angelladyclaire

After seeing what the RT's at my hospital do, I often wish I had gone that route. Just be sure you can handle sputum before you make the plunge... the starting pay around here is about the same and they don't have to clean up poop all day, don't ha...

If your hospital's policy allows rings, I say go for it if it works for you. Some may be uncomfortable wearing their own jewelry, and that's fine for them. I don't think a ring is any more of an infection control issue than using your steth on mult...

Wow. I work in the SICU/trauma overflow of a level 1 trauma center. We have the luxury of having someone in house at all times to do intubations. We never restrain our vent patients unless they have given us reason to. Administration is really ad...

I used to work with a nurse who is a Jehovah's Witness and she would not personally hang the blood, but she would have another nurse do it and then she would maintain the transfusion. And as to the question whether an MD can refuse a pt based on re...

Wow, I feel really blessed to work with so many good people. I just joined my SICU in January and with the exception of a few sour nurses everyone has been super nice and helpful. Course, I work night shift and in our unit at least, it's much more...

Our SICU/Trauma overflow is a locked unit with 4 visiting times daily, 30 minutes each with one hour long visit in the evening. However, it is up to the nurse outside those times whether to allow visitors. There are some day shift nurses who are ab...

Medical Assistant

I think drug seeking behavior is the thing I am quickest to judge on. I'm not judgmental directly to the patient, mind you, but I have a running commentary in my mind that is probably not very polite. I know we are supposed to take the patient's pa...

I graduated from a 4 year generic BSN program and our anatomy was a 4 cr. hr. course with cadaver lab. It was the coolest class I have ever taken. Getting to be hands on was so beneficial. Our students had the option to take either the PE dept. A&...

Hi all. I am interviewing for a position in the SICU and I was wondering if you guys have any suggestions for questions I should ask the manager... I always go blank in interviews and would like to go in with some material ready. I know about our s...

I am 24 and I get comments all the time about how young I look. (It doesn't help that I'm covered in freckles :). But I find that once I've gotten past my initial interaction with the patient they take me seriously and are very kind. I still wear ...

I have always been a very reserved person. I'm clumsy, and I embarass easily. I had the same worries when I started my clinical rotations as a nursing student. For me it just took time. My shyness was a result of my lack of self confidence. It w...

While it's true that you would gain experience working in a corrections facility, I think abandoning a job so soon after starting it will look bad on your employment record. It could affect your ability to get work in your new town. I think you'd b...

The patient in question was choking. The question of resuscitation does not enter into the situation. To let them choke would be negligent. You would not be resuscitating when doing the Heimlich. Upon removal of the obstruction, the patient shoul...

I work med-surg and we put absolutely everything on a plum pump including NS. I think it's more a convenience measure than anything.

I'm not sure what our official policy is, I just know that nursing administration encourages us not to wear strong scents. There is a running joke on my floor though about the a.m. pharmacy guy who restocks our med room... you can smell him coming f...

I have a friend who had to have some extra tailbone removed at age 5... not sure if she had extra joints or if it was just too big or what...

I do not work in newborn nursery, but I did watch a couple of circumcisions in my OB clinicals. At my hospital they had a nurse assistant help the doc with the circumcision. She strapped the babe to the board and did the calming while the doc drew ...

They say there are no silly questions and I try to be supportive of all who post their wonderings here, but come on! Umm... why does my dentist have terrible halitosis? (he does have beautiful teeth, though). Just as there are overweight nutri...

I graduated nursing school in May. I did not work as a CNA prior to nursing school but there have been numerous times I wish I had because I'm still kind of clumsy at turning patients, etc. However, I am not afraid to ask questions of the CNA's I wo...

I think that your supervisor should have used some words of support, but more than likely she was trying to be realistic rather than mean. It sounds like your staffing last night sucked, but you have those nights occasionally and sometimes at shift ...

The reason I do it this way is that my scope of practice does not include diagnosing my patients. This is why I am a nurse and not a doctor. Your job as a nurse is to assess that mrs. smith's sats are dropping and that her lungs are wet, not to dia...

When my dad was in the ICU his last time before he died, they had to shave the sides of his beard off in order to keep his NG and trach tubing secured properly. While we didn't get mad that they did it (it was medically necessary) it was very strang...

If it takes 3 semesters to do LPN and one year to go from LPN to RN, won't that take at least 2.5 years? Most places you can get an RN in 2 years.

The same thing happened to me upon being hired for my first job. I had just found out I was pregnant. The employee wellness people would not give me the skin test without a release from my OB, so you might want to check into that. My OB of course ...