Garethaus

You're not worried about being sent to a war zone?

Yeah but since the patients presumably pay their taxes too, they're paying for their own hospital bill in that shared system. They're also the public you write of.

I find it very hard to believe that any nurse would share with a journalist any information about such a currently high profile patient, in such a short frame of time of caring for him.

I think probably the whole story is a fabrication courtesy of the writer Liz Kowalczyk. For all the yakking about patient confidentiality, these allegedly anonymous nurses seem pretty free talking to the journos. No apparent worries about deregistration?

Wait, do I understand some of you are saying it is common practice to wipe away the first blood drop? Is this the US practice? In Australia I've never gotten rid of the first drop when taking a BSL.

Isn't there a protocol available that specifies in which circumstances a rapid response is required?

I posted a few months ago about somebodies unprofessional posts being recognised by someone in the 'real' world.....mostly everyone said it wouldn't happen.......anonymity ruled.......oh yeah?

That's a bit of a journey leading to becoming a nurse. With that background, what inspired you to become a nurse?

If you don't mind me asking, how much is the tax difference between the two positions of agency and full-time employee?

On reflection, that should be....what is a fixture in their lives.....

Respectfully, you don't speak for everyone on the former. And you're right in the latter, on this issue I'm not going to change my mind.

What I recall I said was not that nurses shouldn't vent - vent all you like - just not online about patients. To me that is unprofessional. Finding other avenues to vent about patients would be a good idea. Well, I was at clinical today in Australia. I told the other four students about what I said on Allnurses. They laughed about the idea of complaining about their patients online. At our learning institution the dangers of posting on Facebook / social sites about patients personal information s often highlighted. Which brings me to another point - how can those of you who must have to 'vent' about patients / staff online be sure that some grub in some authoritive position won't use this information that some of you share online about patients / other staff members to adversely affect you later? Looking at what's been written about some of your colleagues, they might be mighty annoyed to see that you describe them as a drug user, if that information was made available to them. One of the reasons that I think people greatly object to what I originally wrote is that for them to consider stopping venting about patients online, would deprive them of what is a great pleasure in their lives, unprofessional or not.

Four kids, I feel for you. Don't get bitter and keep plugging away at it.

Well, I'm male. I would've thought the name Gareth identified me as male. Gareth - aus for Australia. Also for someone who has a poor understanding of the culture of health care, I nevertheless seem to have identified a relevant issue considering all the debate and discussion there's been about it. Go figure. My vocabulary.....well, it's not my fault if I haven't met your expectations. I can't please everyone.

Ok, I havent abandoned the thread. I've just been reflective of what I said and to the extent of what I said, hence I have not posted while considering the extent; how I feel about it. I'm surprised this thread has been commented on so much. Firstly a lot of people have been saying "Wait until you get on the floor, it'll be different then". Well, Ive been working as an AIN in Oz here for over a year now and I've certainly had my share of 'difficult' patients. Personally I don't think it is appropriate to post here what are sometimes quite detailed vents against patients. Even with the name of the patient changed and hospital unidentified I contend some patient *could* recognize their story here. Definitely IMO. I do think it unprofessional the more details that are shared about a patient online, especially when it is effectively a rant as some people describe it. I also do not think it is in the spirit of nursing itself, the promotion of health to come online and complain about some patient. I think it is professional to mention what happened in the day with a patient in a general sense, to share the experience with other experienced nurses to gain feedback. What follows is all theoretical btw. What I mean is in the veins of: "Today a patient threw fecal matter at me and made physical contact with me. This made me feel.....etc. Rather than: "Ok....I gotta vent about this. You guys listening here? This patient, who I'll call Adam threw his disgusting feces at me today. I'm not normally on this ward but they were short here today. I hadnt nursed Adam before but he sure made himself memorable in a short time. Sure Adam's suffering from dementia but that's no excuse - he's not THAT demented not to know what he did today. All I was trying to do was put toilet paper on the roll for him to use. I was wondering what he was doing at first just after I put the roll in but it unfortunately became very apparent. He threw his feces at me - landed on the abdomen area of my just new WHITE uniform - YUCK!!!!. Immediately his son entered the toilet hearing my disgusted sound. Advice to myself: Wear an apron - always....I should have known better I'll admit. The son was no help - after walking in through the door, he looked at me and said - get this - "What did you do!?" EXCUSE ME!!!! WHAT DID I DO?!!! Nothing except try to help your demented father by giving him toilet roll! And get covered in feces on my previously CLEAN uniform! To top it all off and put the cherry on the cake, the father then grabbed my arm. And yes, using the hand he threw the doo-doo with. The son did NOTHING and just stood there with his gaping mouth watching it all. I cried "HELP! Let go!" trying to get my arm back. You'd think other staff would respond quickly to this right? Nope, true to our hospitals staffing policy no one was in hearing distance. I couldnt reach the button - not that anybody would have come quickly anyway. I extricated myself from this demented patient with some difficulty, went to clean myself up and alert others to the incident. I left the son to attend to his fathers needs - it turns out no-one else in his family will bother with the father due to his behavioural problems. No wonder if he does things like that. He hadnt really hurt my arm - luckily - but he'd left disgusting streaks on my arm" And well, so on for another three paragraphs to detail staff support, the aftermath of the incident and complain some more about the patient / son in descriptive detail. In conclusion a further complaint is made about the unsupportive NUM of that ward and how nobody likes the NUM of that ward. I wouldnt choose to tell a real-life story like that. I think how I've crafted that story is how some nurses tell their story here. Names changed but enough details for a participant like the son in that story to recognize themselves. The thing I wonder about for myself, is how much details could I reveal of a patient before it becomes unprofessional IMO? Because I havent really posted on a nurses site while thinking about myself as a nurse before. For example theoretical: "A patient came up to me on night shift and said the nurse down the other end is listening to music on his headphones. I said "Are you sure? He's not meant to do that" The patient said, "see for yourself dude - he's not answering my call button so I had to get up". I went down the corridor to investigate. Sure enough, the other nurse was plugged in - I could clearly hear the Black Eyed Peas resonating in a small tinny audio from his Iphone headphones. I got his attention. "What the hell are you doing!" I said in a quiet voice. The other nurse really wasnt bothered with my stern expression "Theyre all asleep" etc etc.... See, now is even that too much? Even that small bit about the patient I feel is revealing too much. Although not complaining about the patient theres enough dialogue there (unless I change it of course) for somebody to recognize themselves. And even, as I acknowledged, if I did change the dialogue what is left might still resonate with some patient and they'd say that was their story. In general I think for myself it might be (is it?) alright to talk about staff interactions to gain valuable feedback, but not to mention the patient at all.