OfficerRNBSN

We issue all medications through "the bean hole" or a flap that opens in doors so a jailer isn't really needed. As it stands, jailers issue meds 20 out of the 28 med passes each week anyway. Inmates aren't allowed around the med cart. They initial the MAR saying they received the med, they get a small cup of water, their pills, they swallow, and they're done. Most of the jailers seem to have trouble performing these actions. I've cut out PRN meds. We still have some unit dose ointments like bacitracin, orajel, etc., but once that's over then it's the end of it. I quit purchasing OTC pills for the clinic months ago, and I'll likely only keep bandages, Bandaids, etc around for use. Anything they need in that respect is actually available on commissary for them to order and keep with them anyway. A problem I have with "pill call" is that inmates want to talk and ask questions ad nauseum about their health issues, etc. This particular characteristic of jail work has really starting getting under my skin over the last month or so. I really couldn't care less and tell them if they have problems they'll have to see a doctor for a prescription thus write a sick call and show up. Fortunately, for the general population, who gets charged copays for their visits and meds, is really conscientious about doing anything medical. Unfortunately, the federal population of inmates has everything free so they abuse it, malinger, and get meds just to have something.

As a practice, do inmates at your facilities receive sleep aids? Are they prescribed? At my facility, we do not issue controlled substances to inmates and are considering the cessation of anything given out to aid in rest or sleep such as trazodone, doxepin, hydroxyzine pamoate, etc. Obviously, we don't allow Ambien, Restoril, etc.

I think anytime you work with the public you become cynical and increasingly crazy. I know I have, lol. How do you feel about that? Ha, jk. Seriously though, in psych, out of necessity, one has to develop some patience and refined communication skills. I'm guilty of saying canned psych phrases when I get steamed sometimes or don't want to hear what I'm listening to outside the workplace, but fortunately non-psych people usually don't recognize it.

Next fall, I'll have rotations three days per week and in the following spring two per week. I'm really thinking of stopping work in the fall, but I really don't want to spend my savings so I'm not sure how we could survive. I work a four day week now, have a one day rotation weekly, and then have the weekend off. I feel now like I have a backlog of things to do. I'm really in a quandary about it. I don't want a random, nursing part-time job mostly because I absolutely despise inpatient settings, where most part-time RN employment is, so that leaves me stuck. I'm so sick of school and want to speed this mess up.

In my state, anybody off the street can walk in and be labeled a medical assistant, tech, or just about whatever else they want. There's no required education or credentialing. The same applies to pharmacy techs as well although I think the pharmacy board says people employed as pharm techs have to have at least a HS diploma or GED. That said, I don't have a problem with them. If they're taught to do their job and do it well then more power to them. It doesn't take a lot of skill or certification to do data entry, file, weigh people, show them where an exam room is, take a blood pressure, hand them a cup to pee in, or even give a shot. You read about men not doing well in a female workplace, but when I was working in the hospital I was the only male on my night shift. I got along well with all the women and most seemed to really enjoy having me around.

At my school they are all in clinics. What you do is more or less up to the preceptor.

I have a The North Face Apex Bionic jacket that I keep in the backseat of my truck. It's a great all weather jacket. Is that what you're talking about? Usually, I wore a Columbia fleece at work because they're much cheaper and thus more disposable and more washable. Wash that TNF jacket too much, and it'll wear out. Shop to your heart's content! Free Shipping on Outdoor Sports Gear & Apparel at The North Face® Find what you want then buy it off Amazon or some place where you'll find it cheaper.

If I needed to carry it around for a while I'd kind of coil it up and put it in a pocket. I worse scrubs that had pockets. If I was using it and needed my hands free, without having the time to coil it back up, I would throw it over my shoulder. I never would carry it around my neck. I think that's disgusting really along with a safety issue. Cooties get on the tube then you have it touching the back of your neck skin, plus some person could easily strangle you with it. Mostly I'd leave it in the drawer of my desk at the nursing station. These days I don't even use one anymore, lol. I love that about my job.

Well, it's not a bad job really. The pay is typically good, and with a little time in grade you can get a decent shift. You certainly get the opportunity to meet a lot of people and many of them are genuinely thankful for the work you do for them. The job can be much more physical in nature than you're probably realizing, and if I had known some of the things I know about it I'm not entirely sure I would have made a career change, lol! Having said that, I'm in a psychiatric nurse practitioner master's program, and although that's definitely psychosocial in nature it probably has less to do with anything else that most people envision nurses doing. I like the NP route far more than I did the hospital RN path. The drawbacks, however, are that many nursing roles have little to do with what you're reading in the books, lol. True, yes. A lot of nurses are "fetchers," i.e. go and fetch this. Fetch that. Fetch something else. You run around a lot not really getting the chance to stop, think, and apply any -ologies that you may have learned about. Yeah, you get taught that, and you get the best chances of using it in a critical care setting. Remember nursing is predominantly a psychosocial discipline and aligns itself more with the fields of psychology and sociology than they do with biology and medicine. Other than that you're pretty much running all the time fetching stuff. I've never worked in a clinic and short of working for some type of surgeon there aren't a lot of RNs in clinics as most of what docs need done can be done by a cheaper LPN. You do get to deal with trauma and alleviate pain, and a lot of people are grateful for that. It can be rewarding. Remember though you won't be doing all that. In a hospital, you'll be wiping some dooty, getting yelled at by a crackhead, and fetching coffee while trying to work. When I worked in the hospital, if I wasn't fetching I was on the computer doing data entry into the electronic health record.

I disagree. See blow. You'll find he content outlines for both physical sciences and biological sciences tested on the MCAT. Sadly, most nurses I've worked with or supervised failed to have a basic grasp of physiology much less any sciences tested on the MCAT. I've never taken physics or organic chemistry, and I honestly don't want to. I did take a couple of geology classes, and, if I recall right, general chemistry I and II, cellular biology and introductory genetics, botany, zoology, microbiology, field biology, and environmental biology. After graduating I took A&P I and II one summer which I later ended up needing for nursing school. I feel like I could compete on the bio section after some review but definitely not the physical sciences. I don't know of a single BSN program that requires the full complement of organic chemistry and none that require physics. https://www.aamc.org/students/download/345244/data/pstopics.pdf https://www.aamc.org/students/download/85566/data/bstopics.pdf

My answer is maybe, but I don't say that believing physicians are ignorant. Rather, nursing, EMS, and a variety of other healthcare roles have unique nuances that guide and or limit their practice. I know an ER doc that failed the National Registry exam for basic EMT because her greater knowledge base precluded her from making choices that one with more limited or focused training might readily make.

While most of us avoid that like the plague

Why do it to begin with? I understand the desire to help, but if you're in cardiology your job is doing cardiology. I live in a pretty black and white world though.

If you're given a lunch break then take it. The hospital survived before you were hired. It'll survive while you're eating or sitting on the throne. If the other staff are so keen on looking like they're doing their job then let them be. I promise you won't get a bad evaluation for taking lunch. There's a good deal of employment law behind this as well.

I'm always perplexed over these discussions of skill loss. I personally don't want to be putting urinary catheters or IVs in people. It's not hard, but it's just not anything I want to do. You learned how to do it once. You can learn to do it again later. Chances are you won't forget. You just won't do it as quickly, and that's not a big deal. If you want to work with psych patients then don't worry about the extremes of medical stuff. You don't need to know it to function well just as med-surg folks can do their jobs well without knowing what dysthymia is. Equate it to my first career; a homicide investigator doesn't need an intricate knowledge field sobriety testing and drug recognition techniques. They're both certified officers. Both are capable of either, yet they have different jobs requiring a different focus. Either could easily switch fields with a little orientation. On another note, the OP mentioned an EMT. I think EMT training is a great addition to nursing. It does a couple of things including providing a different perspective to treatment and ingraining independence. An EMT class also provides a skill set that nursing school, at least the one I went to, didn't cover AT ALL. I was an EMT then an EMT-P before I was a RN although I haven't EMT'd, as a job, in many years (and don't want to).