TreetopAngel_RN

This was the weekend that one of my evening CNA's started on the nightshift and wouldn't you know we would have the "weekend from hell." I also had a new evening CNA covering the shift left open by my new night aide. Both of them did excellent work...

This past weekend was it! Two patients in the same room, they both work hard to wake each other up, i.e. banging on furniture, yelling and shouting to each other, ambulating (which they are NOT supposed to do) to the other side and waking if they don...

:rotfl: Thank you! Thank you! I needed that one after my weekend.

Oh how I wish I could do this. I will tell patients that no staff member will be answering their call light for 15 minutes. This at least gives us a breather so we can take care of our other 19 patients. And I make it stick, the call light is not...

Only once was my last name obscured on a name badge, as a student nurse on the psych unit. Since then my full name has been on the badge. I believe we could get by with a first name and last initial, that should be enough identifier for anyone. If ...

I came up with one from Saturday noc, after a set of circumstances left me alone on the unit (20 patients) for 8 hours without a CNA: Never, never call the front desk to report that you want the overhead light cord tied to your call light cord at 030...

Definitely YES! And many of them say they didn't have diabetes before they went into the hospital. I have patients that I am checking blood sugars four times a day and they have sliding scale insulin. Their blood sugars are within normal limits. I...

Fantastic! Keep it up!

As of midnght tonight my two-week vacation is over. I chose to take vacation at this time because I needed surgery, a surgery that my doctor considered urgent. I waited to take this vacation (have my surgery) for a month since there were already tw...

I fully sympathize with your position. I get to try to call for replacements after the bars close and people call-in at three in the morning. There is no best time to call people to be in at 0630 and , like you, I don't know who is already on the s...

The spousal unit says, "BRILLIANT!" Elizabeth

Actually, I refuse to get an answering machine. The scheduler had the guts to tell me I *HAD* to get one so she could leave me messages. I told her, "If I don't answer the phone, I'm unavailable." But, now with no land line and only the cell phone...

Thanks for all the advice. However, I still feel that a person's vacation should be inviolate, let alone recovering from surgery. I have voice mail and caller ID, but I resent that I cannot even answer my phone.

That's when I make sure their bedside table is as close to them as possible and remind them that their arms are not broken. I also remind them that I am there for the things they CANNOT do for themselves.

Too often! I had a dream one night that I came in to drop something off and the nurse on duty asked me to flush a tube feeder as she was swamped. While I was flushing the one I heard the next pump beeping, signaling the end of another tube feed. By...

But, if my norm is lower than the average norm, I hope you listen before I start into seizures. I had a nurse ignore my high temp of 98.8, my norm is 94.2 and I went into seizures, and found out my primary raked her over the coals for it. Sometimes ...

But, sometimes that is all there is to say. I work three nights (weekends) in row and report off to the same dayshift nurse two days in a row. If there is no change and they had a good day, I am fully satisfied with "everybody's fine." I always gi...

That's the one I use! Nothing like waking up the whole parking lot with AC/DC blaring out the window! The younger folks at work are surprised this Granny listens to AC/DC! Little do they realize...

I offered to rent my spouse a mistress while I was in school...jokingly of course, but he did get the message. :roll I did get headphones for his electric guitar. He played, quietly, while I studied.

I takes you seconds to hear a feeding or IV pump beep and minutes to hear a call light. You bring home your leftover, store-bought lunch in a bio-hazard bag. Just last week I counter-signed my paycheck with my charting signature.

Don't be afraid to tell doctors when you don't understand what they are ordering/saying. One week into my nursing career I asked the doc I had called if he was on his cell phone and driving. He told me he was. I couldn't understand the orders he wa...

When the doctor tries to teach your spouse some aspect of his care and he says, "I don't need to know that, my wife's a nurse." I coulda shot him! I also taught him how to check his own blood pressure and interpret it, just call me lazy!

Keep in mind I don't do well with confrontation, I usually get so angry I start crying... Two weekends ago I had run out of blood test strips for our monitor on my last patient that morning. I removed the chip from the monitor, and grabbed a new box...

Your story reminded me of one incident with a doctor during nursing school: I picked an elderly patient who had just had abdominal surgery. All the floor nurses told me I would regret the choice as his doctor "ate student nurses for breakfast." I ...

Not true in all walks of nursing. My CNA's have 14 patients, each...I have 28 patients. And nurses don't have only patient care to do, they have many other duties, on top of patient care. I do agree that a CNA job is helpful in any nurse's career...