babaloo8

Great! Would you consider this ratio of nurse to beds to be fairly standard? Wound Vacs can be tricky to apply correctly. How is the staff trained? Thank you!

Hello! I am putting together an exemplar to 'set the stage' for my thesis paper on the professional development needs of nurses delivering wound care in the outpatient setting. I have been reading the many great posts that illustrate very nicely the struggles that exist for nurses trying to manage to growing number of patients with wounds. My questions are: 1) on average, how many patients with wounds do you take of in one shift? 2) on average, how many patients are in the facility? 3) what are the top 3 most challenging problems within the work environment that make caring for patients with wounds challenging? Thank you for your time!

I am so glad that one of your options wasn't to give up because you had a rough start. You CAN do this! Best wishes future nurse.

Beautifully written my soon-to-be fellow nurse. You will carve out your own career path and hopefully land sooner than later in a spot that is both challenging and rewarding. It takes time to establish yourself in your career, just as it does in most other professions. Best wishes!

It is so true that there are many 'non-traditional' ways to use our nursing skills and presenting them on this forum may just help some that are experiencing bed-side burn-out, consider alternatives.

Hello Lori215! I am sorry for the very delayed response to your great post. You're story is a perfect illustration of what I believe is going on everywhere. I have had some success at getting nurses from LTC/SNF/REHAB to participate in my survey, but I would LOVE even more. Those nurses are the most isolated from their peers and vulnerable to unreasonable work expectations. If you have any LVN or RN nurse friends who would like to participate in my study, send them to the link. Thank you!

This is a fantastic article! Thank you for sharing your work life with us and setting the record straight! I can see how this specialty would be challenging and rewarding every day. That vulnerable patient population is BLESSED to have you

[h=2]Hello allnurses Community! It has been 25 days since I launched my survey. 65 nurses have participated with representation from different countries as well as a wide array of clinical settings! I thought you might enjoy the geographic breakdown of participants provided by wuFoo. The study will close in 45 days and I would love to reach 100 participants. I could especially use more representation from nurses working in SNF/LTC settings. So, if you are an LVN or RN and provide any amount of wound care as part of your job, please consider adding your valuable perspective to the needs of nurses caring for patients with increasingly more complex, chronic wounds. https://allnurses.com/wound-ostomy-continence/factors-influence-wound-941807.html Many, many thanks to all those who have participated and the allnurses site for providing me with an amazing opportunity to reach so many hard working nurses! Entries by RegionSep 2013→Sep 2014[/h]91.04%North America611.49%South America11.49%Europe12.99%Asia20.00%Africa01.49%Oceania1 [TABLE=class: chart left half, width: 264] [h=3]Top Countries[/h][TR=bgcolor: #F5F5F5] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD][h=4]United States[/h]85.07%[/TD] [TD=class: num notranslate, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]57[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: alt] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F5F5F5][h=4]Canada[/h]5.97%[/TD] [TD=class: num notranslate, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]4[/TD] [/TR] [TR=bgcolor: #F5F5F5] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD][h=4]Cambodia[/h]1.49%[/TD] [TD=class: num notranslate, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: alt] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F5F5F5][h=4]Peru[/h]1.49%[/TD] [TD=class: num notranslate, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR=bgcolor: #F5F5F5] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD][h=4]Australia[/h]1.49%[/TD] [TD=class: num notranslate, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: alt] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F5F5F5][h=4]United Arab Emirates[/h]1.49%[/TD] [TD=class: num notranslate, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR=bgcolor: #F5F5F5] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD][h=4]Lithuania[/h]1.49%[/TD] [TD=class: num notranslate, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]1[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [TABLE=class: chart right half, width: 264] [h=3]Top Cities[/h][TR=bgcolor: #F5F5F5] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD][h=4]Hancock[/h]2.99%[/TD] [TD=class: num, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]2[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: alt] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F5F5F5][h=4]Portage[/h]2.99%[/TD] [TD=class: num, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]2[/TD] [/TR] [TR=bgcolor: #F5F5F5] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD][h=4]Halifax[/h]2.99%[/TD] [TD=class: num, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]2[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: alt] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F5F5F5][h=4]Olympia[/h]1.49%[/TD] [TD=class: num, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR=bgcolor: #F5F5F5] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD][h=4]Brisbane[/h]1.49%[/TD] [TD=class: num, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: alt] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F5F5F5][h=4]Ironwood[/h]1.49%[/TD] [TD=class: num, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR=bgcolor: #F5F5F5] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD][h=4]Milwaukee[/h]1.49%[/TD] [TD=class: num, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: alt] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F5F5F5][h=4]Marietta[/h]1.49%[/TD] [TD=class: num, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR=bgcolor: #F5F5F5] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD][h=4]Racine[/h]1.49%[/TD] [TD=class: num, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]1[/TD] [/TR] [TR=class: alt] [TD=class: icon][/TD] [TD=bgcolor: #F5F5F5][h=4]Seminole[/h]1.49%[/TD] [TD=class: num, bgcolor: #EEEEEE, align: center]1[/TD] [/TR] [/TABLE] [h=2][/h]

Don't apologize! Your experience if very valuable to this study. In my experience, there are very few wound care programs that are 'ideal'. Not enough staff, not enough training, poorly managed, nurses not able to dedicate themselves to learning the art/ science of wound care because they are so stretched with other tasks. Sorry you had such a rough experience, but honestly learning how to survive in a toxic work environment is a valuable education in itself. Hopefully, your current situation is better. Thank you for participating!

Great topic. As an RN, I hear this all the time. Nurses have worked hard historically to be respected as a profession, not a trade and along with that, our level of pay should be commensurate with that distinction . I think also, healthcare organizations have encouraged this perception by using the 'high' wage of a nurse to justify their financial woes or there need to cut back staff. As a seasoned nurse labor rep once said: " We make good money, BUT we still make less per hour than a plumber AND we can kill you!"

Thank you! If I get enough participants to draw definitive conclusions, I will absolutely pursue publishing the results. The ultimate hope is that managers/administrators/clinical educators will use the results to enhance wound care training programs or at the very least, facilitate networking opportunities with wound care specialists who can support and advise other nurses.

Thank you both for your interest and YES, I too cannot wait to report my findings!

It's a typical day in an adult ambulatory clinic where a small handful of nurses scurry around caring for a myriad of patient needs that range from a simple injection to a code blue in the parking lot (thankfully, this is rare). With an unlimited number of walk-ups and physicians calling with unexpected complications in their exam room, we are often stretched. Increasingly, we are called to the exam room to assist a physician who has uncovered a chronic wound or pressure ulcer during an exam. The physician, who has minimal training in wound care, is looking to the nurse for wound management guidance i.e. best dressing, whether to refer to the wound clinic for follow-up, what to use at home to manage the wound, etc. A typical exchange goes like this: Physician: "What kind of dressing should we put on this wound?" Nurse: "I don't know. You tell me! Physician: "Well, what do you have?" Nurse: "I've got a lot of different things. What do you want?" Physician: "WHERE's Nurse X?! " (Nurse X has the most wound care experience and has been declared the 'expert' in the department, but only works part-time) Nurse: "She's off today. " I'm all you got! Physician: "Oh forget it!" Show me what you have and I'll do it myself!" And so it goes...both parties are frustrated. Nurse X has worked in many outpatient settings where wounds large and small have wondered their way in. She has learned basic wound care through trial and error, rarely with the benefit of employer-sponsored training, nor even a standardized procedure to guide her practice. The physician essentially signs a blank order and looks to the nurse to fill in the details. Nurse X has recently revisited clinics she has worked in and discovered that in some cases, wound care consumes 65% of their day. I would love to think this is an isolated problem, but I don't think it is. I wonder about my fellow nurses in long-term care, home health and hospice who are caring for increasingly more complex patients who are discharge earlier than ever from the hospital with large wounds. Do they feel well equipped to handle these patients? Do they have adequate support, information or resources to care for patients with chronic wounds? Why does this matter?The U.S. Wound Registry estimates 3% of the Medicare budget is spent on the care of chronic wounds and ulcers affecting 1.3 million people over the age of 65 in this country. This vulnerable patient population is more likely to be non-white, elderly, non-ambulatory, poorly insured, unable to provide self-care, or suffering from dementia. (www.uswoundregistry.com) Despite the scope of the problem, very limited research has been done to explore the factors that influence the management of chronic wounds. These are the things I wish to explore as a future clinical educator and as a graduate student. My aim is to explore the professional development needs of nurses who are asked to provide wound care; in any amount and in any setting. I would love to hear from you on this important subject! I have developed a survey tool and I am hoping you might consider sharing your experience by completing it. If you are an LVN or an RN working in any patient care setting who provides wound care, then PLEASE consider completing my online survey via the link below. https://allnurses.com/wound-ostomy-continence/factors-influence-wound-941807.html

This is so true! I was so miserable my first two years out of nursing school that I felt often as though I made a BIG mistake. I coped by taking a class or two at the local junior college for fun(pottery wheeling and culinary courses) while waiting out the misery I was feeling on the job. It brought me joy to do something just for fun and distracted me from focusing on the many things I hated about bedside nursing. Eventually, I found my footing and peace in my chosen profession.

I spent a few years pondering going back to school and like yourself, I was confused about the advantages of each type of specialty. I personally interviewed a few who had their masters specifically about the decision to do so and why they chose the specific emphasis. It was all over the map and didn't seem to correlate directly with the roll they were holding at the time. For example, one nurse has a MS in education and has worked as a nurse manager and then an ADNP. There is a trend in my institution to hire managers with an MBA with or without clinical experience! So..you are wise to take some time to consider where your passion lies. If you are sure it is in leadership/management, then go that route. I am currently in a Masters of Nursing Science and Health Care Leadership program that is broad and covers all the areas you are considering. This was the best fit for me because it develops leadership in all areas, but explores education, public policy, informatics, public health and research. I hope this helps in some way!