klmartin08

Hearing alarms. I can hear the faintest squak at the end of hall or even in other patients rooms. Everyone is always commenting how crazy it is I can hear them so well

First thank you kindly for the insult. I've worked long term care for 5 years now and it is challenging. We work in an environment that is long term and difficult. You make actual bonds with you patients and this can be one of the most brutal situations when the end comes. Also, we have to be able to notice and intervene when things are going wrong for a patient without the incredible amount of resources of a hospital. We also handle a huge amount of responsibility at work, I've had 50 patients I was responsible for during a shift. QMAs are amazing but not nurses. I've learned more about wound vacs, peritoneal dialysis, and wound care than a number of my hospital nurse friends. They're often impressed with my abilities in areas they would call in a team to handle. I cannot believe you are arrogant enough to post something like this. I am rather new to this site and don't post often, but this really touched a nerve. If you don't have any pride in your work or respect for your peers, keep it to yourself please.

For most nursing programs algebra is a prereq to get in. Often only an a/b grade is acceptable, at least in this area.

yes. I heard this in the first few months of nursing and many many times since then. Also, always open a window after they pass to let the spirit out just in case. And, death usually comes in 3's or 7's.

One more story, for the moment. This isn't a ghost story, but a very touching story. I had been a nurse about 6 months when I had my first death on my shift. She was a decently confused lady, who sometimes was very friendly, or combative. She always, always, always though maintained her love of God and her Catholic faith, and her love for her departed husband. Anyways, she had gone downhill very quickly when her daughter went out of town for vacation (go figure). She was combative, biting at people, just .... sad. She was having a major bout of SOB, so I administered a PRN breathing treatment, which was a feat in itself at this point. My CNA helped me administer it for the full 15 minutes, and I just had a very strong feeling to pray for my resident. I too was raised Catholic. I told my CNA to go ahead, I'd be out soon. I was already kneeling next to her bed, so I just started praying...I glanced up at this woman, who put her hands up to the crucifix on her wall and her face towards it. Her hands fell from lack of strength most likely, I quickly put my head back down, but could not resist another look. She again stretched her arms towards the crucifix, and I felt this presence come over me. I bowed my head and closed my eyes. I couldn't move, but I could feel this intense and overwhelming sensation through my entire body and in the room around us. It is hard to describe, it was intense, hot but not burning (if that makes sense) and absolutely overwhelming. After what felt like an eternity, but was probably a few seconds, the presence lifted from me, and I looked up at this woman. She was gone. I know for certain it was the Holy Spirit/Jesus/Angel/God coming to collect her and take her somewhere better. I couldn't move for several minutes, I was just completely overwhelmed and somewhat in shock at this experience. Another CNA stopped in to see what was happening, and said, "Oh no, she's gone." I started crying due to the overwhelming experience I had just endured, and it took me several minutes to get myself together. I feel extraordinarily blessed to have been honored with being able to share in that experience on that level. I haven't had that happen again, but I don't know if I need/want to. I know there's an afterlife, and I just pray I get to go where she did.

I have had many strange experiences in my life, even before becoming a nurse. My grandma says I'm just gifted (haha) like her. Anyways, when I first started working at a LTC facility, I would feel someone walk behind me in the halls, and my hair would move...no one there. Once I was preparing meds around 12am, and felt someone poke my back, and the hall was empty. I saw a figure in two different places in a residents room out of the corner of my eye. I never once said anything to my resident, but a week later she began having nightmares about a man all in black in those two exact places who was trying to get her. I borrowed some blessed oil from a resident and prayer for Jesus, God, and the Holy Spirit to cleanse that room. She did not have anymore nightmares after that. Once, at a different LTC, my CNA went on break, leaving me alone on the assisted living floor. I heard a door slam, and went to investigate only to find nothing disturbed, all residents in their beds, etc. I went back to my desk to finish charting when I heard someone walking down the hallway with their walker towards my station. The very clear distinct sound of them walking continued around the corner, in front of me.....there was not a soul there. I don't spook easy, but that was a little shocking to say the least. I shut the door to the office/station, and turned up the radio in the room, and radioed my CNA asking her how much longer till she would be back XD sometimes my co-workers tease me that I'm just full of it, then sometimes they'll have something weird happen to THEM and apologize

As hospitals become graded more and more by patient satisfaction surveys I wonder if nurses find it better to have the designated IV team to do the job. At our hospital the urology department cracked down on infections from ER inserted foleys, making a second person watch your every move for sterility. Practical idea.. So, the nurses started paging the urology team for every insertion. Infection rates changed only slightly ...but often floor nurses find its easier to call in the team for whatever than deal with possible negative consequences down the road, being at fault or not.

There are some you can treat with All the warmth of the sun and they'll still berate and degrade you. I believe that if there was a more REALISTIC view on the profession and what should be expected of nurses you wouldn't see such a need for a big attitude adjustment. Instead of making 7 family members comfy and running around like a chicken with its head cut off, nurses should be focused on the actual sick patient. I am more than happy to do any and all medical based treatments and etc for my patients, but being a personal butler for them and their families does not count. There is a difference to giving good service with a smile vs. Smiling and enjoying being abused. Hostility usually comes into play when one begins to get fed up with systematic abuse from patients, familes, and administrators.

As a long term care nurse my patient to nurse ratio almost every night I work is 40-something to 1. Long term care is scoffed at by some, but when you are the only nurse on the unit with one QMA and 2 CNAs, it tends to burn you out and put the fear of everything into you. My health has plummeted and I find myself more negative in almost every aspect of my life in some way shape or form. Some days are better than others, and some co-workers are better than others. I love a number of my patients, but am seeing more and more late 40's and 50 year olds who destroyed their bodies and want us to save them....of course that means being at their beck and call 24/7, and putting up with ever increasing abuse from them. Then there are the ones who abuse the system that make me so mad I can't see straight. I long for a facility filled without someone like this. The OP obviously has have THEIR fair share of crap and did something about it. they changed the negatives into positives at least. I myself am constantly keeping an ear out for a good job behind a desk after the stuff I've put up with myself.

Amen!

What do you mean night shift doesn't do assessments? Every nurse on Every shift should assess their patients! If you don't bother to go look and seriously once over your patients you really need to reevaluate your ideas of What nursing is. Also, I have had admissions at 9:30pm-10pm from the hospital to my nursing home. I have to do a complete admission by myself as the only nurse on my unit with 53 patients, including arranging pharmacy deliveries after hours. I as a night nurse am constantly finding orders not finished or papers stuck everywhere that are actually important that need to be addressed or labs unaddressed. Also, as a night nurse with 1 QMA and 2 CNAs for all these patients I am often doing check and changes, toileting people, and dealing with emergencies on top of regular charting and etc. As a night nurse I can promise you i have learned an exceptional amount of information from dealing with something i have never seen before and having no management there to help me to making those snap decisions that can mean life or death for my residents. I have had to sharpen my clinical evaluation skills 100 fold so I can know when I go home I did all I can. And I have no idea what hospitals at night are like but if you want to believe night shift nurses do nothing or are lazy, go work in a nursing home or long care center filled with behavior residents and tell me there isn't much for us to do and we just check in with sleeping patients every hour or so. Again as the only nurse on the unit I am the one there to handle any and all emergencies and have to wake I don't know how many sleeping doctors when they pop up and we all know that can be a pretty terrifying thing to do depending on who is the on call. I am sorry if this post seems rather terse but this stigma is seriously annoying and rather hurtful anymore.

Okay. I have been a nurse for almost four years. Not very long in the scope of things, I know. I also know that I am young and if I am going to make this decision it's now. Lately I've been feeling more and more uneasy with what nursing has turned into and what it should be. I knew it wouldn't be easy, and I knew it was a very difficult job sometimes. I cannot take another piece of paperwork though. Almost every day I hear about a new policy from state or corporate and some other piece of paperwork is added to the never ending land of paperwork and computer charting. There are things that get charted 4x maybe more, by the time things are said and done. I know in school they really advocated not double charting due to the liability it can cause, so what the heck is quadruple charting doing!? Nursing school was way too hard to risk my license this way dang it. Also, between all this computer crap (in my opinion) and paperwork I really find the lack of time in have left over to spend time with patients disheartening. I have worked in two nursing home/rehabilitation places now and I know I spend less and less time with my residents than I like no matter I try. You can only cram so much into a shift. I am seriously thinking of going in a different direction soon. I'm 25 and capable of doing it, I just would like some advice. Thank you.

I graduated a few years ago myself. A. as others have asked, didn't you realize nursing is a profession of self sacrifice? B. You can find jobs at doctors offices but they don't pay as well. One office offered me $12/hr. Nope. Floor nursing atm for me being new still is $20. It various on the area you live in. C. You love your family. That's wonderful. Think about your patients who don't get to go home and need your help. They're stuck away from everything they are used to and all sense of normalcy. Some patients don't even have family that care enough to visit. You have chosen a line of work that requires a whole lot of sacrifice and compassion. Also yeah, get ready for night shift. I love it personally but as the bottom of the totem pole expect to be treated as such. I am really confused by all these people in various lines of work who think they will graduate and somehow be handed what others work years for. Do you honestly not know how real life works!? Another note: don't be afraid to choose a different career especially if you're young. This is not for the faint of heart.