chacha82

Just received an email from the state health department. The takeaways: They recognize asymptomatic people can spread the virus. Awesome! They approve "alternative PPE" due to the shortage for working with confirmed positive or suspected COVID patients. Am I a fool if I don't leave my job? It's like they're giving us permission to work with less but be at more risk.

Sorry to be cynical but I'm looking at pics of nurses from Italy and China in head-to-toe hazmat gear. How are we protected in a yellow gown and ear loop mask?

I am considering it. We are already being told to use 1 mask for 12 hours. The hospital insists there is no shortage of PPE. People are being told they can wear a mask "if they want to," but I also saw a transporter chastised for wearing one. I have a hx of pulmonary edema, new hypertension, and two small children (one is 6 months old). I just don't know if this is worth the risk. Does anyone else feel this way?

I apologize, I did not mean to sound like I was dumping on case management. I agree 100% we all need to help each other, and I know case managers work very hard. So I am sorry that my comment was rude. For me, sometimes it just seems like the questions are beyond the scope of the bedside RN. I do not mean to hurry the case manager along at all.

I am going to limit this because otherwise I could go on. 1. Have visiting hours twice a day AND STICK TO IT. I cannot provide good care in a cramped room of 2 patients and they each have 5 family members who want to be updated all day and ask "What's taking you so long." 2. Stop with the hotel mentality! I can never be as good as the Ritz. Provide each patient with a phone number to call for ROOM SERVICE for their trays. I cannot get "fresh, hot french fries" for my patients when I have other things to do and no extra staff to go get them. And then to get a report that I didn't do everything that the patient asked. ? 3. Trim down the bedside admission database for the RN. Many of the questions can be asked by case management during their rounding. I'm happy to make sure they're not suicidal and check their belongings, as well as verifying that they want to be treated. I need to start caring for the patient, and care for the other patients in my assignment.

I worked a ton of overtime and burned out. By the time you get to the 4th 12 you are exhausted. It's not the overtime shifts, it's the shifts you have to work to earn that overtime. I have had jobs where no OT was available. My advice is to see it as a nice bonus but not to plan on working it to pay back loans, etc. Also many facilities don't allow OT until you have worked there for awhile. Picking up OT also means you might have to float, so choose wisely!

You will not lose skills at all if you go to procedure area. Procedure area nurses work with highly specialized equipment, often mix and titrate medications, watch several different screens at once (in addition to monitoring the patient) and have to listen and collaborate with the rest of the team. It is a great environment if you are into tools and technology. Anyone who thinks OR nurses "will lose skills" hasn't done it yet. I agree with all of the posters here...you don't lose skills in any area of nursing, you just refine the particular ones you are capitalizing on in the moment.

What do you consider not nice? Genuinely asking. I worked with someone who I found frosty at times, but at other times she was thoughtful towards me. So I decided to just enjoy those times and maybe the other times she was rushed or stressed. As a former nurse you know, nurses are BUSY. Maybe they are working short. Maybe they are trying to orient a bunch of new nurses and they don't have time to have long conversations with you. Maybe it's the summertime and they are working bare bones because people are on vacation. Maybe the med students are parked at their computers and the nurses are frantically trying to chart. Who has time to mention "I used to be a nurse?" I'm not being snarky, but unless it's seriously slow I wouldn't expect to have a conversation with a provider like that.

OK...then...if this was simply a job that may have been represented poorly, and that it didn't even happen to the OP, then the level of ire in this post makes even less sense. An ICU job was posted. A person interviewed and was told, after the interview, it was not sure which unit they would be orienting to. If I am the interviewee in this case, especially if I am considering moving a far way, I'd have to decide how badly I needed that job, or any job. If I felt flexible, I might say "Sure. Show me what you've got." ICUs are different everywhere. An ICU patient in one facility might be a stepdown or even a floor patient somewhere else. I did work with someone once who literally said her talents were being "wasted" working on a certain shift. I disagreed, as all patients need care. This person was interviewed and then presented with a possibility different from what they interviewed for. Annoying, but not worth any of the rage that is the undercurrent of this post.

This would be a no brainer for me. If I accepted a certain position and found out what I would be getting was not well defined or not defined at all I would resign immediately. I was offered an interview once for a position that floated between three different areas of a facility and I found them to be way too different for me to be a good fit for the position.

Thanks for your reply, trauma! I have since left that position. I appreciate your response! As you say, I'm trying to get up to speed on the new floor.

If you were offered a position somewhere else, try to find joy in that and move forward (not as easy as it sounds I know). I worked at a facility while in nursing school as a CNA as well. When it came time to apply for RN jobs, not only was I not hired in *any* of my applications at that facility, I only had one interview. This was cancelled a few days before. I was eventually offered a position on a floor I had never considered, but it was a wonderful blessing in disguise. I stayed there several years. It's hard to know why some get offered positions and others don't. A friend of mine is a super nurse and worked in the ED for 3 years. She wanted to go to a nearby floor and assumed it would be a sure thing, as there were several openings there. Not only was she not hired there, but they hired people with less experience and less credentials. A colleague of mine from nursing school was rejected from two positions she applied for. At the last minute, one of them created a new position and hired her. You just never know. Do your best in whatever environment you land in and then you've done all you can do.

I have been a nurse for almost 4 years. Worked on a great floor for most of this time, went to a new job a few months ago. While there my preceptor and another nurse belittled me daily and criticized and corrected everything I did in a way I had never experienced. My charting, how I gathered supplies, how I looked up information in the computer. It has destroyed my confidence as a nurse. Nitpicking turned into them complaining about me to other nurses, which I overheard. Sometimes the other nurses stuck up for me, which I appreciated, but the 2 other nurses continued to berate me and would even cut into conversations I had with other staff, telling me to what to say or not say. I left this job, but still have the feelings of the constant criticism. How can I rebuild my confidence? How do I bounce back from this experience?

Never complain, never explain. Just be nice and helpful to everyone from now on. New gossip will come along soon enough, and I say this as someone who loves gossip.

Seek out opportunities to learn from your coworkers. Ask to be assigned to assigned to cases you would like to learn about. I always offer to take patients dumped on us from other areas so that I can learn. Take advantage of chances to float to other units. The more you do, you will get stronger.