emtlpn

In my class, there were two people kicked out the week of graduation. One loudly argued with an instructor about a medication in the middle of a busy hospital hallway. She refused to move the "discussion" to a quieter place and got in the instructor's face and, not only made some questionable statements about the instructor's family tree, craniorectal positioning, and general nursing knowledge, but also offered to fornicate up said instructor's anatomy. This was the Monday before our Friday graduation. The second one was doing her Hospice rotation and gave the patient half the vial of Morphine to "help get her to God's glory soon and out of misery here on Earth." That was on the Wednesday before graduation. The first one showed up and tried to participate in graduation services like nothing happened. Unpleasantness ensued and the police were involved. The second one was too busy being in jail to attend graduation.

Thank you everyone for your input. While I still don't agree with placing post hysto pts on an OB floor, I appreciate your advice and well wishes. I see my dr on 4/7 and will definitely request alternative placement. Hopefully I'll get it, but if not, oh well, at least I tried. I should only be at the hospital for 1 day and night. If I can survive being my sister's birth coach 2 days after my 4th miscarriage, I can survive almost anything.

At the risk of sounding argumentative, can I ask why you think sending a post hysto pt to an OB floor is a good idea? I understand that you are dealing with the same area for recovery purposes, but, from my perspective, it seems a bit cruel. Ladies who have just given birth are generally feeling quite happy, while ladies who have just had a hysterectomy are often dealing with at least some sense of loss, i.e. loss of fertility, loss of (feeling) feminity, grief over significant life changes, etc. In my opinion, placing these ladies so close to representations of the one thing in life they will never have, especially immediately post-op, feels almost purposely mean-spirited. Factor in the sudden and, sometimes extreme, hormonal changes brought about by a total hysterectomy and I think that we as health care providers are adding fuel to an already difficult fire. Now certainly there are ladies who come through this surgery with little to no emotional difficulty, but I question whether those ladies are the norm. (I truly do wonder. I'm a Pediatric Nurse. Ob/Gyn is most decidedly not my area of expertise and I will gladly yield the floor to those who do have experience in the area.). To me, I would think that the more kind placement for hysterectomy patients would be on a Med/surg or general floor. As I stated before, my surgery is not life sustaining or saving, but a more aggressive, and thus permanent solution to a problem I have had for many years. I have had a few years to adjust to the fact that my body is incapable of producing and sustaining a pregnancy. The ladies I especially worry about are the young ladies diagnosed with uterine cancer (as an example) who want to have children and just haven't had the chance. These folks are learning that they have cancer and the only way to stop its progression is to have this radical surgery. These ladies are trying to heal from major surgery and when they walk the halls as they are instructed to do post op, all they see are fresh brand new babies and happy mommies and daddies. I know life is not fair, but I just can't advocate for being a part of a system that encourages life to kick you when you are down. Again, please forgive me if I sound argumentative. It is not at all my intent. I guess I'm just trying to understand lines of thought that I disagree with.

I'm a long time lurker, first time poster. I would like some advice, if y'all don't mind. I'm getting a hysterectomy on April 25th and will have my pre-op dr visit for questions and signing my consents on April 7th. My hysterectomy is by choice due to excessively long, painful periods (there is a much longer story behind all of that, but I will spare you all the details). I am infertile and have a history of 5 miscarriages. The hospital where I am getting the procedure is the same one I did my ob rotation in school. I just remembered yesterday that the floor that has the laboring moms and the newborn nursery is the same unit where I will be staying post surgery. The rooms are private, but in a row of 3 rooms you could have a mix of laboring moms, recovering moms, and post-gyn/ob patient. While I'm choosing to have this surgery and not having due to a medical emergency like cancer, I'm still uncomfortable with having to be around moms and fresh babies, especially because of my sadness over my inability to have a child of my own. In your opinion, would I be unreasonable to request to be on a Med/surg floor post surgery? I know I can request anything, but get turned down. I fully realize that the H stands for hospital, not the Hilton, but am I wrong for not wanting to be around all that "baby joy." I realize that I will have to be around parents and babies in the real world after surgery, but I can control that exposure to an extent. Thanks for your help.

This reminds me of an event in nursing school. We had been having a lot of fire drills at school and clinicals, so my classmates and I were getting pretty relaxed about hearing the bells. We were taking our pharmacology final when the alarm went off. Now, you have to understand our pharm. professor was hardcore. No leaving class or being late was tolerated during this class. You came to class with your homework done, sat down, and shut up. So, the fire alarm goes off. We all look up at each other and then over at our class president for direction. She looks at us, shrugs her shoulders, and says, "i don't know about you guys, but i'm not leaving until I finish my test.". We all kind of mumble our agreement and go back to our tests. A minute or two later, our professor flung the door open and yells at us to leave because the building was on fire, can't you all hear the fire alarm going off? Again, we hesitate because we all thinking, "is this some sort of test itself?". After a few seconds, she yells at us again to get out. By this time, the program director reaches our class and starts yelling at us to get out. So, we all get up and start to leave, when someone asks what we are supposed to do with the tests. Our program director yells at us to get the "H" out. So we file outside.Turns out a former student of another program had actually set a fire in another part of the building. Our professors and program director had a talk with us later about emergencies and the need for self preservation.