Janlynn

When I give Compazine I always mix it wit 50ml/NS. I drip it in slow and have never had anyone get a reaction. I have had one ER doc write an order t give it as 5mg slow IVP and give the other 5mg 5minutes later. It worked.

5p-1a is the only shift I have been working for almost 2 years now. We also have 9a-5p which I wouldn't mind but with the shift differential it's a big cut plus right now I don't have to pay for daycare. We opened a second dept alongside the main dept and we are only open from 9a-1a. Some nurses work a 16 hour shift and it works for them, I don't think I could handle it.

I graduated from CASPN in 2004--my first job and only job since then has been working in the ER at a major hospital. I started off doing mainly fast track but we have since merged and I am now doing higher acuity. I would dread going to LTC only because I know that isn't right for me. I am so glad I am doing what I wanted to do. I was only making around $13.60hr for night shift--I started out at $12.30 but we got a $1 raise last year and my usual raise. Starting today I am switching over to per diem (still keeping my same amt of hours) and will be making around $21 hr. I will have no benefits but I've looked online and have found some reasonable health insurance qoutes. Hope this helps.

How scary--what was the situation for why it got so low? I myself hemmorraged with a miscarriage a few years ago--my hg was 4.7 or something like that. Needless to say I went into shock a few times before given 4 units (I think? It was all a blur)and rushed to surgery. It's kind of sad now that I can't donate blood any longer--plus when I got pregnant again I delveloped some weird antibody and had to have my titers checked every week.

Hi--you seem to be taking the same path I took. Although right now I am still an LPN (will be going back next spring). I'm working in the ER now and do *almost* everything the RN does there. There's only a few IV push drugs I cannot do. As far as the CNA position we have CNA's/Tech's in our ER, it's something you may want to look into if you're looking for experience. Our Tech's do alot--alot of blood draws, foley's, dressings, trauma's, etc. Just a thought especially if you're looking for diversity. Good luck to you!

Full-time employees at my work get $250 and part-time (less than 1000 hours worked for the fiscal year) get $125. Of course taxes are taken out of that. One year they put it on a Visa gift card which was nice as there was no taxes taken out. We also get a $25 gift certificate to a grocery store. I work at a major hospital with alot of employees, I can't believe how many of you don't get anything. That's just plain sad.

There are some great suggestions here--I'd also like to add for pt comfort to not dig around too much. If I have a vein that rolls or hides after I insert the needle I will just sit there and wait for it to come back up, sometimes I will have the pt pump his/her hand which helps speed up the process. I usually almost always get it that way without much discomfort and the pt really appreciates it.

Wow. Sorry that someone felt the need to scare you. I can say there are days that I've questioned why I went into this field, but you know they are nothing compared to the feeling I get when I've truly helped someone. Seems to me the person that e-mailed you is very bitter and burned-out.

I suggest you or her find help such as a tutor or something--don't rely on the school to do it, they get thier money either way. The NCLEX that she will have to pass is mostly multiple choice, she needs to work on multiple choice questions until she figures out what the problem is. There are several online tests related to the LPN course. Even if she goes through the other program she will not get her license unless she passes the NCLEX. It would be good for her to practice, practice, practice multiple choice tests at home until she feels comfortable. Usually there are 4 answers--and usually you can almost immediatly narrow the answer down to two choices and go from there--it helped me to do it this way. Best of luck to your daughter!

Please don't come by ambulance with a chief c/o earwax--this is not an emergency and certainly not a reason to be brought in per ems. Don't come in with a hangnail that you pulled off the day before demanding abx because you think it's infected. Also don't get mad when you don't get any meds for it because it's not infected. Don't argue with the medical staff, we can tell if something is infected. Please oh please DO NOT come in for a pimple to your right nare! This is a waste of everyone's time including yours, however, thanks for the laugh. If you're going to come in claiming you have a kidney stone stating nothing helps but dilaudid--toradol doesn't help, yet your labs are pefectly normal and you refuse a ct-scan--please don't let me see you at the gas station soon after you're discharged filling up on gas station junk food. If you come in with a foot problem please do us all a service and clean your dirty, nasty feet first! If not you'll most likely be soaking said foot in a cold bath of betadine for awhile before I touch it. Oh and my number #1 pet peeve---if all of your tests come back normal and you're not going to die--please don't seem so dissappointed, there is nothing wrong with you, you should be happy! Same goes for you family members who seem sad/mad that there is nothing wrong with your loved one. If you suspect you have a STD please know there is a planned parenthood right around the corner--please don't use us for your OB/GYN. Also we do not do pap smears here.

They still do--not long after I started my job in the ED I had a young girl sent over from a Catholic hospital--she was there for the sole purpose of receiving this shot because of an ectopic. The Catholic hospital sent her over because it would be against thier beliefs to give the shot. I remember it was a big hassle because our docs didn't want to touch it so we had to call in a consult with the ob/gyn and they had to write the order to give it even though the girl came with orders.

My father was in a coma following a motorcycle accident(no helmet). I've also worked on the neuro rehab floor. Any stimulation physical or mental is crucial for anyone in a coma. We always got our pt's up everyday, with my father I would get him in the wheelchair, take him outside and just push him around for awhile--of course by then he was extubated and somewhat alert-but still in a coma nonetheless.

As an LPN I find your post to be very demeaning. With that I wouldn't at this point being a new grad feel comfortable being in charge of anything or anyone except the pt's I'm taking care of. But I can see 20 years down the road where I may feel comfortable with such a task--I guess it just depends on the LPN's experience and comfort level--it doesn't matter how much schooling you have, most of your learning and experience comes from doing things on a day-to-day basis. I work in a very busy level 1 Trauma Center and I can tell you that most of my pt's can't tell the difference as to whether I'm an LPN or an RN--just last night I had a pt look at my name tag and was amazed that I wasn't an RN she then went on to tell me that I was the best nurse she's ever had (I'm sure the dilaudid I had just given her may have had something to do with it. ) I however would never want to do anything out of my scope of practice, this is why I will be going back to school in April. Your post just struck me the wrong way--just because I'm an LPN doesn't mean that I don't understand or am not smart enough to handle certain things. Just because we only have 1 year of schooling (a very intense 1 year of schooling) doesn't mean that I don't know what's going on or am incapable of making the right decisions.

I feel your pain--I work in the ED and met the most evil lady and her son Lucifer the other night. We were ungodly busy that night and she came in for a cough--well we had a limp baby barely breathing rushed in by his father so the lady with the cough was sent into the hallway on the stretcher so this baby could have her room--well she wasn't happy at all, she claimed she'd been a nurse for 30 years and had never been treated as bad as we were treating her--even after I tried to explain why she was moved in the hall she looked me straight in the eye and said in the meanest voice "I seen why I was moved here"--it was a freakin' baby and this lady DID NOT care. Soon after we got her a room--she jumped me for not helping her move her belongings to the new room which she was able to carry on her own, she's there for a cough--not broken arms! She was just the rudest person I have ever come across--I stayed away from her and her room and she kept sending her crazy son out--the kid was at least 10 and he was just as mean, he would look at people's nametags and report back to his mom, he would wonder around the dept and report back to her. I sent a tech in to get her vitals and she argued with the tech about her pulse--saying she got a different number than her. She then told the tech that I was holding on to her chart so the doctor couldn't come in and see her. The lady was just plain nasty! After the doctor seen her he had ordered a duoneb--I went in to tell her I had paged RT--she refused the neb tx and said she wanted to leave, I said after all of this you're just going to leave without tx?? She ended up leaving without the tx and I managed to get her some Rx's before she left. She ended up apologizing profusely for the way she was acting, I know she must have felt like a louse. The apology was hardly worth it for the terror she and her son put me and the other staff through. It's not like we drug her by the arm and made her come into our ED. I had to stay away from her--each time I would go in there she would say the meanest things--I could feel myself getting pushed to my limit, so I just stayed away from her and her room.

I work in the ED and worked New Year's Eve night and New Year's Day, NYE we we're dead--I think we had maybe 4-5 pt's in the dept when I left early and NYD I came in at 1700 and didn't stop running until I left at 0100 and they were still full with at least 15 pt's waiting in the WR. For some reason I really thought it would have been the other way around--we had alot of trauma's yesterday--alot of chest pain pt's and alot of everything else. We had several pt's that came in for nothing serious that ended up waiting several hours for nothing. We had alot of suicidal pt's as well.