Garden,RN

I believe you, and they are coming down too hard on you. Of course, the sleeping is not good, but night work is very hard, and you are in nursing school which is brutal. This will pass. Get your ct results, etc, make sure all that is OK. You might just have been shell shocked from waking in a panic and tired, circuits overloaded, and sleep deprived. Sadly, in health care we are not nice to each other. They will make you feel like a terrible person over really nothing. I am extrapolating that no patient was hurt. That is the most important part. Your results will be negative for intoxication, but it is insulting that they assumed that right away. Still they do have to check because there are so many addiction problems. We tell patients to put their feet up, but if a nurse or CNA that are working hard, "we frown upon that". Most of us are sleep deprived, especially night workers. While we cannot leave a patient unattended, we should be able to leave the patient with someone and take a power nap. You know driving while sleep deprived is up there with intoxication, it's very similar. That may very well have been what was going on. CNAs and nurses, and others in health care are always dealing with staffing shortages, irregular hours, and other factors, so we are all overworked. Give yourself some levity here, and try to get some sleep. Even power naps when you are off. It will help with your studies too. Don't let this discourage you. Deal with the HR, and all the powers that be, and this will pass. If the workplace doesn't understand this, and it turns into a bad environment, you are in high demand, so you can just start over elsewhere. Try not to fall asleep, of course, but in 30 years as a nurse, I have seen so many hard and competent workers, professionals, snooze over the years, because sometimes your body just needs it. I work nights and fight sleep constantly. I do everything from munch on crunchy things to play real upbeat music into one ear at 2 am. I walk around and try to keep moving because sometimes if I sit, I just go away. I also have alarms on my phone even to check or turn the patient. On my days off I really sleep and make times with no interruptions to get good deep sleep. Anyway, you will be fine, wishing you the best.

No, absolutely not. The only ones that should have their pay cut are the administrators making 14 and 15 million dollars a year. Nurses earn their pay with blood, sweat, and tears, and for others. Sadly the ones that have sucked the life and financing out of health care, never touch a patient.

I would say no and others that feel the same should make their voices heard, like you have. Thanks for sharing.

I don't because it's just not clean. I don't even like pouring the pills out on countertops for counting. Having said that, I was dropping things, not just pills and not just at work. It ended up being a health issue. When it started, I didn't know what was going on and there is a big stigma if you drop too many pills, which is about 2. I say the right thing is to discard the pill but I also understand not wanting too. Even in the best of circumstances the hospitals and similar settings are much dirtier than our home environments , and the organisms can also be worse; so it's just not a good practice. I would have felt terrible if I had passed on an infection. I worked in a lab. The hospitals are filthy. We used to do cultures of entire floors, and they are disgusting.

I read that and it's terrible. Those fees are outrageous. It does sound like excessive punishment, and for something that is legal in so many states.

That really depends. In the schools there are differences. For example, in the schools where I worked, there was staff that had been trained to administer medications and cover the clinic. Some worked directly with the students and were invaluable in their care. All the principles and assistant principles were trained and ready to hop into action when necessary. There were very ill students that everyone knew and kept an eye on. say a diabetic, or someone with peanut allergies, so I found there to be very fluid boundaries. Mind you, I prefer everything be specific for everyone's protection, but in the real world it doesn't always work that way.

You can pull it back and out of the way, but if you are going to bend over and get close it has to picked up. It's just not clean all around.

As someone with long hair, I almost always had it up, but definitely out of the way. That should be common sense, though.

Unfortunately, I cannot credit the author. Whomever this person, I am grateful that he or she shared. " It is a privilege to care for the sick. It is an honor to be present when humans are brought into this life and when they leave."

"Are those guys outside my door waiting to take my body?"

Someone in my household was just diagnosed with active TB.

a smiling patient trying to change the channel, again.

It is acceptable and it is exactly the right thing to do. That is a part of "First do no harm". Lack of sleep is likened to being intoxicated. Moderate sleep deprivation produces impairments in cognitive and motor performance equivalent to legally prescribed levels of alcohol intoxication The real question for me is why is anyone expected to be able to perform without sleep or ill? It makes no sense, we all know it, but sadly it is often expected. I am not saying you ever leave your patients without care, but I am saying that as health care workers, we know better, we just need management to be honest about it.

Based on the information you provided, the best thing for that patient, would have been to be able to transition with the assistance of those that had become her teachers, family, and friends. That would have been good nursing care, addressing the child's psychosocial needs with anticipatory guidance with regards to her developmental age. All factors that you were considering in your interactions. The hospital ignored all. I don't believe you crossed any professional boundaries, on the contrary. You did what nurses do, we care. You were advocating for someone that needed an advocate. When I see the nursing assistants in long tern care with patients, it is beautiful. Often these folks have no one and the CNA's become family. I have seen CNAs just pour love and good care into the most vulnerable. Often they know just how or what the patient needs because of this. You did something similar. I remember before HIPPA, patient records and information was always confidential. Those that worked with the patients and their records knew this and just respected the patients, but if we needed to discuss vital signs we didn't have to be paranoid about someone overhearing an O2 sat or heart rate. The expectations where that those that had climbed through so many hurdles to be licensed could be trusted to do the right thing. HIPPA is now obsolete, in my opinion, due to internet hacking. I have done more volunteer nursing that anything else, just because there was a need, each time. I have seen a lot of human suffering and see the desire to help and care as the essence of nursing. It's a shame that we have so many artificial boundaries.

She is probably envious.