MyCall2Nsg

You will do yourself a great favor by securing your med-surg experience in the acute care setting. That's a great foundation to have as a brand new nurse and will prepare you for the specialty area of your choice. Good luck to you!

If you've only been in that employment for 7 months O reccomend touching it out for at least 2 years to gain the experience you'll need when applying for another position. Set goals for yourself at the current position and concentrate your energy on those goals. The grass is definitely not greener over the fence when it comes to nursing, speaking from experience. While the 5 8hr shifts are long, 3 12hr shifts can at times seem like a killer.

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Teaching patients about diet is not out of the scope of nursing practice. Nutrition is a part of the curriculum in nursing school. Why would that be taught if it was out of the scope of practice for an RN to teach patients about their diet? We practice in a diverse culture and some patients are vegans or vegetarians. A nurse should be able to provide dietary information to the patient according to what's needed.

Good for you...that is courage and faith. How is it working out? Do you feel like you were prepared for the job? Did you encounter any learning curves? Did you have to make any major adjustments going from working a stuctured shift to now working in this new environment where you have to set the stucture for your day? How does this work out with school for you? Do you find it fits the online school schedule better or more challenging? Just curious because I have given case management some thought also. Just don't know if it would help me going from 12hr night shift 3 times per week to working Monday to Friday day shift. I'm also in an online MSN program so I'm wanting to do what will be flexible to accommodate school. Your thoughts are appreciated.

Very inspiring! We have to remember that we are in this thing together and that team work brings the best patient family outcomes. Thanks!!

How Exciting!!! Congratulations and best wishes as you continue to pursue your dream!!! You are definitely an inspiration to me. Thank you for being so thoughtful of others and helpful in answering our questions.

Safety First!! What is the recommended time over which to administer the medication via IV push? That's the question I ask myself first and if I don't have the answer I use the resources available to find it. Think of the patient and safety when you have any medication to administer!! Best Safe Practice

So glad you shared this...very encouraging!!

Have you been considering whether or not you should go back to school? Has it been a long time since you've been out of nursing school? Have you been practicing nursing for a long time and feel like you just need to get your degree? If you answer "yes" to any of these questions, welcome to my world!! I am excited about going back to school and on August 1st that dream will come alive for me at WGU!! Its a very big step and one that will have challenges and rewards. I am ready for the challenges and excited about the rewards. With success at the top and bottom of my list I am ready to take the plunge. Best wishes to all of that will be starting school soon or have already started! Follow your dreams and reach for the stars...remember the sky is the limit!!!

Starting August 1st!!! I will send you a PM...

Incident reporting at the hospital where I work is through an Event Management System. It is sent to more than one area in the hospital "electronically" Risk management being one of them.

Under-staffing is a chronic problem and I believe it has to be dealt with from an administrative level. One of the ways we can get them to hear us or get our attention is through incident reporting. Each time we experience near misses because of lack of adequate staffing we should write an incident report. These will get their attention especially when too many of them are being done on the same subject. If it's in writing it becomes their problem to solve. If we do not report then they have nothing to prove that this is a problem. In my current situation as team leader I frequently have to say "no" to additional admissions to our unit because we are staffed with the bare minimum staffing and when we have met our quota of RN:Patient ratio then we are "Full" even though there may be plenty of beds available. I try to accommodate the patients that are unique to OB/GYN as much as possible because. I cannot send these patients to other units in the hospital. On that basis I will communicate to bed control that due to the number of patients currently in labor (who cannot go to other units postpartum) and any pending ED admissions with other GYN related issues, I cannot take another patient on the unit. That usually takes care of the problem for that moment only, but the cycle repeats itself later in the week or so many times over. I believe if this is brought to the attention of the administrative body they would look into what can be done to address this problem. After all, everyone is big on patient satisfaction and a patient is not satisfied sitting in the ED waiting for a bed. Equally, a nurse is not satisfied when he/she is made to take on additional assignments beyond what is safe. Often nurses are "called off because" census is low, other times enough nurses are not schedule because of oversight. I believe it should be a common practice to have at least one nurse on call for areas that are likely to have an increase in census as the shift progresses. In summary, incident reporting, saying "No" and looking out for the staff so that they are not overwhelmed with a crowded assignment, and advocating for "on call" help as needed is how I choose to deal with this chronic problem.

Our standard practice is to draw the rhogam workup after the blood bank has reported the results of the cord blood and we know whether baby is Rh- or not. Typically with the next blood draw which is the very next morning following delivery. ACOG's guidelines is to administer rhogam within 72hrs of delivery, but I have not yet found a recommendation for when to draw the workup. I have, however, heard the folks from blood bank say it should be drawn ASAP after cord blood is reported.

An area of interest here too. Just not sure how to incorporate it into my day to day nursing. Would welcome any thoughts, resources, etc.