Gamecock73

We are taught in school that "nurses eat their young". But I have found the opposite to be true, and that it's more personality-driven. I joined a busy med-surg floor in a rural hospital earlier this year. I was delighted to find a couple of months ...

Bedside reporting... meh. I'm divided. Sometimes if you're following a nurse who's known to be a ditz, bedside is a Godsend. I've had nurses tell me about IVs that magically switched extremities and locations between report and eyeballing the patient...

If the OP's point was to demonstrate something wrong is happening with patient care, I would certainly agree. I purposely do NOT tell any medical staff that I am a nurse when I am undergoing care. While it worked out for the best for me five years ag...

Amen! It's easy enough for nurses to get behind a "cute" campaign on Facebook, but to really enact change, we have to put in the time to hound the legislators. Sadly, with the majority of us female (with kids and being often the breadwinner), people ...

The best answer I can give you, OP, is in the first nursing job I worked. I worked at a for-profit hospital that was considered second-rate to the non-profit, larger hospital across town. I will never forget the CNO showing up to our senior day in nu...

I HATE adult med-surg. I fell in love with NICU in nursing school, but everybody said you have to pay your dues in MS. So I have. I hate every day I go to work. I have applied to NICU, had great interviews. But they choose to hire in-house and new g...

I did the same route as OP. Got a job in the same facility as the NICU I wanted to work in. I have contacts galore there. I made initial contact with the manager there in 2010. I still am not in NICU. I finally got a prized interview this year in Mar...

I began nursing school not really knowing what I wanted to do with my life. I was working a dead-end data entry job, and all I really knew was that I wanted to do something far more enriching with my career. I really didn't enjoy my clinicals. Big ad...

I reported myself for a med error 3 weeks ago. I almost immediately recognized the error (pt got maybe 30 cc's of another pt's antibiotic). I felt so awful. I had to report it to the charge nurse immediately. I felt like the lowest form of life on ea...

I was drug tested once when I showed up to our designated site, post-bite. I was absolutely flabbergasted when I was asked to pee in the cup. He bit ME, not the other way around. I was very lucky. In spite of all the sedating meds we gave this pt, m...

We had an elderly pt with a trach and PEG tube ask us to call "Junior" repeatedly. She would rattle off his phone number by heart. Upon further questioning, "Junior" turned out to be her dealer. (smh)

I have similar problems. I've been fine after two straight 12 plus-hrs on my feet. But I've picked up more shifts recently, and after finishing a round of 4 straight nights (then having to sit thru an 1.5 hr meeting afterward), my feet were fairly sc...

Guilty as well. Felt like like a total dummy in front of my pre-op pt who was totally with it and watching my every move...

I have seen families like this, only with adult patients. I had a post-stroke patient who'd already had a 100-plus day stay in rehab, only to come back thru the ED a week or two later with a medical issue. (Family felt she was not responsive and not ...

Thanks for the comments, everyone. I was extremely frustrated that day when I left work. Mad and frustrated at myself for not being more skilled, but also mad at myself for not speaking up (either in front of the pt or after to my co-worker/preceptor...

Started my new job at an LTACH Nov. 11th. I took the job because I wanted new challenges in my career, caring for vent pts and in general higher acuity pts, because I've been caring for more stable pts the last 2-3 years. The nurses draw their own la...

I had posted before about leaving my previous job due to burnout a couple of weeks ago. Since then, I've been networking with my old classmates/coworkers and applying like crazy for jobs. Even though I have almost 3 years' med/surg experience, I'm no...

As an update: I have two interesting job options dangling in front of me at the moment. Both are centered around the hospital I worked at prior to my last job. I have the option of working PRN or a full-time position at the rehab facility. With the ...

I can so relate to most of the posters on this thread. Feeling beaten-up, abused. If it's not the doctors making you feel like crap, it's the patients, and if it's not the patients, it's their family members. Or even your staff, the people you are su...

In a word, maggots. Got handed a pt from home one day with questions about home environment. The admitting nurse told me she had questions about the patient's living conditions, and that's when the husband disappeared conveniently. Patient was post-s...

Thanks, LLG. While I would normally advise to dump someone unsupportive, this is the same guy who stood by me through breast cancer. He cared for me through chemo (with full hair loss) and mastectomy. He's normally very attentive to me and fully supp...

When I graduated in 2010, the private hospital in my area didn't require much of anything of RNs applying for jobs. (I live in a small southern area.) Now that I'm back in the job hunt, I'm finding the same hospital that was so lenient in credentials...

A nurse I worked with at the last job had a horrible rep as a bully. She was actually a good nurse, but the problem was not so much bullying in my mind, but gossip. She would offer to help you with a patient, then talk about you (when you weren't aro...

Read through all the comments and totally agree with OP and some of the other posters. I worked at a SNF for almost a year, after almost 2 years on an acute care floor. I left the acute care area thinking the switch would result in less stress. WRONG...

I have had a lot of diabetic patients refuse sliding-scale insulin. Often, they are on an oral regimen at home, and they do not want to take the shots (which have been standard orders at both facilities I've worked at). Their oral meds may have been ...