GenericUnicorn

All of the other comments pretty much cover what I was going to say. So on a random note: the one thing that has always irked me about hospitals, especially mine, is why a dedicated oncology unit doesn't have toilet lids. It feels so Macgyver-ish to have to put a towel or chux over the toilet.

I think a big part of it has to do with the sheer amount of stress med/surg nurses are under that contributes to the behavior seen. Many nights you're just trying to keep your head above water that the option to push something off on another RN (like a new admission) becomes a survival tactic, not necessarily a personal bias towards someone. I'm by no means excusing the behavior, just trying to rationalize why perfectly polite, civil human beings outside the hospital can turn gremlin once on the floor.

Everything is done by pump except in special circumstances, like running platelets wide open or emergent saline boluses for example. Not sure if it's the same everywhere, but I haven't had to reconstitute any IV medications (for infusions, not quick IV push) in quite some time. Seems like everything is mixed in pharmacy nowadays, and each med has a label telling you exactly how much solution is in the bag to you can tell the pump down to the last drop what to infuse.

I am in need of some guidance. I've been a nurse for a little over 3 years now and have been regretting my decision to become a nurse ever since my first anniversary as a nurse. When I first started nursing, I was excited and compassionate about my job. Now many days I cry on the way to work because I'm so unhappy. The stress, hospital politics, ungrateful patients and families, time away from family (weekends, holidays, vacations)...nursing just isn't worth it anymore. The only thing I can honestly say I love about nursing is knowing I only have to be there for 3 miserable nights each week and then I'm done until my next session in hell. I feel trapped in this career because what else is there for me to do with a degree in nursing? I've been contemplating going back to school to earn a masters degree; the school I'm looking at offers a masters in nursing as well as a MBA. My family have offered suggestions of looking into getting a job at a doctors office. Most offices aren't hiring nurses, or only have 1 on staff to supervise all the unlicensed staff with no forecast for openings. Any suggestions for non-clinical nursing (and how to get into that field seems to be the mind block for me) or even starting a separate career would be appreciated.

I once overhead a nurse say to a tech once, "You see the "RN" on my badge? Go to room 123 and clean him up." I was flabbergasted.

I worked a combo nephrology/oncology floor for nearly 3 years in an acute care hospital setting. We did PD on the floor. I was trained on site in a week to work with PD patients. To me it was simple once I had some education on it and knew my way around different tenckhoffs (PD access catheter), PD machines and adapters to make the patients with older/different style tenckhoffs match the hospitals equipment. I enjoyed working with the patients, for the most part PD was uneventful.

Pretty much everyone has hit every "intervention" my hospital requires us to do except one: make doubly certain that you place a yellow falls sticker on the front of the patient's chart. Because that sticker is going to do a lot of good. We have a chart auditor that rolls in early (I'm nightshift) and this is one of her petpeeves...she'll have a conniption fit if a person is high risk and doesn't have a stupid yellow sticker on their chart! My fav (read: sarcasm) are the confused patients that are still cognisant enough to figure out how to maneuver themselves in order to turn off the bed alarm without tripping the alarm first!! I'm pretty sure in their minds that this is just some grand game.

You should be able to find a plethora of studies showing a link between increased patient mortality rates and increased patient loads. More patients, less staff = poorer outcomes. Also many studies out there that show increased patient loads are linked to disatifaction among nurses and increased burnout rates...which means more turnover and turmoil for staffing. It's a viscous cycle. As long as big money is running healthcare instead of modest profits and truly patient-centered care I only see this issue getting much worse!!

Isn't there a clause that if you are able to show "proof of hardship" that you will be exempt? If that's so I'd just let my power bill ride each month until the power company sent me a letter threatening to cut me off. "I can't even pay my light bill you expect me to be able to afford you're stupidly priced health insurance????"

If it's just urine I'll rinse out the pan and re-use. I throw them out if it's a BM. I avoid housekeeping complaints by emptying the pan as best as I can (beating it against the toilet a few times) and then putting it in a red biohazard bag and into the biohazard receptacle. Poo just sticks like glue to our bed pans. Worse is if it's mushy/gooey...I end up making more of a mess trying to clean the pan than just throwing it away and getting a new one. Management fusses if they get wind of us throwing out pans routinely. They say we should use the water sprayer/wand things over the toilets. But the water pressure is enough to take out an eye when just starting to turn the tap on. I'm NOT having poop and pee spray all over my face, uniform, shoes, bathroom. If management wants the pans washed out after each BM then they can do it themselves.

We have yearly evaluations at our hospital that determines a pay raise. It's some asinine scale based on arbitrary measures that can earn an employee a whopping maximum 3% pay increase. I got a whole $0.30/h raise this year. I've often told people who say they're just in it to help people: "That's great and all. I'm here to help too. But working based solely on my good intentions doesn't keep food in my belly and a roof over my head."

1. North Carolina 2. Two years 3. Medical Nephrology and Oncology 4. $19.38/hr 5. $2/hr Differential for first half (6 hours) of night shift, $3/hr differential for final half (remaining 6 hours). $1/h weekends plus the night differential if you work nights. 6. Ha! I wish.

I work at a hospital in North Carolina. For my unit, dayshift the max is 5:1, but usually 4:1...either way they get two aides for the floor. On nights typically we get 6:1 with only one aide for the whole floor that night. 5:1 is awesome, 4:1 is heaven on nightshift but that hardly ever happens.