TeleRN44

Able bodied male patients who are suddenly incapable of using their arms to place their own twig into the urinal. I'm not referring to pleasantly demented older gentlemen or a younger guy post operatively. I'm talking about your run of the mill, aler...

I was a care tech for six plus years before I became an LVN/LPN. I was an LVN/LPN for eight years before I became an RN. I've wiped my fair share of butt, given baths galore and will continue to do so as I work in the ICU and care techs are like unic...

I've had a few patients say some truly shocking things. One truly heinous patient managed to alienate the entire staff, not just myself, with her racial comments. She was a handful and would shriek a constant flow of cuss words as her mother stood by...

I understand not liking long ED waits and all, BUT lying simply to be seen faster and wasting the ER staff's valuable time is a pathological condition all by itself. Someone with a true medical condition and legitimate need could potential end up wai...

More staffing sounds like a simple solution but not every facility, especially considering the ever growing culture of doing more with less...to include people, is going to jump at the idea of hiring more staff because it means spending more money. T...

I wish you the best of luck and I pray that your luck changes or holds (perspective, I guess.) Just as the Dean at your nursing school gave you the benefit of the doubt and allowed you to prove the true worth of your character...I have no doubt you w...

Wow...you couldn't be more judgmental OR more wrong if you tried! There certainly isn't anything wrong with MY time management skills as it is the Physician who is running 1 1/2 to 2 hours behind. He ran that far behind BEFORE he hired me and he runs...

I am too...especially due to the lasix and topamax I have to take for chronic health issues. I recently changed positions and my new boss (an MD) expects us to work for hours on end with no break...no drink, no potty. Insane. It's one of the (sooo ...

I love your list and actually have a playlist on my iPod named "Going to Work" that has several of the songs you mentioned. I would add the following: The Freaks Come Out At Night by Whodini "And nine times out of ten they drive you nuts" Insane in ...

This applies to no particular patient but an occurrence: we get OODLES of phone calls from either 1) the hospital operator or 2) what I suspect is the 911 operator after sun-downing patients have made the ever popular "Help, I'm being held hostage/ag...

I'd have to say...in your position...neither. Both remind me of what we dump out of urinals/catheter bags (amount of head on the top, of course, varies on degree of renal failure). In your position? I recommend a nice Moscato d'Asti...live a little, ...

I'll be honest, there aren't a whole bunch of places that are hiring THIS (Illinois) side of the river for LPN positions, unless you're looking for something in a physician's office or possibly in a nursing home. Many of the hospitals are moving away...

I worked on an end-stage dementia unit and there was a sweet little old lady across from the nurse's station with a serious poop fixation. I didn't realize how bad until Valentine's Day rolled around... The aide came out of her room and told me somet...

A PCT came to the nurse's station and stated that she needed help down the hallway. It was just after midnight and things had just quieted down. We had just started to open our charts and frankly, there was nothing in the tone of her voice that ra...

Hospitals...the only place where we can, more or less, tell what might or might not be growing in your bodily fluids based on smell alone...or whether or not you're bleeding. C-diff poo? :poop: Pseudomomas pee?

Thank you to the OP for an insightful article on what, sadly, appears to be a insidious problem. I went nursing school with a student who it was discovered, shortly before graduation, was not only telling a few online communities that she actively H...

In my experience, dementia seems, more often that not, to exacerbate the less flattering attributes of an individual's personality. On our floor, when they start to sundown...they hit, scratch, kick, bite, scream, punch, kick or weep hysterically wit...

Ouch, while I can understand this point of view, I don't feel that this response is at all fair to the OP. She, too, is trying to do the best for her patient population and her co-workers. If there is blame to be directed at someone or something, the...

Students don't do prep at our facility...but I'm always stymied by the select few who wander through with Go-Go dancer make up and their hair down like they've rushed in from a shoot in a heavy metal music video. It soooo makes me want to drag each a...

Our facility uses those lovely "tracker jackers" (as we affectionately call them...NOT) and they're considered "part of our uniform" and therefore mandatory each shift we work. There are two philosophies behind their use though...the first is call l...

Thank you for sharing your story and I'm glad you were able to turn such a painful, frightening experience into something positive. I have come to believe that there is a certain perspective gained, when you've had to spend a little time on the "oth...

Yanno, Coumadin isn't all bad and this is coming from someone who has had to take it on a daily basis for the last four years. I like it a whole lot better than the alternative for me...death without warning. The upshot is that I get to give better p...

Thank you for the valuable information on Kindred...I had been wondering about them as well. I'm all for a vigorous and thorough orientation but have no desire to be worked until I drop or quit in an environment where the philosphy the almighty dolla...

I work for one of BJC's 13 hospitals. As a new nurse, all I can say is awful. My nurse manager bullies and threatens to the point where morale on my floor is a joke and the staff is busy throwing each other under the bus in an effort to save themse...

You're completely right! It can be quite difficult to come up with an engaging topic to present to the floor nurses, who truly may not want to sit through yet another student nurse presentation. However, as idealistic as student nurses may come acro...