angelbyte

Nothing made me crazier than following someone who didn't restock at the end of their shift. I can understand if they had a bad shift, but some people consistently refuse to restock. I used to work in long term care and I hated getting the med cart halfway down the hall, only to find that I needed supplies. I also didn't like it when a nurse was more interested in how her patient and patient room looked, rather than how the patient felt or was doing. Donna

I could have graduated with a 4.0 if the final average was based on numbers, not letter grades. My lowest overall grade in any course was 92% and my graduating average was 96%, but because each individual course was reduced to a letter, I had a 3.75 because of 3 B's (all 92%). That may sound picky to some of you, but I worked hard for my grades and find it irritating that an overall 96% average ended up being a 3.75. Donna

I work in drug and vaccine research, not doing conventional patient care, so I have some "different" stressors (that when examined, are not that different). My biggest stress comes from having managers that assign tasks without checking for proper staffing. Case in point- I'm involved in a phase 1 clinical trial of a nasal vaccine for RSV/PIV3. Research demands a lot of paperwork and redundancy (thank you, FDA) and a simple nasal wash/nasal swab visit may take 5 minutes for the patient and 45 minutes for me. The manager who signed the contract for the study didn't check staffing patterns and as a result I had to work at 3 sites to do the study (instead of one), drive over 800 miles in the last 3 weeks to cover the sites, and the manager herself was not available (she was on vacation part of the time and at investigator meetings the rest of the time). Another stressor is doing non-nursing tasks. I am expected to act as a go-between for doctors in site offices and the doctors/managers at the research firm. For example- in order for Drug Rep A to talk to Dr. K, the drug rep called my manager, the manager called me, I called the Dr. K's practice manager, who looked at Dr. K's schedule and gave me 3 dates. I called my manager, who called Rep A, who chose a date, called the manager, who called me, and I called the practice manager to confirm. Wouldn't it have been easier for Drug Rep A to call the practice manager or Dr. K? Other non-nursing tasks are clerical, usually paperwork related. So, at bottom, my stressors are an out-of-touch management and being tied up with non-nursing tasks; just like nurses who work in hospitals. Donna

In a staff meeting a few weeks ago, one of the nurses said that pulling back to check for blood is no longer necessary. I cannot find any documentation to that effect. Does anyone know?