Reldun

Prior military here. (Army, non health care related). Been a nurse for a little over 2 years, just accepted an ACM position on my unit about a month ago. For the most part my unit is one big crazy family, I get along well with my staff. Occasionally there is a female patient who doesn't want a male nurse... /shrug no big. Unless it is something that needs to be addressed immediately (patient safety) I always do any disciplinary action with another manager in the office. Keeps every body honest and the conversation doesn't come back to bite you in the rear on down the road.

As a male, I always have a female staff member in the room with me when do hands on care or procedure on a female patient. A lot of doctors do so as well. Why? To protect myself from accusations of inappropriateness. I work in a hospital that has a significant middle eastern population for patients. If a woman is not ok with me seeing her hair, she is NOT going to be ok with me placing a foley. That's why I grab one of my female peers. -edit Just like I get asked to help my female team members pull their morbidly obese patients from the stretcher or to lend a hand when someone is going into restraints. But we are a team on my unit and we help each other out.

I'm 42, combat vet, graduated in 2014, been a floor nurse for about 16 months now. I have found different patients affect you differently. We've lost patient that I have been in on the code on, and while I have felt sadness, I am unsure how much of it showed outwardly. Then yesterday I had a patient of my own code, I found her, called the code and started compressions. We got her back. I was wrecked after it was over. My voice cracked and I started tearing up, I took a break in the med room to get myself collected. I think you can possibly be an adequate nurse even if you aren't compassionate. But you will never be great. If you can't make an emotional connection with your patient, you are going to burn out and hate the job. Just my opinion, your mileage may vary.

Like most things, to me it depends on the patient. A hospice or DNR comfort patient, if they are A&Ox3-4, then they are able to determine their own medication needs... if they tell me they are not in pain or do not want pain meds I am not going to give it to them. If we are talking about a patient where a family member is making medical decisions then I feel we still need to use pain scales to score the patient instead of just blindly following what family wants.

Wow, a patient is complaining that they didn't get their benzo? I am shocked! Shocked I tell you!. In all seriousness, SHOULD you get in trouble? Absolutely not. It's not just your word/patient's word. The charting is there to support your actions. Patients get a lot of meds, especially in a nursing home. Any patient can get confused on if they got a particular med or not. You will have patients who will say "You didn't give me X" because "X was supposed to make me feel tired or for pain". Be more confident. Don't say " I think I gave you that" or "I must have given that" Show them the charting and say "I gave you X at this time right here and you can see where it was charted"

I was asked to shave a couple times during school. It has been a non-issue at the hospital I now work at. I get my beard neatened up every other haircut or so.

I always dilute and push over time. Patient complaints happen. I don't care. I'm not here to get them high. It's just that simple.

I took the ATI predictor on the last day of school. 92% chance on first attempt. I passed the NCLEX in 75 questions.

Ours just had to be wine/maroon. I preferred Grey's Anatomy. Dickie's have a lot of pockets as well. Caarhart makes some very nice male scrubs as well.

A significant problem that I had with patient care, was directly related to how my instructor was handling men in the group. It was only a 6 week rotation and for the first 5 weeks every time she brought us in to a patient's room she would say "This is Bob, he is a nursing student at blah blah, do you mind having a male in the room?" What she should have done was simply state "This is Bob, he is a student from blah blah and will be taking care of you/observing for today." I think on any ward if a patient has an actual problem with their care they are going to be vocal about it, the instructor does not need to offer an invitation for the patient to refuse to have a student in the room.

If females can wear studs then males can as well. Otherwise that is gender based discrimination.

I'm in my 4th semester of my 2 year RN program. Yes it seems like a lot when you are starting out. Honestly, at least at my school, it pretty much stays that way every semester. My biggest piece of advise in not getting overwhelmed is to try not to look at EVERYTHING that you will be doing over the course of the semester. Stay organized, stay on top of your reading. Pay attention to due dates on assignments and checkoffs. If you have spare time to get items done early then do so. If you aren't racing against the clock to get things done it relieves a lot of stress.

7 out of 27

I did not enjoy it. I was told by a nurse right in front of my instructor that men had no place in OB. Myself and the 2 other male students had to leave the ward and use the public waiting room restroom because we were not allowed to use the staff locker room. (The male Doctors could though). During my 6 week rotation I did not see one birth. All I did was take vitals, change diapers and make icepacks.