KarenMS

One shift as a sitter, which is most definitely in our scope? Absolutely. Last fall I had to do ER transport for 12 hours overnight because they were short RNs, so they couldn’t leave to transport critical patients. I was the best paid transporter on that night ?

Just apply. As long as you have a license, then you’re “eligible.” It all depends on who’s hiring. The manager who hired me liked hiring new grads into ICU, because she had been one herself. You could run into a manger who doesn’t like to do that and chooses someone else, but that comes down to specific individuals. Same for if this is experience you already have; you could end up interviewing with someone looking for very specific background or they’re looking for a new grad, or whatever.

To the phone point: I graduated in 2017, and it was made very clear to us that we *had* to have a phone or other handheld device with us at clinical, with the app they gave us (I can’t for the life of me remember what it was called!) to look up meds and procedures. I’d much rather students look stuff up on their phone than monopolize one of the precious computers that were already fighting specialists, PT, speech, and social work for.

I always thought I would hate having students, but now that I’ve had a few, I either love it or just don’t mind. The couple I’ve loved have been an extra set of hands and I just explain stuff as I’m doing it. The ones who I just didn’t mind, didn’t really seem too interested in doing anything, but I really couldn’t care less about that. It’s their education and if they disappear, well, whatever.

Does everyone else have a couple people on stand by who are available at the drop of a hat every single day and could be at the school in 20 minutes? How does that work? Do people without family pay someone to be on call everyday just in case? I have lots of people to call who would be happy to go pick up my kids, but they have lives too and may take an hour...

I would absolutely not do that. “Sorry, can’t, good night!”

It hasn’t happened to me yet, but I’m not sure what I’ll do if one of my daughters gets sick on a day I’m at work at the hospital, her dad is working in another state, and my in laws (sitters) are out of town. Luckily that perfect storm hasn’t happened yet, and I’ve been home and readily available for pickup the couple of times I’ve had to. I have a lot of people I can call on to go get the girls, but they might not be able to do it *right that second* and my daughter may end up waiting a bit.

That’s soo crazy to me as I spend all my time desperately keeping my patients from coding (yes, I’m an ICU nurse who hates codes!)

I find most of us just get used to 12s, and it stops feeling like an excessively long shift. I’d much rather have the extra days off than feel like I’m going in to work most of the week.

I’m an RN and got pulled to do transport for the ER one night. Not exactly what I wanted to do all night, but I took the low stress, low responsibility of being a very well paid transporter for what it was. It was just one shift ?‍♀️

If I were happy with my salary and not stressed out, I would just stay where I was while I finished school.

I don't know why people think "not having a filter" is a good qualit

I’m coming up on 2 years on my unit and starting now to not feel “new.”

We call all the residents by their first names, and the nurses who have been around a while call the attendings by their first names too. I haven’t reached that level of comfort yet with the attendings, but also some of the nurses may have been around when the attendings were residents, and that’s the only way they’ve ever related.

That was my thought, but if the docs D/C’d it they must have thought her reasoning was sound enough.

This isn’t a med error; there’s nothing to report. You did a good job critically thinking about the med vs patient condition and brought up a concern to the doc, who agreed with you and then discontinued the order. This patient more than likely even took Tylenol on their own at home.

We have an IV med administration guide on our hospital intranet that addresses where in the hospital certain meds can be administered (only critical care areas, OR, etc), dosing, rates. It’s very helpful, but when things aren’t addressed, I am a heavy pharmacy caller.

Not judging the mistake, because they happen of course. Just curious how the little girl got more than 210 even if you hadn’t changed the dose. Wouldn’t you just have put 210ml in the bag if that was the intended flush? Edit: never mind, I’m thinking you must just have a large bag that you fill once a day and it pulls from that? At my Peds facility, we use smaller bags that we refill all day with each feed and flush, so that’s where my head was.

There’s a terrible facility near me, and my hospital often gets patients from them in pretty rough shape. I don’t blame the nurses or aides; I’m pretty sure they’re doing the best with what they’re given to work with. To brand them “uncaring” without ever working with them would be a huge leap. I consider myself a “good” nurse too but who knows how I’d fare under different circumstances. It’s easy to be good with the right support.

Hopefully once you’ve developed your nursing judgment a little more, you won’t melt down over something like a lapsed nystatin order. It’s sort of over the top to consider this failing your patient, and having that level of anxiety isn’t great for your decision making/patients either.

I followed my sick pregnant patient to L&D, witnessed her lady partsl birth, and brought her back to ICU. Came back a couple of days later to read every doctor’s note referring to her C-section.

Starting IVs is a task; I have NO issue with CNAs being trained in that task. I’m an ICU RN and some of my IVs go bad fairly quickly ?‍♀️ Its the RNs job to assess them and that won’t change. Its really not that special of a skill that we have to hold on to it for sake of pride or whatever.

Everyone made it seem like math was going to be impossible in nursing school, but it truly was no big deal. They’ll generally show you a few different ways of doing the calculations and you can figure out what works best for you. The best thing you can do is really concentrate on what you’re trying to do rather than on memorizing formulas, if that makes sense. Meaning, what are you trying to figure out rather than where to plug numbers...

So, 1.) I don’t really believe this person got their BSN, worked as a med-surg nurse for 3 years plus home health and then graduated medical school by 26, despite the “graduated earlier” story. 2.) I’ve never seen any nurses be actually be mean to new residents, ever. We know they’re going to be there for years; we want to make friends. For the record, questioning orders isn’t the same as being mean.

Kind of lol-ing at the idea that anyone from the BON is trolling this site for untrustworthy new grads with anonymous user names ?