Codeblue1982

I am looking for moms who have or are currently going through a CRNA program to give some insight on how they maintain a healthy school/life balance. My daughter will be 15 when I start my program and although I know I will miss games and dances. I don't want to be completely absent. Am I nuts to think keeping balance in my life is possible or is it doable?

Thanks for the information. I am also a parent to a daughter and 5 step kids. Thankfully I have the full support of my husband to do this and we are able to survive on his income while I am in school. I am trying to find a program that will be the most "family friendly" for my situation. Drexel has the ability for students to take some on the core courses online which I like. Did you find a program that worked for your situation?

I am wondering if there are any Drexel or York College CRNA students or graduates out there that could give me their opinions on the programs as far as quality and distribution of work load. I live in the Hershey area so any information regarding clinical sites would be great too!

Thanks for your feedback, i have documented email correspondence and I have also filled out our midas occurrence forms which go to risk management. I am praying a sentinel event does not occur but I am also concerned that she does not have the integrity to self report when a mistake is made. I have encountered "scary" coworkers before but this is the worst I have seen so far.

Thanks for the feedback....I did use the straight forward approach and made the discussion about the behaviors and not the person asked the orientee how she thought things were going and had a frank discussion with management. Unfortunately I don't think it made much of a difference behaviors have not changed and she was released from orientation shortly after my post. There have been a few issues right off the bat, some minor and some serious such as high risk gtts running at incorrect rates. My approach is now to try to mentor this person and document issues as they happen, I am really not sure what else I can do.

Yes it is! And I explained to her that we have had simultaneous codes occurring while whoever is in charge is off the unit at an rapid response or code so she needs to know her stuff because she may not have someone there to tell her what to do. Not to mention working at a teaching hospital if there is not a strong resident covering night shift they often look to the nurses to take the lead.

icuRNmaggie you have perfectly described this person and her overall work ethic. I have spoken to the leadership team and let them know the specific concerns. I also suggested that she take the BKAT and be put through our critical care "boot camp" as well as have an orientation extension. I fear for the safety of her patients especially since I don't believe that she really cares about the care she is providing. I think she wants to say she is an ICU nurse and have the title but not put in the work. I have never met anyone like this who thinks they have it all down after a few weeks of taking fairly easy patients. She hasn't even scratched the surface of the acuity of our patient population and when I suggested ways that she could brush up and prepare for some of the things she will encounter I got the response that " it is just whatever, I will figure it out". Maybe I am unrealistic but I think when nurses are on orientation especially in the ICU, their baseline level of nursing knowledge and critical thinking should be evaluated first and then their orientation should be tailored based those results and then reevaluated to see how they are progressing and to see if they should even be in an ICU before it is too late and they are on their own.

I am just wondering what type of role you take as a preceptor with nurses that have some nursing experience? Everyone seems to have a different style and level of involvement. I work ICU at a large teaching hospital and when new nurses transfer in I like to get a feel for what their overall practice, knowledge level and work ethic is like, so I feel like I have more than a responsibility that simply teaching them about Vents, gtts and ICU interventions; I want to know that they are competent at baseline before we go jumping into taking patients on hypothermia with 10 gtts running. Some of my coworkers choose to take a more passive approach and go over just the ICU pieces and leave it at that. My issue is recently I have oriented a nurse who is very flip about everything, will surf the internet instead of seeking out learning opportunities, misses key pieces of basic assessments, becomes defensive with constructive criticism about incorrect practice issues and document interventions that were not done. My concern is that the previous preceptor passed on to me that this person was doing wonderful . I am not an eat your young type of person and try to promote learning in a non threatening way by talking through scenarios. I was told by my orientee that this makes them feel put on the spot and is stressful. I explained that it will be more stressful when an emergency is actually happening to a patient as opposed to just talking about it and that I am not doing it to make them feel dumb but as a learning exercise. I learned early on that this person does not like to be wrong or made to look like they don't know something which to me sends up red flags as being dangerous since none of us know everything. So any input from other preceptors would be much appreciated!

I would have screamed if the body bag started moving.....I always hate being alone when I am doing post mortem care......I don't think I would ever do it again if I saw that.

I have had some pretty eerie patient experiences that elicit goose bumps still when I think about them. I was just wondering what everyone else's experiences have been. I would say the one that still gives me chills was when I was a new nurse on night shift. I had 2 cute little old ladies together in a shared room, both were oriented on my rounds around 12 am the woman on the far side of the room asked me why I kept bringing a man in with me. I turned around and told her nobody was there. She said he has been standing behind you most of the night but I can't see his face and he is wearing all black . Meanwhile when I went to check her neighbors vs she woke up and started freaking out screaming and trying to hit at me, then started to decompensate. All I could picture was the grim reaper standing behind me as I entered my patients rooms the rest of the night. More recently I had a patient who had every system failing and the family had just stated they were not going to escalate care and would like to withdrawal when everyone was able to make it in the next morning. Just after they left I was getting ready to change his ETT holder when the lights in the room shut off his, blood pressure, HR and end tidal alarms started ringing and then the lights popped back on. The other nurse who was with me and I looked at each other and decided the patient did not want to be bothered. He passed away an hour later.

I was at a conference this week and negatoids as the speaker called them were discussed as being those who bring the morale of the unit down as well as individuals. I personally think the best way to deal with negativity is to then ask the person what they are going to do to fix whatever they are complaining about they will either shut up or have 50 excuses to which I reply you don't know what will work if you don't try and then excuse myself from the presence of that person. I know some people really absorb the moods of others, I am one of them, so I find it important to surround myself with positive people or try to role model for those who are not so positive.

Thanks for the input, my husband is a police officer and has no trouble leaving work at work, where as I find it follows me home, I think I just need to find a way to redirect that type of energy and change my thought process to prevent burn out. Unfortunately it is not always that easy but I'm sure I will find something that works for me.

Hi all, I am just wondering how you all decompress after a particularly high stress, emotional situation. I find myself at times becoming too empathetic to the point that I am putting myself in the patient or families place which gives me a great deal of anxiety. I find this happening when codes involve young people or parents with young children. I know this is not healthy so what are your strategies to separate feelings without becoming uncompassionate. I love my job and do not want this to lead me to an early burn out.

When I had to do bones and muscles I made up songs, raps and even would associate different bones with things to help me remember there location....such as the temporal bone is near the ear which you need to hear the tempo of the music. Just anything silly that will help you remember ?

Haha....oh hell yes she did however the opinion of someone who seems to have the compassion level of a serial killer means nil to me , I know what kind of parent I am which is a loving, supportive parent who has raised smart competent kids that will go on to be successful and most important of all know I was there for them when they needed me.