cardiacqueen

1. You try to "badge in" on your home computer. 2. When you get up to pee after night shift, you immediately think you need to document the output.

Just gave this today for strep! Very painful for the poor patient. to answer your question about giving it iv - no, it can't be given IV because it can cause severe neurovascular damage

Interesting...what do you mean by one order with a range? I know that our docs have been criticized, for example, by pharmacy for putting in range orders such as "1-2 tabs for pain." Not sure if this is what you meant though. I have had that thought ...

While we're ranting, here's what frustrates me... Why does lab, radiology, and pharmacy call nurses to ask questions about DOCTORS orders? "Dr. X ordered this but did he really want it?" I am not the doctor and I didn't place the orders. I may be abl...

No, this is outside of our scope of practice. Unless you have parameters. One of our surgeons, for example, will put 3 different orders for morphine - eg. 2 mg for mild pain, 4 mg for moderate pain, and 6 mg for severe pain.

If the blood was pulsing strongly up the tubing, then I would feel pretty certain yes, you hit an artery. I have had an inadvertent arterial puncture once, in a patient with a very thin arm, while aiming for the basilic v. I didn't even get to the po...

So we've all been there...you have a 30-some kilo very ill lady to whom you need to administer Lovenox.. This seems like a dumb question, but is it possible to puncture/damage the intestines or other underlying organs of a very emaciated patient by a...

Thanks. I did read about the ostomy cones but I haven't been able to find them in our facility. Back at work tonight a few days later and the patient is improving without signs of perf, so thankfully looks like no harm came of using the regular enema...

I had a patient admitted last night with an old RLQ stoma - either an ileostomy or colostomy (look to me based on the location like an ileostomy). The patient needed a CT abd but radiology would not scan the patient because he had residual Barium fro...

I have another one. I once had a patient tell me he had "tickly-itis" (diverticulitis) when I was taking his health history. Still makes me laugh!

I work nights and have dealt with the consequences of snow storms that occur during the night. Last week only 3 nurses and aides combined that were scheduled to work showed up. I had to stay in the hospital for 36 hours straight with only a 5 hour na...

thanks!

MeTOprolol, NOOOOT meTROprolol

On a side note...have you ever had a patient think that your 1mg dilaudid + 5 cc NS is ALL concentrated dilaudid?

Like most posters here, I dilute all iv narcotics as well...unless it is an extremely small dose and the patient has fluid running.

KelRN, do drug companies manufacture a different syringe device for peds...like one with a smaller needle and appropriately smaller doses? Or do you draw your Lovenox up from a vial and give in a short sub-q needle? Just curious.

thanks so much! Makes sense!

Yes to decadron. I've also seen iv vancomycin ordered po, just because the po pills are so expensive. no to zofran-if no iv access why not give IM or the ODT by mouth?

So, last night I gave my first bag of platelets to a male patient. While verifying the platelets with my 2nd RN we discovered the platelets (4-6 units from platelet pheresis, single donor) were from an RH-Positive (A+) donor . Our patient was RH-Neg...

I've been a nurse for a year and I have made 2 med errors; reported both. No harm came to the patient either time...and I will never make either of those errors again...I was lucky, and honest. I did not lose my job.

Sharps container for empty vials. If giving a partial dose, I draw out the entire vial worth and waste the extra down the drain per policy with a witness, of course. Gotta love taking a 4mg vial of morphine out (smallest we have) only to admin 0.5mg...

My scores were 93.5 in reading, 88 in science, 90 in math, 92 in vocab, and a 100 in grammar. I had no problem getting in!

Nope, it's not impossible! I kept a perfect 4.0 until halfway through my junior year. I ended up getting 2 A-'s, it was heartbreaking for a perfectionist like me because they were both right on the borderline, but as you know there is NO ROUNDING OR ...

HESI is a series of nursing school competence exams developed by the Evolve-Elsevier textbook company. The exams contain NCLEX-style questions and are supposed to "accurately predict" NCLEX passage rates. There are several different HESI exams: an en...

I took the Exit HESI a couple months ago and passed it. Just this week I did the Hurst Review (loved it!). From my experience I think there is a slight difference in philosophy between the HESI questions and the NCLEX (Hurst) questions. HESI seems to...