Ativan

I've been a nurse for about 4.5 years. During the past year or so, I've started to dread waking up in the morning and going to work, so much so that I can barely sleep the night before without taking Xanax. The anxiety even creeps into my days off, a...

Curious1alwys- I constantly fantasize about going back to waitressing/bartending, being a dog-walker, ANYTHING but what I'm doing now sounds like a relief from the stress for a while. And you're not a wuss (although sometimes I feel that way when I s...

Wow, thanks everyone for your support and encouragement! While it's good to know I'm not alone, I'm sad that this is what nursing can do to so many people like me and many others here who are clinically strong, have a desire to help people, but get b...

Thanks everyone for your feedback! Integrated into the regular documentation and automatically generated care plans seem like the way to go! Our system (Epic) requires the RN to remember to go to a completely separate module to document care plans an...

We need to streamline and improve compliance with documentation on care plans & patient education at my hospital. Does anyone working inpatient think their system of documenting on Care Plans & Patient Education is working well? As in: nurses...

I'm interested in transitioning into NI, so I've interviewed a few nurses working in similar roles, and they often express disappointment that they don't get the satisfaction of working directly with patients. I'm feeling a bit burned out on patient ...

Basically, you need to learn to edit and cut stuff out to get to just what's important. Then when you're caught up after lunch (theoretically), you can dig deeper into the notes, chart your care plans, spend more time chatting with the patient, etc. ...

I know there must be sub-specialties in nursing/healthcare informatics, but I can't find much information about it. The main specialty I've encountered is the type of nurse that focuses on training and education of end users as opposed to the nurses ...

Good distinction, I guess that's probably true. If only there were a way to have it all!

Thanks ArmyRN789. What is a Nurse Methods Analyst and how is it different from an informatics nurse?

Ok, so there are a million posts out there on how to get into nursing informatics, and most of them suggest trying to take on some informatics-related projects at your organization, like being a Super User. What if, hypothetically, your boss and/or o...

I actually have the opposite question, and I don't want it to seem judgmental, I'm genuinely curious. Why would someone with an IT or computer science background go to nursing school to become an RN, then work in an informatics role? It seems to me l...

Are you good at charting/documenting in "real time," that is getting your assessments and vitals charted close to the time you actually do them instead of catching up with charting hours later at the nursing station? Any tips for how to do this succe...

\gypsyd8, don't give up! That's one person's opinion, and if he really said that your MSN is "useless," he sounds pretty untactful and overly confident. He might know what is valued by him in that organization, but not in all organizations for all ti...

Lots of great responses, thanks everyone! It's interesting that there is a big split between nurses who think charting at the bedside is the fastest and those that are against it (either because it's distressing to the patient or takes too much time)...

Thanks for your response! It sounds like 100% of the informatics nurses I've asked about this are considering a return to the floor. But then again, 100% of the floor nurses I talk to are trying to get off the floor, so maybe it's a "grass is greener...

Thanks everyone for all the great responses so far! I have two additional, but related questions (and updates): 1) I did make some progress towards becoming a Super User! However, I'm struggling to find resources to learn more about advanced features...

How do you handle the rest of your assignment when you have one patient in a critical situation, like a code or rapid response? I've had this happen a few times where one patient is unstable, I'm basically 1-1 with that patient giving meds and monito...

Mydesigyn, Thanks again for the detailed information! From your description, I can see the difference between the two paths and I think the role of systems analyst is what I'm looking for. Most of the jobs I've looked at specifically request a BS or ...

Mydesgyn- Thanks so much for your thoughts on this! I had never thought to get a more general degree in information systems that might be useful for transitioning into other fields as well. Can you think of any examples of other fields or positions a...

Thanks everyone for your responses! I think the message I'm getting is that I just need to learn to hand over responsibility sometimes and not try to do it all myself (sounds obvious, but sometimes hard to do in practice). I should have handed over m...

When I recently renewed ACLS, as I was running through my mega code scenario and I got pulseless Vtach, I said to shock the patient, and the entire class, including the instructor, all said, "no it's PEA because there's no pulse." Never mind how I ex...

A dialysis nurse rang the patient call light to let me know that the patient had "suddenly become unresponsive and had no blood pressure." I was the only nurse on the floor and was doing a dressing change in another room, but heard the call light goi...