AshleyRN706

I was trained by one of the first SAFE nurses in the country and who has had years and years of experience both in clinical and educational settings. I have asked her about her opinion about a male in the SAFE nurse role and she said that it has never been an issue in her experience. You would need another female health professional with you during the exam. I think if you are interested in this field go for it! Good luck!

I do work part time at an adult medical day center. I love it as well but could definitely understand the difficulty of being the only medical professional there. I do not know one nurse, seasoned or new, that doesn't ask questions and utilize the other nurses/physicians for advice or information. Especially with this being your first job out of school you need that support. My advice would be to get in touch with a trusted nurse friend that is available for all of your questions and to bounce ideas off of. I would definitely be available as a resource if you ever have any questions. I would definitely push to have the facility hire another RN or some sort of medical professional just to have that extra resource. Keep up on your continuing education. Subscribe to nursing journals. Evidence based practice is constantly changing and its your responsibility to know what the standards are. Since you do not have another person to work with, keeping up with your education is the best thing to do. I would maybe try to set up some sort of nursing education at each meeting to relay to the other staff, even though this may not directly affect their role. This will help you stay up to date on issues/practices, and help you to learn and retain the information by educating the staff. It will also give you an extra set of eyes/ears. If the staff is educated on different problems, they are more likely to bring it to your attention if something doesn't seem right to them and you can further assess. I actually had a patient who was having respiratory distress and no one came to tell me. They thought he was "pretending for attention". He was cyanotic and had a pulse ox of 70% when he got to me. I decided that educating the staff on what to look for and when to alert the RN was very much needed. Read your policy manuals inside and out so you know exactly what your role is, what to do in emergency situations, what you are legally allowed to do, and what is outside of your scope. If a mistake is made, usually the medical professional is the one blamed. Protect your license. You are obviously doing a great job if joint commission came and you passed their inspection. In this position, I think organization and time management are the most important thing! I do not know exactly how your facility runs but mine is very busy and mandated documentation can get backed up really quickly. Don't be afraid to delegate to any support staff that you have so you can get the state mandated things completed. I'm only at my facility part time and we have about 6 other RNs and it is still crazy busy! I cannot imagine all of the work that you are solely responsible for! Do you have any specific questions that you can think of off the top of your head? Hope this helped a little…. If you want my email let me know and I'll be available anytime to help out. I have a few nurses that I have met throughout my career that I keep in touch with just to get their advice and opinions on so many different issues. It's a nice cushion to have when in doubt!

All of your arguments are just plain ridiculous. And a little comical to be honest. I feel like I'm having a debate with a preteen. Of course I get paid. I also do volunteer work. But whatever job I'm doing, I'm helping these people step into the right direction. Even if the physician is not, I am fighting for them. Even if the patient themselves are not, I am pushing them to help themselves through education or referrals. So, you can stand by your views, that is your right, but I am praying that none of my family members ever have a nurse that thinks the way that you do. It is sad and I'm a little ashamed to share the same field. The field that I take pride in and actually think that little by little I am making a difference and providing the best care that I can. What happened to our duty as nurses to "do no harm"? I'll stand by my belief that profiting from alcoholics and not educating and referring them to outside help does not really constitute doing no harm in my book.

Never said it was any less/any more ethical than a particular issue. This is not a contest of "well at least it's better than what the insurance companies are doing". Ha, that is a ridiculous comparison. Just stating is is not ethical to cash in on these types of people without education in health promotion. As an ethical nurse who actually cares for the patients I treat and push them to better themselves, I am shocked that I am alone in my argument.

Great! Thank you for the information! Some family members I asked are college aged now and I have many that are many different age groups. I have asked them all, in appropriate ways for the younger ones of course, if they had any education and most said no. Maybe it could have also been d/t the fact that they were embarrassed and didn't want to talk to me about it too. I'll definitely read up on the national and local standards. Thanks again for the information!

I know that no one claimed they would try to prescribe alone, but there was some confusion in previous posts such as "I think you would have to team up with a physician" so I was clarifying that yes, you would need a MD. Referring to someone as "drunk" as in "they appear drunk, confirmed by ETOH blood levels" is far different than stating "and making it appear high end, to appeal to rich drunks" which is the way the word has been used throughout this post. Though, I personally wouldn't use the word "drunk" in my documentation. And yes, ETOH withdrawal can appear up to a few days after the last drink but most alcoholics are not always honest in their information and some do not know what to expect at all because they never tried to stop drinking. This information is not shared with these customers so some of these medical care professionals are not performing any teaching for this problem. I've met many patients who come into the hospital for the sole purpose of getting a banana bag and some medication because they are going to stop drinking and want that as a start. After we teach the patient that w/d can be life threatening, many chose to be admitted for monitoring. Some would never know the seriousness of this issue. I would in no way state to not treat people with alcohol disorders (I do it almost everyday) but my treatment is more geared towards health promotion, for example, getting them passed the withdrawal stage safely and then referring to outside resources. This post is mainly speaking about profiting from them and I can guarantee that these businesses do not refer these people for help, because than they would lose customers/business. In my experience, heavy long term abusers of alcohol do chose this type of service. I have spoken with some of these business owners for research purposes and learned that many are repeat customers and have been drinking heavily for 5+ years, more than 25% with hx of DTs. They don't get typically get this "treatment" for hangovers but for hydration and vitamin repletion. For NedRN, I was not disrespectful in my previous post at all. I stated my opinion, and some facts, and did not state personal opinions about any particular person. Writing "come down from your high horse" is not beneficial to a debate like this. Keep those opinions to yourself please.

Ok, thank you. I was speaking to some younger family members and was shocked when they had told me that all throughout school sexual assault issues were not discussed once. These topics weren't introduced until college age. As we all know, this issue can occur at much younger ages and some are simply ignorant to the issue. Maybe I could just push to add some things to the curriculum in my area. Thanks for your info!

Hello, Seems like some time has passed since this post. How are you holding up? Do you still need some advice, pointers?

Hello!! I am interested in getting in touch with some local schools (middle and high) to speak about rising issues re: sexual assaults, domestic violence, etc. I feel that if this population is targeted early, it could potentially prevent some of the rising statistics on these issues. I haven't really done any public health work before and didn't know if this was something I could arrange alone (without a hospital or organization facilitating the meeting). Can I personally contact a school system to ask about speaking to the students? How does this process work with venturing into teaching to this population? Thanks in advance for your advice : )

Hi! The forensic nursing course that I took was r/t sexual assault forensic nursing. I'm sure they offer a "SAFE" or "SANE" program at one of your area hospitals. Once you complete the course and required clinicals you would be a "Forensic Nurse Examiner". This job is all on-call for obvious reasons. You never know when a sexual assault will occur. With this job, your responsibilities include working closely with law enforcement, crime lab, and states attorneys office. You perform full assessments on your patients, collect forensic evidence, maintain chain of custody, administer prophylactic medication and emergency contraception, as well as refer to local resources for continuing psychological care. It is a great job but unfortunately you need to have at least 18 months current RN experience to begin the program. This may be different in your area so I would get in touch with one of the programs to get more information. There are also other areas in forensic nursing but as far as I know, the SAFE program is usually the best way to start your career and gain experience in the field. Good luck to you!!!!

First of all, RNs legally cannot prescribe any type of IV fluids, let alone medication. You would need a MD, or PA/NP working under a MD to prescribe the medication. Also, many of these people that get this "treatment" would also need to be monitored for ETOH withdrawal, which I'm sure you know, can cause DEATH. Yes, this would be a great business in terms of revenue but why would any ethical nurse ever want to be involved in this type of business? Isn't part of our job health promotion? We are supposed to push our patients in the right direction in terms of healthy lifestyles, treatment for ETOH/drug abuse, etc. Not just "cash in" on their addictions. The only thing this business is doing is to help people drink as much as they want with no fear of the dreaded hangover. You are screaming "let's promote alcohol abuse because that's where the money is!" Also, it isn't very non-judgmental for all of you to refer to this population as "drunks".