Amethyst Veralyn

When a doctor refers a patient to a place that they or their family owns, they are said to, "have a financial interest," and this violates the law, but this is too narrow minded. What if a practitioner sends their patient to a place that they or their family owns but it's because there is no one else they trust or becuase the patient genuinely needs the referral or because they have a genuine concern for them. Every practitioner is accountable for what happens to their patient so what would be wrong with referring them to their own clinic or their relatives if this is someone they know and trust? How can they create laws just assuming that every single practitioner is JUST trying to make money by sending patients to their own relatives or their own clinic? The stark law is written to make it so they can not send patients to these places even if there are reasons OTHER THAN FINANCIAL GAIN. How would they get around this legal restriction if they were genuinely afraid for their patients to be seen by someone who they didn't know or didn't trust?

Try a place with a smaller work load. Try working for a home nursing agency. The agencies always have nurses who complain about facilities and the work load in them.

She shouldn't be forcing you to do anything you don't want to do. The most I ever did to my family members was take their blood pressures and give them hot packs and back rubs.

Don't let any of them bully you into doing things you don't feel safe doing. This will protect both you and the patients. If there are only 3 aides for 40 patients they should get together at one end of the wing and do all the transfers at once moving right down through. This is very fast and safe.

When you use the hoyer lift a lot of facilities require you to have someone help you. I asked my co workers if this is a facility rule or state law and they didn't seem to know. I still would like to know if it's actually illegal to use it alone.

Have you ever gotten in trouble for an improper abbreviation, not as a perscribing doctor, charge nurse or transcriptionist, but just as a CNA or as a regular staff nurse or as a private caregiver who sends your patient care notes in to your agency? Is it mostly the ones who write orders who can end up in lawsuits or is it all of us?

some co workers and family members offer me advice that changes me forever. they point things out to me that i didn't know about. their advice to me is completely fair. some others give invalid advice and go deaf when i try to reason with them. some of them will put you in unfair and dangerous situations. there are people working whose minds are still back in high school. i have seen good charge nurses who quit because they were sick of the attitudes of everyone on their shift. there was one day when i found that i had taken out my co workers treatment of me on a new staff member and was later on glad when he confronted me.

I play a little game sometimes where I drive to my shift before the snowstorm hits and then I arrange to take the next shift away from the girl who is scheduled after me because I don't want to DRIVE HOME in a snow storm and because I know whoever is scheduled is usually being COERCED to drive in dangerous conditions!! At some places I've worked they show a blatant lack of concern for the safety of their staff members. They REFUSE to provide you with a bed to sleep on even if one is available and REFUSE to provide you with a meal tray even if you have money to re compensate them. One time I ended up working 7 am to 3 then the 3-11 for someone who called out and prior to this was scheduled at 7 am the next day. So it would have taken me about three hours to drive home in snowstorm conditions and three hours to get back. It was self serving and irrational for them to refuse to give me a place to sleep. Then they sit there and wonder why there are not enough nurses and one reason why is becuase they don't want to be treated llike machines. It's like one authority told me, "You don't ever want to assume they have your best interest at heart."

I was on a case one day and wrote a note to the girl who came at the end of my shift to tell her our patient had diarrhea and I did this specifically because our patient had guests in the house and I didn't want to be rude. She sat there and read my note out loud so everyone could hear and I was badly offended. It should have been obvious why I wrote her the note. I reported her to our supervisor and got no reply. I later on found out that this guest called the state on us but was never told the details of why she called them.

I have just recently been told that if I work one on one with a patient in a facility that I can not pull the signal cord for help unless it is a medical emergency. I was told this is about hippa regulations. This does not make sense to me. The staff members at the facility have to abide by the same laws I do. My patient is THEIRS just like they are mine and there are times when I pull the cord to get help because there is a safety issue at hand and this protects me and the patient from an emergency. I also pull the cord right away if I think something that is going on might be interpreted as abuse or neglect. This way I have witnesses who all have to abide by the hippa laws and this protects me and the patient. I was told that I have to call up my supervisor at the office rather than pull the cord and this seems like a backwards and hard way of doing things and it could actually create an emergency in some cases where you need immediate help before something bad happens. Can someone help me understand this more?

Working as a CNA or a PCA not that hard. The training class is on high school level and it's easy to get a job. Any hospital or nursing home can help you if you ask them.

I don't like to call in sick unless I can't avoid it. I try to take use meds that supress my symptoms instead of calling in sick. When you are throwing up or have diarrhea it is a threat to co workers and patients. Why would a good supervisor tell you to go to your shift anyway? I think this is dangerous.

Some nursing facilities offer a free meal to people who work a double shift and also let them take a shower. There was one time that I was stuck on a 24 hour care shift in a facility for 51 hours and the staff didn't offer me anything. The resident I took care of actually payed for me to eat in their dining room out of her own pocket. A few weeks ago I drove 70 miles to work in a locked unit in a place with two seperate buildings and while I was there I ended up being scheduled to work the next day when their was a snow storm coming in and their were several accidents because of it and I refused to leave the premisis because I would have been driving home in a snowstorm. I would also have had to come back the next morning at the most dangerous part of it. This happened to me once before and their concern was not about safety issues out on the road but that I was late!! I asked the staff nurses if there was an empty bed I could sleep on so I wouldn't have to drive during a travel advisory. The CNAs that worked on that wing said there was a vacated room on that wing and they asked the building supervisor and she said, "we can not accomodate you." I ended up sleeping on one of the dayroom couches and I was exhausted by the end of the double shift that I worked the next day. I took the morning shift away from the one who was scheduled so they would not have to be out on the road. I think they should be more considerate of their staff members.