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The time when HIV was at it's highest peak, I was working at the delivery unit as a midwife. As I was repairing an episiotomy, a drop of blood jumped directly into one of my eyes despite the fact that I was wearing my eye glasses! I quickly washed my eye with tap water and then had to complete the procedure after which I had to undergo all the protocols of blood testing for both me and the client and take a full course of antivirals! Whew☻

No regrets as the experience and knowledge gained from my nurse practice is more than valuable! My only wish is that I could have gone back to school and do proper medicine as one never progresses well in the right direction as a nurse! What I mean is that the more you climb up the Nursing ladder, the further you ran away from the patients in most cases!! I love to deal with patients and get job satisfaction after helping them back onto their feet! At 60 now, I have ditched the idea of going back to school and only wish the younger nurses to try harder and do medicine, if conditions allow them and they are feeling the way I feel towards the Nursing profession minus family issues, if you are a family person, that is!!

Kooky Koorky, nil by mouth literally means not talking ! Medically we refer to NIL by mouth as in starving someone pre or post operative ly! 😊

I yes with you very much! Did exactly the same and added that unless something was done, I was going to either leave my job or totally decline sharing a shift with the culprit! Well, I was a senior and they could not dare loose a senior for for a Junior! Few more days I worked with the culprit, I gave her NIL by mouth, and this hurt her more than she had ever hurt me before!😊

I have been a nurse for donkey years and liking it or disliking it depends on where I have worked at any given time. Generally I love the knowledge that I gained from the Nursing field as it has helped me personally, handling my own health needs, family health needs as well as the patients that I have had the opportunity to nurse! Thank God for all that🙏 My ordeal comes when those nurse professional bullies come in an do it discretely after colluding with the bosses and go as far as stabbing you on the back in order to get you out of their way due to something which you might have performed better than themselves ! I came across such nurses several times and each time I felt like drafting my resignation letters but later on consoled myself that after all I remain happy and confident in my work as long as I remain professional. Prayers have also helped me as I use them whenever I feel hurt by somebody and I easily go over it and later on I either find the person transfered or simply left for whatever reasons! Nursing in general is lovely, no regrets, as long as nursing ethics are adhered to by all practising without eating each other.

Pain relief relies soley with the prescriber and nurses can only observe and report their observations t the prescriber to consider an a propriete action- end of the story!

Falling asleep while at work is prohibited as per most hospital policies. All said and done, those who have made those policies have never done night shifts, or rather they practiced it at a certain level of their profession and dumped it due to it's complexityí ½í¸‚ Now then, the only advice is to have ample sleep during the day and arrange to have a good sleep during your one hour's break so that you do not neglect your duties while falling asleep at work! I used to make sure that I keep my work colleagues awake by chatting them or just reminding them to do the regular rounds and also to put their alarm clocks on so that I do not have to wake them up from their breaks! I hate waking people up when they are at work because they need to be responsible and accountable for their actions. I do doze responsibly and have always done my work well all my 45 years as a nurse. Night shift is as abnormal as a pregnancy abnormality that you can think of! Those who do not experience it criticize louder than those who have experienced it! Ama??

a I was once told by a nurse administering an ivi on me that my pain was psocho logical! I nearly slapped her on her face as d pain was real and at d end of it , my hand was grossly swollen since the medication had gone into the tissues!!! Unfortunately I was not in a position to sue somebody, being in Africa where suing for such hardly exists!í ½í¹„

Read all about comments relating to morphine and the likes being demanded by patients as prescribed or a bit more often than prescribed! My practice, as has been mentioned by others, is to give as prescribed, meanwhile, trying to health educate the patient on cosequenses related to drug abuse and discuss the behaviour with the prescriber too. Never refuse to administer medication because you think someone is playing tricks on you! Mind your professional ethics!í ½í¸Ž

I like to keep my cool and not to give a tit for tat sort of behaviour! The best way to deal with such an uncultured PA is to report him to the higher authority , discuss his behaviour and make him understand that he is part of the team caring for the same patient and he has to Polish his wild language before he is shown the door for intimidating people, which may be termed as bullying- zero tolerance!🙄

Believe it or not!! Some adult is not able to say 'Michael Jackson' and says ' Michael Jaskon!' May be the odd pronounciations are in people's blood?! I have given up in correcting people and just try to understand them out of context!!

I have enjoyed sharing other peoples' response to this topic of patients refusing medication since I have had to make difficult decisions every now and then as the concerned authorities do not give clearcut policies on the issue. We had a resident with Dementia and experiencing severe distress reactions and was throughout the day refusing her mood stabilizers. This was all the time recorded in the MAR sheet and a behaviour monitor chart filled in for a whole week. All that the GP did on his next review day was to cancell all the medication and advised the social services and community Psychiatrist Nurse to schedule a date for review of the client!! This was going to take another week or so!! All this time the resident continued to swear and physically abusing staff and other residents. If we were allowed to treat each case differently, without a blanket of 'do not give medication covertly' in fear of court cases, this lady could have been saved the ordeal as well as the staff who had to continue chucking the medication and operating under stess!!

I have particularly enjoyed reading the part that says 'the pain started on the toes downwards!!' . Sometimes I think that without such humour at work, it could be very boring!! Could that be what we call professional? A nurse I worked with at an Orthopaedic Ward used to write her Progress notes starting like this, ' Mr. X complains of painful and ordered analgesic given. No matter how many times we tried to correct her to make her report complete and say , 'painful leg' or painful whatever part of the body was affected, the more she got mixed up!! Some of these things we just have to live with.

Hahahaa!! It is becoming more interesting until I am getting into the laughter boat!! Wait until you are taught by a tutor who has problems with pronouncing R and L and ends up by saying something like ' you lun arong the rine!' instead of ' you run along the line!' and measure it with a' lurer' (ruler)!!

It does not pay to laugh at someone who does not pronounce a word correctly. Let us not have the 'holierthan thou' attitude as in this case the doctor might have wrongly pronounced or spelled the drug's name but definately there are loads of medical stuff that he knows more than the one laughing her head off on a single distorted word. We all have different ethnic background and this makes it quite difficult to pronounce some of the letters for example, I have always struggled to pronounce words with 'sh' because we do not have a single word with sh in our language ,so aword such as 'shame' to me would be something like'same' dependig on the context!! So please do not kill yourself with laughter when I struggle to come up with such words!! let us learn to accommodate each other instead of condemning over flimsy reasons. My spellings are usually good despite my pronounciations.

Deftonez188!! I love the dancing group!! Nursing is nolonger a calling but remains a noble profession.

I have learnt that many nurses are much blessed to have a tearoom and a complete 30 minutes lunch break each time they are on a shift!! You might think that I am kidding if I tell you that I work at a place where there is no tearoom at all and if at all one gets some minutes to spare in the form of a break, she or he has to eat whatever at the nurses' station or at the residents' lounge!!! Whenever we completely miss to have a break, we are allowed time off with a stern warning that we should strive to take our breaks!! That kind of warning comes from the Manager who does not understand why those on the floor never get time for their meal breaks!! I am now used to eating at the nurses station which is always overcrowded, leave alone not very clean. Sometime 'Germs' are not even aware that we do eat there, so those with tearooms, do make good use of them and pray for those who have none of it.

My advise is that the more you practice nursing, the more you grow to like it!! I would be cheating you vif I tell you that you shelve your Nursing Certificate and think over it that maybe you might like it in future...... never!! When you decide to go back, those whom you trained with will have advanced and you will be their junior and taking orders from them!!! Are you going to like that kind of scenario?? I bet not and you will continue to hate nursing. Just look for a branch of nuring which you think you love and try to gain as much experience as you can and you will give us a feedback in about three years' time. Best of luck.

I like this one most!!! That you even know some men that should use bras too!!! LOL!! Ridiculous! A bra is a must at work, no question about it and it adds life to the wearer too!! Please wear them at all costs!

Thanks alot for the results which are quite encouraging!! CONGRATULATIONS to all the winners!! We hope to read more interesting articles in future articles. Please do keep it up!!

I wonder how such weird people manage to join the noble Health Proffession!! What disciplinary action was taken against him at the end of the day?NAKED!!!!! A male student Midwife was caught redhanded trying to sexually abuse a mother who was almost in second stage of labour in a Labour Ward!! The Woman's screams were at first taken for granted that they were Labour pain related!! The guy's training was discontinued with immediate effect.

That must have been a Nudist in Adam's Suit at the wrong place and in the wrong proffession!! Bless him!!

The question is: Are night staff allowed to have a nap, doze or sleep at any stage during their twelve hours' shift? During our basic nursing training in the early seventies, it was highly unethical to attempt to sleep, doze or have a nap at any stage of the entire twelve hour night shift. It was a highly punishable offence that had to be dealt with by the so called 'Night Supers' ( popularly known as Night Superintendents) whose main duties included checking on Habit Forming Drugs administration, Compiling Ward Cencus, Collecting and reading The Matron's Reports, and making sure that no night staff attempted to indulge in any form of sleep related activities for the entire twelve hour shift, among other miscelanous duties. It was known that the Night Supers used to do their rounds at maybe two hourly intervals and sometimes make phone calls to various wards when they were too sleepy to make the trips!! On this particular night, I was doing a night shift at The Casuelty Department, equivalent to the current Accident and Emergency. The Doctor who was on duty with us had the privilege of having a rest ( whatever that meant) whenever he was not busy!! Well, we had a few minor casualties such as a baby with diarrhoea and vomiting, a man with stab wounds, another man with history of attempted suicide, a lady with a rape related history and another youngster with history of Road Traffic Accident resulting in minor injuries. By Midnight, the doctor decided to take a rest in the doctors' room. By two in the morning, we received a man with known psychiatric history and had long defaulted in taking his regular medication and was attempting to beat anybody in sight!! He was being held by two muscular men who were almost giving up on his aggression!! Well, they had reachede the hospital and needed help. I went to knock on the Doctors' Room and call the doctor to urgently attend to the aggressive man. I was shocked to find the Doctor in his Pyjamas!! His head gear was also off his head!! ( apparently he belonged to the religious sect whereby men have to wear a head gear! ) It took him almost ten minutes to fully wake up, change into his normal clothes including his white overall , headgear and shoes! I am not sure if he remembered where he had kept his stethoscope. We had to keep on reassuring the whole group that we had already informed the doctor and waiting as if he was making a long drive from somewhere out of the hospital. To cut the story short, this kind of doctor's behaviour put me off working at the Casualty Department and totally changed my interest to other fields of nursing whereby I have also met other characters that I have to stomach. Has anybodyelse met a health worker who carries pyjamas to change into while on break on night shift?!! I would like us to compare notes and hear how you handle them.

Sorry about your failing a 2nd timeime in the Naclex !! You can still make it if you put in just a little more effort! Do not just get depressed and get put off nursing as a whole:redbeathe Try to get some coaching from a reputable school that offers such coaching, though you should be prepared to cough up a reasonable amount of cash for your tuition fees! All the best!

Prolapsed Uterus? The doctor whom we alerted that 'there was this thing' coming out of the affected lady was not shocked like us and simply advised that next time, instead of panicking and calling him to the ward at such unGodly hours again, the simple solution is to put on your gloves and push back the uterus back to where it belongs and document !!You must , ofcourse alert the doctor of what u have done and keep on observing any recurrent prolapses that might call for surgery. I have nursed a client with a 'cevical pessary/ring inserted to keep the uterus back in place but was rather uncomfortable with repeated lady partsl digital examinations every six to 12 months to check if all is fine, especially in elderly ladies!! At an EMI Unit, one of the ladies undergoing simillar checks claimed that she was being raped!!!