Mebzone05

I got report from a nurse. Pt hemoglobin low, hypotensive, and dizzy. Labs were drawn hours ago. Blood ordered. I was told that the blood was ready during report. Nurse argued with me that she had too many patients and couldn't start blood. I advised nurse to start blood prior to transport. We went back and forth on the topic for a minute or so. I simply explained why the blood should be started. The other nurse refused and said that the patient was critical and the ICU needed to handle it. Pt is brought to me hypotensive, with one infiltrated IV, critically low hemoglobin, and no blood consent signed. The nurse then reported me to house sup, and I was told not to be mean to floor nurses during report. WOW!? About a week ago, I downgraded a patient to tele. I went back to my ICU and realized that I left pt belongings in the room. I walked the belongings down to the tele room. I walk in the room, and the confused pt that I just transported is sitting on the bed rail seconds away from falling. I get the pt back in bed and hit the call light. Nobody answers. I find a tech and they tell me they will alert the nurse. I stand there for another 5 mins. I leave and find a nurse and explained to them that the patient is going to fall and I need to go back to my floor. Another 5 mins pass before the nurse finally comes into the room. These are just two examples, I could honestly keep going. Would you guys continue to work for a hospital that you find to be unsafe? I've worked at 3 other hospitals and I've never encountered such low standards and nurses that didn't care about their patients.

I work in a medical ICU. This will be a little vague because I know other nurses I work with that post here. Yesterday, I had an issue where an order was never placed. There should have been labs drawn every 2-4 hours because the patient was on a drip that made these labs necessary. I didn't notice until 1800, I work normal day shift hours. The drip was started the previous day shift. So there were no labs drawn on the previous day shift as well as over night. I am not a huge fan of questioning orders. When I noticed, I brought this up with the provider. The provider was shocked and ordered the lab stat. I placed the order then went to gather supplies to draw the lab. After leaving the supply room, I witnessed the provider making fun of me with a nurse in the nurses station. I am not a MD, PA, or NP. The reason I even asked the provider without just drawing the lab is because the order needs to be for timed labs Q2 or Q4 and I wasn't okay with entering such an order without getting permission first. I didn't know if there was a reason that this order was intentionally not placed. This environment has seemed toxic for awhile and this is simply the latest example. I have been a nurse for 5 years and am currently working on my 4th unit. I do not want to continuously job hop but I don’t know what to do. This is the only unit where I have ever felt the need to constantly question other nurses and the providers. Is this normal? This is also the only unit that I have ever worked on where I feel as though my patients have been put in harms way. I hate this feeling and I am at the point that I am uncomfortable going to work. This is my first ICU job. Most of my experience is ED. Is it my job to search the orders for mistakes? Is this normal in an ICU? Also, the only reason I am in an ICU is for experience to get into an ACNP program that I want to attend. I simply don't think like an ICU nurse. My year experience that I need will be completed in May. Should I tough it out? Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Update: Just accepted a job at a level 1 trauma center MICU/neuro ICU. Closer to my house and better pay. Also got an interview for a level 1 trauma center ED but I think that I want to give ICU a try.

Well, a part that I left out is that nearly a year of my ER time was on night shift. The problems started once I switched to day shift. I believe that there are simply too many nurses fighting for the critical care zone which is only staffed with two nurses a shift. The senior nurses, and the ones that have been on day shift for longer seem to get special treatment. One of our techs literally refuses to work anywhere besides the critical zone which they likely allow due to our high turnover.

Yep. We have no clue what zone we will be in until 5 mins before our shift starts.

All I do is study and watch Youtube videos for skills but I don't have any chance to apply anything in real life. I can't retain the information or skill if I can't actually use it in practice. All of this studying has been a huge waste of my time. I'm studying for my CEN right now.

I have been a nurse for almost 4 years. I have 1 year med surg experience, 1 year obs, and the rest in an ER. We have four zones. One is an urgent care type zone, a medium acuity zone, psych zone, and our critical zone. My first couple of months I pretty much had to beg to get into the critical zone. A year later, I am pretty much in the urgent care or psych zone every shift. I feel completely unprepared anytime I am in the medium acuity or critical zone which only happens once every few months. My skills have gotten worse, my time management is worse, and I am scared to work with high acuity patients at this point. I don't know what to do. I don't know if I'm making any sense, sorry If I'm not clear. I am asked to do things that I've never done, give meds I've never heard of, and be a part of codes when I rarely get any experience in them. It's terrifying. I feel as though I need to start all over. I feel like I wasn't properly trained. I am contemplating leaving nursing all together. I feel like I have absolutely no clue what I'm doing with high acuity patients. I feel like I am a danger to these patients. I almost feel as though I need to redo orientation. Any advice would be appreciated!

My wife is a special education teacher and I am an ER nurse. After every shift I rant about my day to her on my 30 minute drive home. She does the same and we usually end up laughing. We both have extremely stressful jobs. Once I'm home, we don't mention work. Imo, having someone to vent to is necessary for what we do. You should have a long conversation with your husband about the stress that comes with this job. If he simply doesn't want to hear about it, find a female nurse coworker that will listen. Medical professionals love to share stories, almost as much as soldiers. It shouldn't be hard to find a coworker with a similar issue.

My ED would never do this. Sounds horrible.

I wouldn't bother with the TNCC. You need to sit down and really think hard about your career. It sounds to me like you are needed at home. PRN as a new nurse is a bad idea. Experience is what makes you a better nurse. You can get a bunch of certs but they are worthless if you don't have any real experience to apply the knowledge to.

This is true. Don't pay to much attention to what level a trauma center is. I have friends that work at a level 1 and I take care of higher acuity patients more often at a level 3.

This will just make things worse. Nothing will happen to the Doc. Either change jobs or deal with it.

I work in a decent size level 3 ER. A week ago they canceled all of our travelers contracts. We have at least one nurse a night get sent home early. Some nights we have maybe 3 or 4 patients in the entire ER, other nights we get slammed.

I think that you need to pick one thing that is most important to you and let that be your deciding factor when choosing a job. You wanted to learn more but chart less, the job has to be day shift, and you have to work 5 minutes away from your house. It seems like you are looking for a dream job. I always wanted to be an ER Nurse. I work nights which I hate, and drive 45 minutes to work. I pass by three other hospitals on my way to work. ER nursing takes a very specific personality to succeed. It isn't something that I'd advice anyone to randomly apply for simply to work day shift. It is nothing like the ICU. If you want to work in the ICU than either work nights, change hospitals, or wait until a day shift position opens up.

I live in Arizona and I'm confused as to what np school I should attend. I read online that for profit and online only schools are looked down upon. Everyone says that you should go to a "real university." Well GCU and University of Phoenix are the only two NP schools in the state that have on campus lecture, both of which happen to be for profit. University of Arizona and ASU only have DNP programs which cost double the price and are nearly all online. There are no non profit brick and mortar np schools in Arizona. For many reasons, I can't relocate. Anyone from AZ currently working as an NP? What school did you attend? Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.