nursecave

I didn't admit them, and they went to Newborn, but we had the biggest twins in the state a few weeks ago at our hospital. Here is a link to the story MSNBC had on their site. The Today Show came and interviewed, it was a media circus. I felt so bad for the Mom and Dad, esp. the Mom.......http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25337743/ No gestational diabetes either. Mom's first was over 10 pounds. They both have family histories of large babies. I am glad I am no relation!

If you work a weekend option, Sat. & Sun. 12 hours (24 total), you get paid for 36 hours. You get paid an additional $4 after 3pm. This is at FMC. Some units also offer a Fri, Sat, Sun 8hr/day(24 total), or Sat, Sun, Mon 8 hr/day (24 total) and pay you for 36 hours. Not many units do, mine is one of a handful. Of course we have some of the best management in the hospital, they are very accomodating to what people want. A happy staff is a good staff, and they know that!:loveya:

We usually have at least another nurse besides ourself, and an RT there for the transition to and from the incubator. While Mom is holding, we are there to monitor baby for tolerance of being out, and have an RT and a nurse on a short leash in case we need them back in a hurry. Just plan your move well, and have lots of spare hands around.

Dynasty spelled Di"Nasti. We joked and said that "d nasty" is how you get pregnant to start with!

"I just think it must be scary as anything to be pregnant and work day after day in the NICU." I had my children while I worked Mother Baby. That was bad enough. We deliver around 7,000 babies per year, and so there were plenty of horror stories to be heard and sometimes experienced. I now work NICU, and one of our nurses had her baby at 24 weeks. Super Scary! Thank God that little Reagan has done remarkably well. No bleeds, no NEC, only a PDA ligation and reflux, which in the grand scheme is wonderful! There was a chance she was going to have to have her eyes worked on, but they improved on the follow up visit and ROP is no longer a real threat. Her 36 week cranial ultrasound was normal. She is such a remarkable little girl.:redbeatheHer mother and father have been such troopers through all of this. I can't imagine knowing what I know now about the typical 24 weekers course in the NICU and having the grace and peace that my co-worker and her husband have had. Reagan gets her remarkableness from her Mom and Dad!

Honey, I feel your pain. I had no pain until mine ruptured, at 0230 on Friday, February 22. It took a little over 2 weeks for the pain to subside, and the incessant ringing took a few days longer. I have been back to my primary twice since the day it happened. (I went the day it happened as well.) They have been keeping a keen eye on it to make sure it heals properly and that everything returns to normal. I go back next week also for follow up. The ear drops with antibiotics and hydrocortisone really seemed to help too. Talk to your provider about it if they didn't prescribe them. They may have had a reason. (I hope that isn't considered medical advice, I just know that was my experience, and what I have read on medical info sites) Best of luck to you, it will get better!:)

I work at Forsyth Medical Center and most of our units do hire LPN's. I know ICU, CCU, L&D, & NICU do not though. Not sure about the ED. Cardiac telemetry does hire LPN's, as do med surg units, mother baby. There is also Medical Park Hospital which is an affiliate of Forsyth directly across the street from Forsyth, and they hire LPN's also. It is a med-surg facility. Good luck and welcome to the area. They don't call it God's country for nothing ! amy from surry county :cheers:

We don't have any choice in what angiocath we use. They don't stock anything else. We did have the BBraun's with the clip on the end, and it only took about 2 months and the whole corporation quit using them because they were so hard to deal with. It wasn't a neonatal only problem, nurses couldn't get IV's in adults with those things! I like the ones we use now better,the BD's, they are what we used prior to the BBrauns. Sometimes the old way IS the better way!

I had very few similar questions, but I had one exact question! No kidding. I took 75 questions before I went to the testing center, just to get myself into that mode, and no joke question 72 on the NCLEX was the exact same as one I had that morning!

With the BD's it is somewhat helpful to twist the angiocath(take the wing and spin completely around) around the needle to loosen it up a little. When we went to those years ago the company rep recommended that. Also, stick just below where you see the vein well, and just off to either side of the vein. I am a newbie in NICU, but those tricks have helped. The twisting the angiocath part I learned in adult nursing.

I work NICU, not ED, but coding a baby is coding a baby. It shouldn't happen but it does. My first code was while I was in orientation, just not my first night. It was on a near term kid with no risk factors for pulmonary hemorrhage, who pulmonary hemorrhaged. It was the most terrible thing I ever witnessed. I was the recorder for the whole event. When the MD finally called the code, I cried. Then I looked around to find we all were, so I felt better. Some of the nurses working that code had 20 + years NICU experience and had coded many babies. You never forget, but it gets easier. I am glad you shared your experience, that will help you heal. Keep your chin up, you will do fine in the ED. The fact that you are cautious but still excited to go to work tomorrow tells me you have already found your niche.

My sister goes to Queens - it is VERY expensive! She is going to get her MSN there. Good thing she got scholarships is all I have to say. I nearly went to Mercy, but I didn't want to have to enroll there and at CCCC also to get my ADN.

I just started NICU on 4/2/07 after 6 years of Mother Baby. It is really different, but I like it so far. Good luck to you. I too came from a boss who treats staff horrible. She blocked my transfer inititially and then laughed at me to my face and bragged about holding me back. She has seen me in the hall since the transfer and has sneered at me and called me a traitor. Things are so bad that the whole staff is thinking about putting in for transfers just to get human resources attention that something is terribly wrong there. It is so sad that what should be the happiest unit in the hospital ( Mother Baby) is so miserable. I left not because of her, but because I have always wanted NICU, I just couldn't work there until I finished my RN, they don't hire LPN's. So, I finished last May, and am just now getting released to go...........

At our hospital babies have to be 35 weeks and 4#8oz to go to the term nursery. Rarely does a 37 weeker go to NICU for resp issues. Really no more than any other term baby. At that point it is more of the transition to the extrauterine environment that sometimes causes respiratory problems vs. actual immaturity of the fetal lung. When we do have a 35+ weeker in NICU for respiratory problems it is for TTN (transitional tachypnea of the newborn - it's temporary and rarely needs anything more than several hours monitoring and some blowby O2 PRN.)

I work at Forsyth Hospital in the NICU. The company is overall a good company to work for. The Neuro- ICU unit is relatively new, opened less than 2 years ago (Ithink). We have had so much construction, it's hard to remember what opened when. Winston Salem is a nice area to live and work. Welcome aboard!

No. Not the ones with Rh- babies. They are ineligible. I meant every now and then somebody who has an Rh + baby will be deemed ineligible. I haven't had that happen but once in 6 years, but it has happened. Thanks for pointing out that I wasn't too clear with my response. Kinda unrelated, but I always hate when Blood bank calls and says the mom need 4 Rhoghams. Explain that to the poor PP mom!

Our hospital (750+ beds), just banned CROCS at the first of the month. They say that there is significant evidence that show they are a fall risk. The ban is on all styles of Crocs, not just the ones with holes. The infection control (non)issue is not the rationale behind the ban. The supposed fall issue is the reason they give. I think it is because we had a nurse who fell on the job (wearing CROCS), and now her bills are approaching $100,000 between her surgery to repair her broken femur, her hospital stay and her rehab. They say that things like this have happened around the country, and that they are a safety concern. I am saddened by the decision despite their evidence because they are the only comfortable shoes I have found! I have worn them for over a year and never fell, or thought I was going to. I have had to run to rooms or stop quickly and everything and between, and I just don't see the fall risk that they claim is there. They have told us they will coach and counsel us the first time we are seen in them, and then write us up the next time. The next time after that would result in termination. So, hello achy feet, I can't afford to lose my job!

I might be wrong, but I think they give it anyway as a precaution. I work postpartum and we give it almost always. Every now and then we have someone who blood bank deems ineligible for RHOGHAM but not often.

They tried the scripting stuff on several occassions at work. I usually am quite blunt with management with my opinions. So I say , "Ok, I always get Thank you grams, cards, etc...and have never had a pt. complaint in 6 years here. I bust my backside, I give excellent care to everybody, even people I find deplorable (drug addicted moms, I am an OB nurse). I take time out to ask how they are, how was the labor, is this your first baby(even though I already know), what are you other childrens name and ages, and do you need anything while I am here? I also tell them you have my name and # ( we carry phones) call me if you need me. - WHY IN THE HECK DO I NEED A SCRIPT - what I am doing is working. You constantly praise me for my work and tell me that patients love me and I handle difficult cases with care and tactfullness. WHY CHANGE THAT? If you expect me to change what I am doing that is effective for me and my patients, then I will look for a new job. I don't want to work for you anymore. - After that, scripting was a mute point with me. They let me do my thing, because I went "above and beyond for my patients, and the script would, in their opinion, hinder me".

I did one year of Med-Surg prior to going to Mother Baby. In some respects MB is cush. There aren't as many procedures, no sundowner's in the elderly pt's (not yet, anyway, are mom's keep getting older - we've had a 56 yr. old), etc.......the list could go forever. Occasionally we have to put down an NG for a post op ileus in a C/S. Several IV starts. But in OB there is soooo much we do that others just aren't aware of. And being in a hospital that delivers 7000 babies a year and has one of the top NICU's in the country means we get people that noone else will take, presenting some really difficult cases. All that being said, I feel OB is harder in a lot of ways. The psychodrama one poster pointed out is mentally and emotionally exhausting. It is a daily occurence for us. What I would really like to see is a nurse who thinks OB is cushy come handle a post partum hemorrhage. Talk about high adrenaline. And unlike a wound dehisence or other emergent episode on a med surg floor, you can't pack it and wait on the MD or ship them somewhere else. In PPH a pt can bleed to death before your eyes if YOU don't act. It is scary to see so much blood it is running off the bed and leaving puddles in the floor. And we have our share of codes, seizures, diabetic crisis, sickle cell crisis, etc... too. We not only do OB but we have to be able to handle any medical condition the pt may have, and how OB may affect that condition. I have always had the thought that we are all cut out to do something different in nursing. I think it boils down to what appeals to us, and sometimes we don't value what others do. If we were all cut out for Med surg, ED, and nursing home nursing, who would take care of us in the Dr's office, OB, case management, etc.....

You mean it isn't the Beverly Grand when you have a baby? OMG - and to think I have busted my backside to help my GUESTS during their stay!!! LOL - yes we have to call them guests. Not patients, clients, customers, etc.... but guests. Puh - leeze. If you are in the hospital you are a patient, end of story. I have used Maalox for tape burn. An older nurse taught me that when I worked at different facility. A lot of what we did sounds like a lot of the stuff on here. They still wear white, and many still wear their caps. They were allowed to stop in 1998. Also, apple juice, cranberry juice, and gingerale combined as a "bladder cocktail" to help a pt. void. I have used a Tubex countless times. Gave a milk and molasses enema just the other day to a post partum C/S with a very distended belly. A resident had heard of it, and I mentioned it, and next thing you know, we were calling dietary for molasses. Worked GREAT. Great thread - many things I knew or had heard, others were like WOW.

Postpartum nurse here- we tend to report "watch her bleeding - she's a redhead" because redheads seem to bleed heavier than others. It happens enough that we feel it needs to be reported. And I work at a teaching institution that delivers 7000 babies a year. Wives tales usually don't fly far around that place.

I have heard these before and actually used them to help me remember some of the disorders. I use associations to remember things, so this was rather catchy and worked for me.

I was an LPN for 5 1/2 years. I just graduated with my ADN in May. While I agree that some of the very best nurses out there are LPN's hands down, I do believe that I, too would have trouble with the scenario presented. Maybe it is because at the facility where I work, to hold ANY management position whatsoever you must have a BSN, preferably higher. There are a few assistant managers who are ADN's, but they have been given "X" amount of time to complete their BSN, or they must resign their position. Also, I can't see a person with a "lesser" degree (sorry I didn't know how else to word it, don't blast me!) can manage those with higher degrees. I don't think this happens often in other professions either. Just my $0.02.

At our facility, a GBS + mom, gets Pen-G (unless allergic, then it is CLinda). As long as the dose is in 4 hrs or longer she is considered adequately treated. For unknown GBS, we look at other risk factors, such as 18 hrs, to determine if we will place the baby on protocol. The teaching DR's for the unassigned babies usually want CBC/D and BC, the private MD's just have us watch for symptoms for unknown GBS. For C/S with no ROM until delivery, we don't do anything, GBS ?, GBS +, it doesn't matter as long as there was no ROM until delivery. For babies with symptoms, they go to NICU for IV abx. For asymptomatic babies, we observe for 48 hrs, then they go home. Our policy has evolved countless ways in the 5 1/2 years I have been there, but the latest policy seems to be the best. Very rarely does a baby get to NICU for abx and later come up with a negative culture.