratulate, hell if they are just decent human beings who happen to be co-workers they will congratulate you. If they are selfish people they will say the things they have said. Who needs people like that in their life?

They can apply for tuition reimbursement to pursue their RN. Many hospitals have this not just the VA. You just have to be able to juggle your schedule and school. Just like you can get your BSN while working as an RN. And no not all RN's in the VA have their BSN's. The problem is once you are hired in at one position in the GS step ladder if you increase your education, often you will not get a substantial bump to the next level like you would coming in as a new hire. Now if you left and came back in at a different position with the advanced education you would. It's a big gripe in the VA by employees who use the VA tuition reimbursement or their GI bill money if they are veterans who go to work in the VA after getting out of the military. I know one person who has her MBA, but started out with an associates degree. A new secretary with no formal education gets paid what she makes. If she left and came back in later she would have been paid at the MBA level. Quite sad.

Sorry didn't see it. Carry on.

The previous hospitals I worked at had 401k's with matching contributions. I currently work in the VA system and we pretty much have a glorified 401k with matching up to a certain percentage. Only a small amount of employees who were employed starting before the mid 80's are still under the old civil service retirement system. I will probably end up working until I am dead since with student loan debt and the cost of living going up with stagnant wages makes it difficult to send much to my 401k. I am putting money in at the highest rate the VA system will match and maxing out my health savings account each year to lower my taxable income and decrease my out of pocket costs for medical care.

I have both the vivofit2 by Garmin and the FitBit Charge HR. I like that the vivofit2 is waterproof and doesn't need recharged for a year, but I don't like the software interface as well as the FitBit. The fitBit has better software and interfaces with more programs/apps, but it does need recharged about every 3 days and is not waterproof. I would say for your usage the FitBit Charge HR would work well.

She will most likely face termination. Accessing the computer system using someone else's credentials is usually grounds for termination in most facilities. Add to the fact that she used it to commit fraud for CEU's and most likely all parties involved are toast. Hopefully if she is lucky the CEU matter will not be referred to the BON.

You misunderstood. Have a minor procedure done. Use said procedure as reason to get FMLA. Use downtime to heal and enjoy new grandkids.

Why not just FMLA them for something? It's the law. You don't ruffle feathers, they can't do much to you, and you can always come back if you want, but in the meantime you could burn your PTO and sick time and if you decide to come back great, if not oh well. If they can you while on FMLA that's not going to go well for them. If they can't respect you for 2 months off after all your years of service then I would use the law to get what you want and make them pound sand.

I would stick out your residency and get your vesting. You are building good nursing experience. I read through this and I have to ask, are you an AD RN or BSN? If you are an AD RN and they hired BSN's I can see that being a reason. It's great you've worked at that facility for several years, but often times just being in an organization that long to me does not serve you well when trying to move up the food chain. Many only see you as your first job and do not value your new skill set you learned. This a huge problem in the VA system where tech Susie gets her RN through the VA program. Susie gets hired as an RN - Susie may get a slight bump in her pay, but not huge. Then Susie gets her MSN and doesn't see a bump in grade/pay. No her friend in school Peggy gets an MSN and then gets hired on at the same VA and is hired in at a higher grade level than Susie who has spent years working in the same facility. The moral of the story is sometimes you gotta walk out the door and come back in for people to see you and respect you as you are now not who you were. My advice: Finish the residency and get your vesting. Then if you still can't get your transfer get a different job and you can always come back and probably at a higher pay rate and commanding more respect.

Actually 31 as an officer is not old. The cut off is 38 for most branches for direct commissioned medical officers. You also wouldn't be joining the Marines, you would be joining the Navy and most likely attached to a Marine unit. Like I said talk to a recruiter.

As an audiologist I will say "JUST SAY NO!" Cerumen can contain blood and pass pathogens just like other bodily fluids. Let's say Nancy has herpes and borrows your scope and you have an open sore in your ear canal and forget to wipe the scope ear buds off and you slide it in your ears with a chunk of her bodily fluids on it. You might have just got herpes from patient to surface contact. Also many cases of otitis externa are passed the same way. I've seen patients get an external ear infection in one ear and end up getting it in the other ear because they will put their hearing aids in the same case and cross contaminating them. Just say no and then lecture them on the fact it's a good way to swap bodily fluids and other ickies.

Go speak with a military recruiter. You can join as a general medical officer most likely. You can do a few years and then with that on your record you can probably match with a residency. All the while being an MD. You will hate being an RN with an MD education.

Ah Cleveland Clinic. Where you're expected to take a lower salary than the other hospitals in the area, be treated like crap, and all the while being gracious you work for the awesomeness that is the Cleveland Clinic. Go work in a different facility. You will find much nicer facilities in the same metro region with better pay and less BS.

During the entire stay an attending or hospitalist never visited this patient and asked about the dressing change? I mean if other nurses commented how it looked then I would think someone would have said something to the rounding physician for an order. I mean it sounds like the physician is a major jerk, but still it falls back on basic patient care. When it comes time to take the hit trust me the physician isn't going to take the beating.

People close to death, especially those with low O2 levels often times talk to dead relatives as another person said. Very common. I've also had patients ask who a certain person was in their room and when describe the person it sounds like someone describing death or Jesus. I've had some tell me some creepy stuff.

If I were allowed to carry concealed (I work in a federal facility so it's never going to happen!) in an active shooter situation I would either try and flee the building or depending on if the shooter is close huddle in my office barricaded and if he came through the door I would shoot and try my best to make it out alive. I wouldn't be stalking the halls looking for the shooter. I think most CCW users are like me and would not go running for gun fire.

That will be next to impossible to do. Medical school is one of the most demanding time sucks of any major. Nursing school can be done while working. Trust me I was doing it rather easily. Medical school or PA school? snow ball's chance in heck.

Not sure how you train or how much you shoot, but I can tell you from personal experience in several leagues and clubs where I did tactical competition shooting, that hitting a head shot on something moving is very difficult in competition let alone when your adrenaline would be going in a life or death situation. Even the most experience CCW shooter would have difficulties making that shot. Now I am not against CCW in healthcare settings. I am all for it, but let's be honest going up against someone wearing body armor with a rifle is going to probably be a bad day for the CCW user especially if the attackers are a pair. Now who knows these folks might have been like most other mass shooters who are cowards and lay down the second they encounter any resistance so a CCW shooter might have stopped many mass shootings. With what I've read of these folks and their shootout with the police they went there prepared to be killed so a CCW person in this shooting would have probably not had much chance.

Reports said the couple were carrying AR-15's and handguns and wearing body armor. A handgun round wouldn't have been too powerful against body armor. A rifle yes, but no a pistol. Don't get me wrong I would love to make the VA a victim free zone by allowing staff to conceal carry

Do what makes you happy! It's your career and your life! They want to cut off your financial support for school? Fill out the FASFA and get loans on our your own. Or if you're in shape and have no major medical problems contact a local medical recruiter for your state for the military and start talking about the ROTC program and the health scholarships they offer through the reserves and national guard! There are tons of ways to get college paid for to get to medical school. Nursing is not the quickest way. You will hate it if medicine is what you really want to do. You are right you need to take a lot of pre-reqs for medical school that nursing does not require. You've not wasted much time now since you're probably just taking general courses right now, but get out of the nursing tract before you start the nursing courses and go speak with an academic advisor to get switched to pre-med major.