elizzyRN

An hour and a half is going to be a long long drive after an already long, exhausting shift! Some days I feel like I am barely able to make it home and my commute is only 20 minutes. Unless you're willing to move closer I would go with the second job.

You still need to treat the hypoxia whether the patient has COPD or not. I agree with using a nonrebreather in this situation.

What is the harm that comes from soap and water baths? In my experience the wipes don't do as good of a job with bad odors as soap and water, and sometimes the wipes leave a sticky residue. I generally prefer to go with soap and water but I certainly don't want to be causing harm with it.

I had a really strange one the other day! In the dream my patient needed some kind of treatment that required me to count every single hair on my head and I kept losing track and having to start over. The other nurses and doctors couldn't understand why it was taking me so long and the poor patient was just staring at me as I failed to help her. I think the dream might have happened because I was on an ortho floor that day so I had to pull and count a lot of narcotics. I woke up so stressed and panicked until I realized that it didn't actually happen!

There are things much worse than death.

That's the policy for our med/surg/tele floors. We typically run at 125 ml/hr.

I've been getting Blue Apron for 4 weeks now and I really enjoy it! I live by myself and the meals have all held up well to eat the second serving as leftovers later in the week. The directions are easy to follow and I've been using a lot of new-to-me ingredients. I have loved many of the meals and there has only been one so far that I really didn't care for. I've been eating much more produce and home cooked food and much less takeout since starting it last month. Two of my shifts each week are 12-hrs and I'm always too tired after a 12 to cook, even a BA meal, so I try to plan ahead and eat one of the leftover servings on those days. I would definitely recommend this service.

Exasperation - as in "she is here for COPD exasperation". Also, "Zyprexia". There is no "i" in Zyprexa. I hear these all the time and it drives me nuts!

We use gauze and a tegaderm.

These are the most common ones that come to mind for the med-surg floors at my community hospital: chest pain r/o ACS, CHF, COPD, pneumonia, postop abdominal surgery, altered mental status.

At my hospital, we (floor nurses) go to the ED to pick up new admissions and we do bedside report there with the ED nurse and ED provider. I really like it. We get a good overview of the ED course and plan going forward, we get to ask all our questions, and the providers are really good about putting in orders for things like pain meds, diet, or other things the patient might need on the floor before the admitting doc sees them and gets the orders in. I think it is worth the time spent going downstairs and transporting the pt to the unit.

I definitely had my share of bloopers during nursing school. This was one of my best: I was taking care of a teenaged patient during my pediatric rotation. I was really flustered, trying to track down a piece of equipment that was missing from his room and I picked up his phone to call the nurses' station. I dialed the number, held it up to my ear, and heard nothing. I muttered to myself "why isn't this working?" and my patient looked at me like I was the dumbest person he had ever encountered. "That's for the TV," he said, with a very incredulous tone of voice. I looked down and sure enough, I was trying to dial the desk with his call bell/TV remote. The phone was sitting on the bedside table. Oops. I successfully called the desk using the actual phone and then carried on with my day but I did feel like the patient was (rightly) a little skeptical of my knowledge and abilities for the rest of my time with him! Fortunately I have NEVER made that particular mistake again. :)

I like this one: ECG Simulator - SkillSTAT

Hi Lexilou. I was also a little apprehensive about this too but I've been happy with my clinical placements so far. Here is where the class has been placed this year: Nursing Process and Skills (summer) - most of the clinical time was in the lab at school - the whole class spent 2 clinical days at the Whidden Hospital in Everett Adult Health I (fall) - Faulkner Hospital, Boston - Boston Medical Center - Beth Israel Boston - Beth Israel Needham Mental Health (fall) - Cambridge Hospital - McLean Hospital, Belmont - Emerson Hospital, Concord - VA (Veterans Administration) Brockton Maternity (winter) - Cambridge Hospital - Beth Israel Boston - St. Elizabeth's, Brighton - South Shore Hospital, Weymouth - Brigham and Women's, Boston Community (spring) - VA Jamaica Plain - Norwell Visiting Nurses Association Pediatrics (spring) - Children's Hospital Boston - Newton-Wellesley Hospital - Boston Medical Center

Thanks for responding, this is really helpful! :)