kmr

I have been a nurse for 16 years. Experience helps and it also helps when you know the docs. But I ALWAYS err on the side of caution. If they get mad or yell at you oh well. Sometimes you have to page at night! I have been yelled at when clearly it was a necessary call. Sometimes they are just poops! I have also found that if I have all my information ready and I try to anticipate any question they may ask so I don't hem and haw around and also get straight to the point as soon as they get on the phone it helps. I assume of course common sense is used and like you said you don't page for a colace order at 3am. There should be standing orders for those types of things. You can also discuss this with your Head Nurse and ask her what you should use as guidelines since you are still a relatively new nurse. Good Luck to you and I am sure you will do fine!! :)

? Moral of the story: Always strive to work together as a team...when that is not possible pick your battles?

I can tell you that this wasn't the case in terms of what I wrote about. I wasn't looking for things to find wrong with her work!! I didn't have to look:uhoh21:

I have found that reporting nurse's who are doing very incompetent things or actually illegal things doesn't always do any good!!! And YOU get branded as a trouble maker!! I worked with a new nurse who thought she knew everything... but didn't. We became friends and I tried to help her. For awhile she worked Eves and I worked Noc's. So I found alot of things she did wrong and I would talk to her about them and tell her how to do it right. I found things like wrong narc counts... then help her figure out where she went wrong. ANyway long story short after about 2 years of this she did something I could no longer keep quiet about so I wrote it up to the DON. In the write up I let her (DON) know that this isn't the first incident but I had tried to talk to her and help her without success. The next day I went in to talk to the DON and she told me she had given the write up paper to the nurse I wrote up and she told me to talk with her about it!!:angryfire I told her I was not this nurse's supervisor and that I didn't think it was my place. Nothing changed!! Then from then on the DON and the nurse I wrote up made my life difficult until I finally quit. As I was quitting the nurse I had wriiten up started an agency with another nurse who worked there. The facility had never used agency in the 8 years I had been there. After they started their agency all the sudden we were using agency and their agency exclusively!! Made for a very unethical, bad situation!! Glad I got out when I did. Just don't want new nurse's to think you report someone and life is peachy. If so then you have a great supervisor and I would follow that person to the moon. But unfortunately in my 15 years of nursing those supervisors have been quite elusive!!!

I myself was a patient at a large urban hospital. I was 5 weeks pregnant with hyper-emesis, a ruptured ovarian cyst and I was also very hypotensive (80/30 lying) and I was febrile. I was admitted to med/surg floor. I was on IVF running at 125cc/hr and had a prn order for Phenergan IV. When I requested the Phenergan the nurse's (always a different nurse) would hook the syringe up to the pump and turn the rate down to 50cc/hr and run it in. The last time I requested the Phenergan I didn't notice until it was too late that the nurse left the rate at 125cc. I also found out later that the other nurse's gave me 12.5mg of Phenergan and this last time the nurse gave me 25mg. At the time I was on the phone with the insurance co. letting them know I was admitted when I felt horrendous burning at the IV site and up my vein. Then I couldn't see, speak or hold my head up. Luckily as soon as I felt the burning I knew what was wrong and pressed my call light. Luckily because immediately after I was completely incapacitated!!! When the nurse came back she said "Oh I guess I forgot to turn down the rate." She didn't even act like she did anything wrong or had any concern. She then turned it down and turned around and left. When I could see and was able to lift my head up I turned back on my call light. She came back in and I told her she was going to have to change my IV site because my vein was ruined!!!!! The IV site was changed but not by her. I didn't ask for anymore Phenergan and got out of there ASAP!!!!! I was literally afraid I would die if I stayed much longer. During this same hospitalization I was in a with an elderly woman. She put her call light on at about 12am and asked for Tylenol for a headache. The person who answered the light said "Ok I will go tell your nurse." No one came...then she put the call light on again around 2:30am and a different person came in. She again asked for Tylenol for a headache. This person said "Ok I will go tell your nurse.". No one came... then she put the call light on again around 4am. A different person came in the room and she again asked for Tylenol for a headache. That person said the exact same thing "Ok I will go tell your nurse" and still no one came!!!!! Her doctor came into the room early at around 5:30am to tell her she had cancer and that she had to stay in the hospital so they could do surgery ASAP. She told the doctor that she had been asking for Tylenol all night for a horrible headache and no one has been in to give her any. Finally about 1/2 hour after the doctor left a nurse came in to give her Tylenol. No apology or anything! Neither her or I slept all night!! As a nurse I just could not believe that happened. It just looked so bad. If I hadn't been so sick I would have gotten up and found someone, but as it was I was so sick I couldn't even take care of myself. And there is more... when I was admitted from the ER to the med/surg floor I was brought up and moved from the ER stretcher to the floor bed. The guy who brought me up left me there saying "I will go let them know you are here." That was at about 1am. No one came and no one came and as I said before I was so sick I just laid there. A few times I saw someone walk by but they didn't come in. Then at about 4:30am I saw someone walking by and look in. The person said "Oh my Gosh, how long have you been here. We didn't know anyone was in this bed." I told them I had been here since about 1am and they were shocked. I had been there for 3 1/2 hours with an IV running and very sick!! When a person is that sick you can not take care of your self!! It is vital that things like an admit to the floor is communicated!!!! I know how busy and hectic things can get and I am sure I am more understanding then I should be sometimes, but I had held this hospital in very high regards before this hospitalization. Now I would definately go somewhere else if I were ill. And I really am not making this up!! There were a couple other things that happened during this stay but this is already too long of a post so I will end on that note.

I think you really just need to go to the school nursing dept. and talk to them. I also find it hard to believe that was a felony and not a misdemeanor. You say it is a felony and you obviously should know but wow that is ridiculous if ya ask me!!!! Just go talk to them and GOOD LUCK!!

Believe me the nursing mentality in Eastern Wa.(with Spokane being the exception) is not what I would call normal (and I will leave it at that!). If you like hot summers and cold winters and don't have to work well then you would love it in Eastern Wa. Otherwise you ought to just stay put! I have consulted for a previous company which took me to Eastern Wa. During that time I had many interactions with nurses and the logic/common sense or lack thereof blew my mind. I thought good Lord where in the world did they learn to be nurses??? Anyway that is just my humble opinion, feel free to disregard it.

Stay away from Eastern Wa!!! Olympia would be a great place to move. It is on the west (normal) side of the mountains, south of Seattle and the cost of living there is more affordable than the Seattle area. Also Olympia was voted the #1 place in the country to raise kids!! I know from experience what I speak about Eastern Wa. (except Spokane). Spokane is a bigger city and has many good hospitals and the cost of living is quite reasonable. Also stay away from Tacoma/Renton. I have lived in the Seattle area my entire life and I would not recommend Tacoma or Renton as a good place to raise children! Good Luck

I was born, raised and have lived in Seattle my entire life. I love it here!! I would never dream of leaving. The cost of living in the city and suburbs is high!! But there are nice areas to the north or south or for that matter on the coast that still have affordable housing. If you do think of coming to the Pacific Northwest you might look into Olympia (which has been voted the #1 place to raise kids in the country). Olympia is the state capital and about 1 1/2 hours south of Seattle. Olympia/Lacey has a big hospital I think it is St. Joseph's. To the north is Bellingham, and I know to the west toward the coast there is Grays Harbor County Hospital. Also to the south is Puyallup (a little more spendy) but there is Good Samaritan Hospital of Puyallup that has a wonderful Rehab. unit. Good Luck