littlespitfire

I'm a millennial and I carry minimum 4 pens, a sharpie, a highlighter and a dry erase... most of which I lose and re- find over a 12 hour shift, no less than hourly. I buy my inkjoy pens in bulk boxes of 30, and have converted many on my unit to thes...

OH!!! and another- doc has stethoscope on pt's chest, right over heart, turns to look at me and says "can you get a pulse for me?"

oh another! on call doc paged about combative pt- gave IM orders, then started laughing and said "good luck with that"

Doc: *peers over desk to see what we are all looking at* "how do you read that? It's horrible!" Nurses: *all look at him, stunned* one nurse said "well, you wrote it, so..." same doc after his signature was confused for another doc's "his is CLEARLY ...

Our night shift new grad hires get 3 weeks on days and 3 weeks on nights after they complete a classroom portion of orientation... we are a mix of both RN and LPN... The only 5 things so far I've not been able to do is 1) insert an IV.. I can draw bl...

60 bed unit here- subacute/ rehab... days theres 4 floor nurses, 7 CNAs, 1 nurse assistant (cbg, helps with admits, daily weights etc) 1 admissions nurse, and in house wound care and NP. we also have in house PT doc and his NP, but they also have a c...

blood draws! if I can feel it, I can hit it. And... poop. I have long skinny alien fingers, and have been dubbed the "poop whisperer". Suppositories and digging people out. I don't suggest becoming "that nurse" everyone goes to when their patient won...

I'm right handed... I hold the syringe in my right hand, bevel up, between thumb and forefinger. I always stabilize my hand with my other fingers on pt's arm. My left hand I use to hold pt's arm steady, with my thumb under my right hand pulling the s...

I work in MI... We most certainly take phone orders. I can't hang blood, or do IV push meds. I frequently deal with PICC lines, ports, and drains/ostomies coming out of body parts. I am trained to run peritoneal dialysis. Long story short, there's lo...

I've been in rehab for 5 years, our unit has 60 beds. Days has 4 nurses, 8 CNA's and in house wound care. When we are full we have a 5th nurse to help with treatments. We also have an in house NP, a nurse assistant who does accuchecks and helps with ...

Pet peeve- poor grammar or spelling in a fax to a physician. I've seen them so bad, doc circled the phrase and wrote "what?" Sometimes I feel like people try to over "professionalize" their communications, and it ends up sounding like a medical soap ...

Oh yes, we have had that and also a microphone that records sound levels. At the nurses stations. We had to remind management that 1, our bed alarms set off the yacker tracker. As did med cart drawers. And phones. And 2, their choice of placement did...

I've had the pleasure of dealing with quite a few docs and nurses as patients... We recently also had a police chief and a catholic priest. And a professional psychic. My favorite so far was a retired (not by choice) cardiothoracic surgeon, who was p...

I have had quite a few patients with liquor orders... I worked in a rural retirement home for a bit, and many of the doctors had written orders for "1 pleasure beverage of choice at hs" and one doctor said he preferred to see his patients have a smal...

Habitual night walker here. I have been on night shifts or late shifts since I was a teen... Hell hath no fury like me in the morning if I am awakened. Even as a kid I would stay up late and preferred to sleep in. Now that "bad habit" is paying off ....

First job in 2009 I made $18/hr, now I'm at a different skilled facility doing sub acute care in MI making $22/hr on midnights. part time so no benefits for me. Our facility also doesn't offer shift premiums.

my first orientation lasted 3 weeks on day shift, working 24 hrs a week. That included the hr stuff and mandatory online courses. My second orientation was about 2 weeks on midnights, about 3 years later... Now, at the same LTC facility, nurses get 2...

Old post but maybe someone will read this and get some reassurance. I'm a midnight nurse, on rehab and we take very acute people. We are no strangers to codes, complications, and crashing. Wd work with dozens of doctors and people come from out of st...

Coast Guard for 4 years :)

I learned to count my rooms! 47 patients, 3 nurses and I had 19 of them because I'm a dingbat and walked in and got report on my usual group. 1 empty bed in my 20, were a 60 bed rehab unit. Didn't notice until we were almost done with hs meds... By t...

We had state here too lol! Happy nurses week, we got you a suprise...

We all got light blue t shirts with the facility logo, and on the back they say "nurses are angels in comfy shoes". We get to wear them as part of our uniforms. Last year we got stainless steel travel mugs (the big kind with a handle) with the logo, ...

I am a U.S. trained LPN working in Michigan but living in ontario... Our local ontario hospital tried to phase out RPNs. Now they're laying off hordes of BSNs and forcing retirement to hire them back in. A hospital full of BSNs is too expensive... So...

We we too have this battle on in house management and I had a nursing supervisor question shipping a resident. I looked at her and said "doc says pt needs to go, he wants pt direct admitted. If you want to disobey a direct order, here's all the paper...

1. Keep that enthusiasm! If you think it'll suck, it will. It can ALWAYS get worse. 2. Don't get your CNAs mad at you... Trust me. I've seen how much help they give the nurses who bark orders and treat them like crap and refuse to answer lights. Your...