sonnie

Help!! I am the staff development coordinator at our small rural hospital and I am looking for new fresh ideas to spruce up the tired old yearly medication administration test. Does anyone out there have any good ideas they would be willing to share? I have to test about 25 RN's and 5 LPN's and want to make it fair to everyone. Our pharmacist is willing to help some but she is busy with the new computer system, so most of it will fall on my shoulders. Thanks in advance for any help. Sonnie

RN TO BSN? Shouldn't that read ADN to BSN??? We are all RN's just different education paths. I plan to continue on to at least a MSN so that I may teach someday when I am old and gray. I think education is always prefered to stagnation of brain cells. What I would really like to see is common sense and self respect taught more often. Any one can be educated but some are still ignorant.

I guess it all depends on whether you want to be known as cheep but not easy or easy but not cheep!!:

deespoohbear, I am an assistant director of nursing, infection control nurse and staff development nurse! My duties include supervising a 40 bed rural hospital at night, educating nursing staff, precepting and mentoring new staff, developing competencies and managing the infection control for our hospital. In my spare nursing hours I author policies and procedures, teach in the community fill in for sick or vacationing staff. I have the respect and cooperation of all of our nursing staff and our medical staff. My associate's degree has done me well!!!!! HAVE A WONDERFULL DAY SONNIE

I work in a 40 bed hospital that was forecasted to close along with 4 or 5 other hospitals about 15 years ago. Needless to say we are still alive and kicking!! Our success is rooted in our belief that all staff is family and we treat each other as such. We don't try to be every thing to everybody we just do what we do very very well. We focus on patient care and individual care of patients and their families. Many of our patients would rather stay with us than go to the larger facility just because they feel we care more about their health and welfare. We have had many people come from the larger city nearby just to get this individual care. We've worked hard to turn things around and we are fortunate to have a good working relationship with medical staff, and administration. Oh those other hospitals all are closed now mainly because they made bad financial decisions. I wouldn't work anywhere else but a small rural facility.

How do I handle night shift? One word Narcolepsy!!!!!! It used to drive me crazy on day shift waking up to an alarm clock and all but now I just regulate my medication and sleep like a baby! The Original Narcoleptic Night Nurse

Is anyone out there using Dairyland IHSD for electronic charting? We have installed the Lab, X-ray, and other order entry portions and are awaiting the install of the Pharmacy and Clinical Documentation sections. Would like to hear what people who have been using the whole system think. We have had many glitches in the system and wonder if we should have installed the whole system at once to have avoided these problems. We are a small (40 bed ) rural hospital in Oregon. Any perly words of wisdom would be greatly apprieciated! Sonnie

The funniest thing I think I ever heard was a young handsome resp. therapist tell an elderly lady... " honey put this in your mouth now suck don't blow!" He was assisting her with her incentive spirometer

1)RN 2)13 3)Pacific North West 4)yes 5)pretty much 6)yes 7)exceptionally 8)yes 9)yep, that would be me 10)yes very much 11)No 12)a 30 minute lunch and 1-2 15 minute breaks 13)nights, but because of my other jobs can be found at work at any time 14)we get every other holiday off and try to give staff either the night before christmas and new years if they have to work the "holiday" 15)against 16)no I feel it is unethical to hold patients hostage like the teachers hold our children hostage with their strikes 17) Since I am a working nursing supervisor it is my job to make sure people take their breaks, but that is the problem, sometimes people won't take a break.

Let's not stop with the BSN as the entry let's make the MSN the entry level so we can really call our selves "professionals". As you all know MD's have a BS in something but have post grad training and that must be what makes the difference!!!!

Let's not stop with the BSN as the entry let's make the MSN the entry level so we can really call our selves "professionals". As you all know MD's have a BS in something but have post grad training and that must be what makes the difference!!!!

Yes it's true that you may only have 1 or 2 patients in the settings you described, and yes you can sit there wide eyed and stare at them. What do you learn? You learn 1 or 2 major systems, and how to take care of the problems of those systems. What you don't learn are skills like time management and priority of care. Medical-Surgical nursing is a great way to see the world of nursing. You get a variety of disease processes to help you understand each system. You learn what to worry about and what can wait to be worried about. You get a very good education in lab values and various procedures in short you get hands on nursing. New grads are desperately trying to figure out where they fit in the web of nursing and med-surg gives them a good idea of what will be expected of them on the units. I would rather have a nurse who started out on med-surg with maybe less critical patients move on to the sicker patients on the units. The m/s nurse will have a better understanding of why this patient is as sick as they are because he/she has seen the lesser degree and knows the difference.

Yes it's true that you may only have 1 or 2 patients in the settings you described, and yes you can sit there wide eyed and stare at them. What do you learn? You learn 1 or 2 major systems, and how to take care of the problems of those systems. What you don't learn are skills like time management and priority of care. Medical-Surgical nursing is a great way to see the world of nursing. You get a variety of disease processes to help you understand each system. You learn what to worry about and what can wait to be worried about. You get a very good education in lab values and various procedures in short you get hands on nursing. New grads are desperately trying to figure out where they fit in the web of nursing and med-surg gives them a good idea of what will be expected of them on the units. I would rather have a nurse who started out on med-surg with maybe less critical patients move on to the sicker patients on the units. The m/s nurse will have a better understanding of why this patient is as sick as they are because he/she has seen the lesser degree and knows the difference.

I have to reccommend that most all new grads should try to get at least 6 months to 1 year of general medical/surgical experience. Why?? Because this is where you are going to see the "normal" stuff and really understand your patho/phys. Then if you want to specialize you will at least have a good working understanding of what normal is. In today's hospital climate the units see the sickest of the sick and sometimes it's hard to understand how a person has become that patient in the ICU if you have never or rarely seen the events that can or may lead to them becoming critical. Remember we are all in varing degrees of health. It will also give you a good chance to perfect many skills that some units prefer you have under your belt. GOOD LUCK with whatever you do!!! [This message has been edited by sonnie (edited December 12, 2000).]

I remember glass urinals, (I have one!!!)glass syringes(have one of those too) stainless steel bedpans that always seemed to be kept in the freezer. When a hot water bottle was a red rubber vessel that was used for everything from warming babies, to comforting gassy bellies. And don't forget when patients stayed for 3-4 days for a T&A!!!