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.

You hit the nail on the head. my husband is a state police office and with many troopers rotating to look for the man who shot 2 state troopers calling off at this time for him is not the easiest.

My injury was from helping to lift the pannus of an 800+lb pt. Thankfully it is just muscular and because of the injury they are looking into how to prevent this in the future......

Yes the workmans comp team automatically files FMLA for my injury ..this has been the perfect storm of a terrible week. My normal schedule is 7p-7a which allows me to be home during the day with the kids. with my injury the work they have me doing is training staff on whatever competency needs done and quality meetings from 7a to 7p. I am hoping everything gets back to normal next week so I do not have anymore issues to worry about.

Typically my mom is my back up plan but she is in the hospital at this time s/p hysterectomy. And unfortunately since I don't know when my kids will be sick I can not revolve my schedule around such things.

My question was directed at the guilt that nurses have for calling off, just was curious to see where others thinks this guilt stems from for taking the time we need for ourselves or our children. My hospital specifically has sick family days for these instances. My post was not to solicit advice from you on what actions I should take when my children are sick. Also I don't think my kids will be helpless adults because I take off work once a year to take them to a doctors appointment. And coming from you I will take your comment about being sorry for my children as a compliment. I hope you are a more compassionate nurse than you are mother. Also thank you these discussions we just had cleared my mind of any guilt I had about taking a FAMILY SICK DAY.

I completely agree, I think in my case it's the lack of healthy boundaries I am a self admitting people pleaser.

i like the bonus idea....I must say on the unit where I work our manager makes it a point each week to recognize those who have done a great job or who have gone above and beyond. The positive feedback is really appreciated. It's a shame more managers don't take this approach.

All 4 of my kids are honor roll students so no they are not morons, you know there are adults who take the wrong amounts of medications so I am not going to trust that they will measure out 30mls or take the appropriate amount of Tylenol tablets at this age. This was in no way an argument until you began making personal comments. So you can be an absentee parent who puts their job before the well being of her kids that is your choice. And if you are a mother I feel bad for you children.

Well I'm sorry you only get 3 sick days we have 7 sick days per year for ourselves and 4 sick days that cover family sick in addition to personal days and vacation time as well as an extended sick bank. And for you to say I do not want to go to work is ridiculous if it was me simply not wanting to go to work I sure would have saved that call off for something more enjoyable to do. I also think to continue to leave kids home sick unattended when at this point it was obvious what was going on is not viral is irresponsible. And I am assuming you don't have children because while a 12 and 13 year old are very self sufficient I would disagree that they are 100% able to take care of themselves. They know nothing about what to take for their symptoms or how much to take....maybe I should have them fill out job applications and find an apartment since they really don't need me to take care of them anymore.

My OP states I was calling off to take them to an appt. and as I suspected....rapid strep +. Typically if it is run of the mill sick I go to work and check in with them through out the day. The whole point of this post is as nurses I believe most of us are truly dedicated to our jobs and coworkers, but in some cases it's to our own deficit I have gone into work sick as a dog with a fever wearing a mask for 12 hours because I knew I was the only RN capable of doing charge or other times because our staffing was low. I know a lot of other nurses who have call off guilt as well even when it's for a valid reason, but we shouldn't feel guilty when we need to take care of ourselves or our families. Then on the other hand there are staff members who call off for bad dreams without a second thought...yes this has happened.