midnighter94

People often underestimate the intensity of the OB unit ? That being said, hang in there! OB has its own language, its own rhythm, it takes awhile to get acclimated to all the ins & outs, but you'll get there. Orientation is long for a reason; there's a lot to learn. You're responsible for 2 (sometimes 3) patients. You're paying attention to so many things, all at the same time. No one will expect you to know everything by the time orientation is done, but they will expect you to know where to look for help, how to manage your time, when to ask for help. Ask questions, that's OK! If you have an early labor, then jump into someone else's delivery - offer to help. Draw gases, watch resuscitation, step into the scary, offer to start IV's ... all of the things.

According to JCAHO, you can give 1 tablet or 2 tablets every 4 hours, BUT not both...you can't give 1 tablet then give another 1 tablet. If you give 1 tablet, you then have to wait the full 4 hours before the next dose. They actually don't want orders to have a range on them, they'd rather the dose be specific (1 tablet or 2 tablets, but not up to the nurse to decide). I would talk to the doctor and have the order changed to 2 tablets every 4 hours. Also, is there any other medications being given? Robaxin? Something non-narcotic?

At our hospital we're allowed to look at our test results but not allowed to print them. We're also allowed to look at minor children (under age 13 I think), but not spouses or older children. We also have mychart, where you can access all of your labs & tests.

Keep trying! Reach out, try to find out the manager's names on the floors and see if you can directly email your resume to them. Sometimes the HR department is not fabulous at getting resumes where they need to get to. Don't rule out specialty departments, such as cardiac or ICU. Go to job fairs. Know that you will be working midnight shift - at least for awhile. Do not say that you can't! That's a huge red flag. Work it out, find a sitter, whatever it takes. On a medical floor, it probably won't be for too long. When you get an interview, dress appropriately, be early, ask something, anything - I hate when we do peer interviews and the person has no questions for us. How long is orientation? Is it just with 1 preceptor, or multiple?

I've worked in OB for 24 years and we've recently hired our first male nurse. When we interviewed him, we raised the question of 'will there be more work for co-workers/charge nurse?' as in will we need to chaperone him during foleys/pushing/breast feeding etc. ? Orientation is over, things have gone well, patients love him and no patients have complained about having a male nurse. Suddenly we've gotten notice from HR that he is to be chaperoned during foleys, exams, breast feeding - that when the baby is placed skin-to-skin with the mom, he shouldn't lurk, he should be given only bottle-feeding mothers; that all staff need to ask patients if they want a chaperone prior to any exams - even if it's female staff performing the exam. Yes, we normally accompany the physicians when they do the exams, but most of the time it's more so that we can document - there has never been a policy that said they had to be accompanied. It's like HR has turned what we do into a sexual thing! One of the questions I asked was, do male nurses on the medical floors need a chaperone to place a foley? - no, they don't, not officially - if the patient is a 'young female and the nurse feels that the patient would be uncomfortable, then he may request a chaperone.' So yes, I am for the first time in my career, seeing gender bias.

Thank you for sharing! My final straw was when my ex hit me when I was holding my son - I thought I didn't want him to grow up thinking that it was ok. I worked for several months at a car wash, drying cars for $3.50/hour cash + tips. I moved to a not-so-great neighborhood to a 1 bedroom apartment where I shared a twin-sized racecar bed with my son. I didn't even have a couch. I also had a 12 year old dog with me, he was my shoulder to cry on. It was the scariest time of my life! A month later, the garage at the house where our apartment was, was lit on fire. About a year later I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and had to have surgery, then radioactive iodine therapy. I had 5 surgeries in total, but have been cancer-free for 25 years. A year after that, I started college. My son was 8 when I graduated nursing school. He was 11 when I finally married a great guy.

As a mother, yes. And stop automatically blaming the parents! When my son was first diagnosed as ADHD and put on Ritalin (1992), I was still in college and hadn't even started the nursing program yet. But as a parent, I wanted whatever was best for my son. He had been put on home-bound teaching in kindergarten mostly because he was bored and the teacher wouldn't/didn't individualize her teaching and he would act out. That summer he went through testing with several different types of doctors, who also reviewed his birth records and his school records and tested his IQ. They then recommended Ritalin which our family doctor prescribed: 5mg at breakfast, lunch & 4pm - to help with homework. I didn't ask him for this, this is how he wrote it. However, a few months later I noticed that my son was having a difficult time getting to sleep at night, so the 4pm dose stopped.

Well, mine's a little bit different perspective because I work labor & delivery. 1) Drug use in pregnancy - huge issue lately! Yes, we have the casual use of marijuana, and we have to do a social work consult for them, too. But you would be surprised by how many women are doing so much more! We often have women that are taking Subutex/Suboxone/Methadone. Those babies often stay with us for up to a month or so, being medicated with morphine to help them with their withdrawals. It's difficult not to get angry with these women. 2) OB is the area of medicine that has the most lawsuits, so we always have to be careful with what we say, what we do, that we follow medication policies exactly. Getting called into a deposition is not fun! Even if the hospital has done nothing wrong, if what went wrong was only the patient's fault, chances are she'll get a check. 3) We sometimes have patients come in with no prenatal care at all. Once again, you can't judge them, you have to treat them just as nice as everyone else. They get the best of care, a private room, etc. And they are usually the most rude to the staff. 4) Termination of pregnancy. Ah..that's a big one, and tricky! The hospital by-laws don't allow for abortions, so we don't perform those, but sometimes a pregnancy may be incompatible with life; or her membranes are leaking, it's not a viable pregnancy and there are signs of infection; there are times that labor needs to be induced before the pregnancy is viable & I've seen nurses refuse to take care of the patient because they didn't believe the doctor, maybe he was just making up the reason. 5) Not resuscitating a newborn - depending on how many weeks it is. Viability is considered 24 weeks, but it's getting younger all the time. We have neonatology speak with the patient about the risks and the odds, and sometimes they want everything done despite the odds of survival, or sometimes they don't.

One evening while trying to finish up the admission papers on a laboring 17 year old (she was just in early labor, but not dealing well with it), she wanted to know how much longer it was going to take. I told her I was on the last page and then had to start her IV. She then called me a "f&%@ing b%@$&!" So I calmly picked up all of my papers and told her that when she was ready to finish up to just let me know and I walked out of triage. I heard her mom on the phone saying, "right now the nurse is refusing to take care of her." Yes, I am! I didn't put her in that situation and I didn't deserve to be called names. And I couldn't believe she didn't say anything to her daughter for talking to me like that! I waited about 5 minutes or so before I went back in and the girl apologized so I could finish. The best part of everything, though, was that after she was moved to her room and settled in, by the time she got her IV bolus for her epidural, she was too far along to get it! She ended up delivering with nothing for pain. Karma!

I've been a Registered Nurse for 21 years in the Midwest. When I started I was making almost $15/hour plus shift differential for midnight shift. At the facility I'm at now I've been at the top of the pay scale for awhile, which is just over $37/hour. So over the course of my career I would say, yes, I am happy with the way my pay has risen. But, the starting pay is now about $27/hour. So that means there is only a range of about $10 between new grads and nurses with tons of experience and I think that's sad. We're not getting compensated for our experience and loyalty. In the past 7 years we've gotten 2 raises. We're getting one next month, but those of us at the top of the pay scale are not getting anything, not even a one-time check. And every year our costs go up - our insurance is more expensive, our co-pays, we now have deductibles that we never used to have; there's a spousal surcharge for insurance (eg: my husband has insurance available at his work but opts not to take it and I have him on my insurance, I am charged $46/per paycheck for him). We miss holidays, birthdays, family get-togethers, school functions and so many other things because we are working. Yes, we make good money, but we work hard! We come home physically and emotionally exhausted. And maybe many of us "only" work 3 days a week, but in those 3 days we put in just as many hours as most people put in in 5 days at their jobs. We don't get benefits when we retire since we're not union, so no insurance, and hopefully we've put enough into our retirement plans. I love my job, and I can't even imagine doing anything else. I'm always proud to say I'm a nurse.

I've seen it - their palms even get red & itchy. Pharmacy just tells us to run it even slower, even though we had it on a pump to start with. It's not a true allergic reaction, and they do seem to be ok with the subsequent doses.

Well, for the past 1 1/2 years we've been using computerized charting, so it's easier. But before that, the ed was and no one else was. So to "look it up" was not so easy to do. Their charting was a mess and difficult to decipher, often you couldn't find where things were charted at, or they were charted multiple times in multiple places. Now we're all using the same charting, so that helps. And have a little courtesy! You should be able to tell the other nurse at least the basics about the patient you are sending. It always seems like they wait until after shift change to have the on-coming nurse call report to the floor, which makes no sense to me...that nurse doesn't have the answers right off the top of their head.

I've worked OB for over 20 years and sometimes I get the most satisfaction out of the smallest tasks like just helping a patient clean up who's been in bed for a few days. They appreciate it so much. I never want to hear a nurse say she's above cleaning up a patient or making a bed! That happened to a friend just days before being diagnosed with cancer..a nurse criticized her for making a mess in the bed..boy was that nurse lucky I wasn't around!