Birdy2

I was looking up nexium compatibilities all week because our hospital was short on Protonix and so we were giving a lot of it. I usually never see it. So anyways, it's apparently fine to run it with some things, but I wasn't able to get a clear answe...

You are all such great nurses and so smart. I hope one day I'll be able to come up with this stuff off the top of my head. I feel like I've forgotten so much. What I wouldn't give to be in school while I'm working. I knew so much more about disease p...

There are tons and the prices are all over the place. Anyone have a clue which type is most accurate?

I usually handle it pretty well, but here lately it seems like that's all I do. I was in the middle of a rapid with a patient yelling that she hadn't gotten her pain meds

Well I'm not sure but I get confused trying to make sense of the labs. Sodium would be high if she were dehydrated which she was. And yes, potassium would be high with renal failure. Couldn't the BUN/Cr be a result of dehydration? I guess that would ...

Well I'm just wondering if that's acceptable? Some people said that it should have been done in the ER before she came to our floor. What concerned me the most was her potassium and sodium. I think it was a good decision for her to be monitored more ...

Haha if they ask me for that they are getting the exact opposite. That's ridiculous. Here lately I feel as if I went to school to give dilaudid and sprites out lol

Oops auto correct screwed the title up....yes I talked to pharmacy and they didn't have a clear answer. Just that it was unknown so I guess that's a no. I always clamp and flush just in case if I don't know.

Hi all. I'm wondering how long nurses usually work before they're considered ready to be charge nurse. The reason I ask is because I have been a nurse for approximately 4 months and I was put in charge just the other night. If any of you read my othe...

I will be glad to be charge and do want to one day learn how to do all that comes with that title, but right now I'm just learning how to take care of my patients. I don't think it would be safe for me to be focusing on anything other than that at th...

Well I was gonna have 6 patients to take care of too and there's just no way I would have been able to answer all of the calls or give the right answers. I don't think it's right that a very experienced nurse was working and they didn't ask her to do...

Thank you!

Farawyn...thanks for agreeing! That was my exact thought when they said I was in charge. What if someone codes, which by the way is pretty much a few times per week on my unit. We are supposed to be general med-surg but the hospital has been so short...

I had a patient with a HISTORY of TB, or so the person who gave report told me. I didn't actually see it anywhere, but anyways. I just put a mask on in case, but someone said it's not contagious now. Whats the policy where you work on isolation preca...

Thanks guys. I actually thought I knew the policy until I saw one person wear a mask and another not. One time I had a similar patient and got yelled at for not wearing one. I'm starting to see that where I work people kind of follow their own policy...

I was terrified of this very thing when I first started working. Mainly because that's what I experienced in clinicals. That's how I decided to work where I do. Not because of the type of floor or patient load, but because the nurses there are all wi...

I chose nursing to begin with because I needed a secure career where I would be able to advance and have lots of options. I had a child to provide for. I made the decision based on these things. However, once I got into it and started learning I figu...

So I really feel like I didnt learn very much at all about the placement of any type of access, but especially central lines and those used for dialysis. Every time I have a patient with a newly placed access I freak out and don't know what normal or...

I'm learning more and more how to make my own decisions based on what I know and have been taught. In most hospitals if you were to give something up to an hour or two before/after its due you would be fired. I have realized that where I work things ...

So I've been wondering how to decide what to give my patients who are prescribed a million things for pain. I had one that got dilaudid and morphine q2 prn, Percocet q4 pen, Ativan q8, and morphine po scheduled. There were times when they technically...

I had a patient come from ICU today with a 2 port PICC and one of them split. He had TPN in one port and protonix and dilaudid in the other that split. I always though TPN had to be in a PICC WITH nothing else going into it, even the other ports. Lik...

Hey guys! My friend said she had a pt who had an umbillical hernia with bloody stools and I'm trying to understand how that would happen. I know why hiatal would cause that, but can someone explain how this pt could be having that much blood in her s...

She didn't say if it had strangulated

I think the dr had told her that the patient wouldn't get a transfusion (due to her low h/h) because it was just a chronic problem from then hernia. She said that the patient had the hernia for a while. She came in to have it repaired but got pneumon...

Ok so Ive noticed a lot of nurses to this differently and I'm just trying to figure out a rule to go by. I never know when I should piggyback something with iv fluids or y it in under the pump to run with fluids. I know some things are better diluted...