gemmi999

Hi~ I was asked to meet with my hospital's compliance officer today. When I asked my manager what it was about she stated she didn't know, but not to worry about it. I was getting ready to leave for the meeting when i was texted it was cancelled and ...

Give her a call and just inquire, gently, about the status of the job. My last interview I thought I for sure bombed, a week after the interview I hadn't heard anything. I called and they said they were about to call me (which, eh, probably not true)...

I second what another post said about looking in Riverside. I graduated in 2015 from a school in SD. I didn't want to wait for the new grad cycle to start up (approx. 5 months from graduation date) so I applied to smaller hospitals in San Bernardino...

Pick up a per diem job in California if you're after the pay. Group your days together once a month and fly in and out, do as many shifts as you can. Work at a hospital in Florida the rest of the time. Per Diem pays way more, the hospital job in f...

Do you have a union representative? A copy of your evaluation? Any write ups or previous meetings regarding issues ranging from more then a year ago? It does sound like they are trying to fire you/set up cause to fire you because of either expense or...

I have a genuine question for my ER nurse peeps out there. Today I was the float/circulator in my ER. My day was spent triaging ambulance runs, stabilizing unstable patients, discharging patients, repeat. Our ER has a 4 to 1 ratio. ALL DAY LONG on...

I don't think nursing is a calling. I specifically chose nursing, and then specifically chose ER nursing because it is a steady job, with a good paycheck, that has the ability to get overtime on a regular basis compared to med/surg nursing. There is...

It does come with time. I started in the ER at a small, community hospital. 10 weeks into my orientation I was told that I wasn't "getting it" with regards to the critical patients and they wanted me to spend a month in ICU getting more critical ca...

A lot of good comments above, I don't have much to add. 1) You survived your (assumed) first RRT! There is a reason Rapid Response Teams exist--to prevent Code Blues. Your patient didn't code, you called a rapid because you recognized the change in...

My favorite is the kid's that come to the ER with stomach pain with their entire mouth covered in bright red dust. The parents then want to know why we aren't doing a blood test/ct scan for their obviously ill child who has "appendicitis" who is smi...

Sometimes I really wonder. I know nursing is a female dominated profession, and in general females are paid less then men. Part of it is society and the glass ceiling but part of it is how we are conditioned to view work and our place within the wo...

My workplace currently uses a breaker nurse. It is helpful but at the same time the Charge RN views the breaker as an extra set of hands and will routinely pull them from breaking to assist with critical patient's that come into the ER. I couldn't i...

That is what scares me. You literally just typed in that you haven't had an unstable patient. You haven't had to critically think about it/call the doctor/call the rapid team/intubate/upgrade the patient. That indicates that you're probably getting...

I think a lot depends on your temperament. During nursing school clinical's I *hated* ICUs, all of them without question. I hated NICU/PICU/Cardiac ICU. I didn't like how sick the patient was, how emotional the family was, etc. I did 1 shift in t...

Everyone has said it better then I can say it, but basically try not to screw over the next nurse (no matter what shift). Make sure all meds have been administered, nothing is going to run dry/overflow (IVF, chest tubes, etc), and VS have been charte...

My first piece of advice? Don't say that again. The cop did have a reason to pull you over--you were driving while impaired. Fact--most people pulled over for DUIs aren't driving erratic, they're driving *slower* then the flow of traffic because they...

I literally click a few boxes and hope I remember if I did it in the right or left deltoid, etc. I'm horrible at remembering left vs right being inverted for pt's.

I've seen quite a few cases in my ER. The way the doctor explains it best is that the patient is allergic to MJ. Not quite true but pt's understand allergy and to avoid repeated exposure. Haldol works *wonders* on this! More then the typical antieme...

It really depends. When we get a call that a code 3 is coming in to one of my beds (or really any bed, now that I think about it) I ensure the room is getting prepared by a tech. But then I round on my other patients, take care of the little things,...

I'm still stuck on the fact that RNs can't do EKG's at your ER. I can't count the number of EKGs I do, if a tech is splinting someone/transporting someone/not available/called out sick. When I'm in triage and need a stat EKG, I try to get a tech to...

A bunch of people have commented above about what you can say in the interview, so I'm not going to comment on that. I just want to tell you not to let that dumb unit get you down. When I was a new grad in ER, our ER director changed 3 times in 12 we...

Do not decide that you hate your foley catheter and try to take it out yourself--By cutting the catheter about 1 inch from where it leaves your penis. The nurse will not be able to deflate the balloon, the urine will still keep coming out but there...

ER is full of different personalities. There are definitely the loud/brash personalities but introverts can thrive there too! Biggest thing is team work. Offer to help others because it creates good karma and there will definitely be shifts where you...

The only time I've used ubags are when 1) I straight cath'd a kid but no urine output for whatever reason. I place the ubag until I try again in approx. 30 - 45 minutes, just in case they urinate in that time. It can be helpful for determining how ...

I'm polite with most of our ED patient's to a degree. I don't remember names well, so it's always "ma'am" or "sir" when I talk to them. If they're being PIA, I will tell them to stop it in a firm voice. I has told more then one patient that they aren...