*rolling my eyes*

[OhioCCRN]

Here we go again with the media spouting idiotic information that they have no idea about and that cannot be explained with a few "google searches"

i find I am deeply irritated with the article about the RN who contracted Ebola for reasons of a blatant invasion of her privacy, and also for the following reasons.

1. You do not get Certified in nursing when you graduate from school, you have to take a test and you get licensed.

2. You do not need a CCRN to work in critical care and the absence of one does not mean you are not qualified for your position, or the fact that the Texas RN recently received her certification does not mean she was not qualified to care for a critically ill patient.

3. The sample exam of the CCRN on the website that the reporter gazed at for a couple of seconds in no way reflects a large percentage of the questions in the final exam, thus one can not make the assumption that there is no question on infectious diseases (which by the way is nursing 101 whereas the CCRN focuses on the hemodynamically unstable patient)

4. the constant parading of the pinterest quote leads me to believe that they want to emphasize that she did not trust in the knowledge of some of her physician colleagues (i mean really? we all work with certain doctors that make us question their every order because they just do not seem to get it)

...again, the media has absolutely NO idea what we do as nurses and is so incredibly lazy in its research that it does not even come close to scratching the surface.

[OCNRN63, RN]

​RNsRWe: Thank you for stating what I was thinking, only in a far more polite manner.

[lifelearningrn, BSN, RN]

New Nurse: I'm trying to look at this from your POV, and I can certainly recall being a new RN myself. I can recall during my early days, on orientation and after, when I would look around me and see MISTAKES EVERYWHERE! That is, with my newly-licensed eyes, I could easily find errors all around me. Not talking life-threatening errors, not talking even anything that was putting the patient at risk, but things that were (according to the letter of the policy manual) mistakes. Ok. Fast-forward past those early days when I was indignant at the idea that such mistakes were to just be corrected and not written up. That "educational counseling" was not always the suggestion to be made, but rather just a mention to the nurse who made the minor mistake. And move on.

Now, let's look at this situation. In this situation, according to you, the nurse "should have known", she "knew better". Ok, fair enough, that in your opinion she should have made a different choice than to have flown with a low-level temperature elevation. But let me ask you this: do you question every single order you receive to the point that you are arguing which specific treatment is better for the patient?

If you receive orders from an authority higher than yourself (let's go with physician) and they are NOT wrong, they do NOT break protocol, it's just that YOU YOURSELF (the new nurse) thinks the physician should do it differently.....do you believe you are the right to ignore those orders, and do what you think is better?

I think you'd agree that you could not, and SHOULD not. The physican who wrote the order for Antibiotic C has more education than you, more experience than you, and more authority than you to make that call. The decision, to put it in a colloquial expression, is "above your pay grade". Might you accept that you do NOT know everything, that maybe there IS validity to the physician's choice of treatment? I hope so, or you're not long for nursing!

I'm not talking about the physician choosing the wrong medication. It IS correct, just not as good as another one (in YOUR opinion). YOU, new nurse, are to follow the instructions, not make your own decision on the topic.

Now let's look at the CDC conversations with Nurse Vinson. She is not an expert in IC, she has had the same minimal education we all get on the topic. And it IS minimal, in case you might believe we are experts! We are not. We have basic infection control quizzes to pass, and that's it.

Nurse Vinson called upon "the experts". She KNEW they were more educated on the topic (or should have been). She KNEW they were the ultimate authorities where ID was concerned. She KNEW that when a clear decision is to be made, when there is any 'grey' area, it is the CDC who makes the final call. NOT the nurse, much further down the list of supposed 'experts'.

She took prudent measures, when she suspected there might be a problem. She took it to those with MORE education, MORE authority, and ultimately MORE responsibility in the end for any epidemic that might occur. SHE followed the proper protocol, which is to notify the CDC AND FOLLOW THEIR INSTRUCTIONS.

To repeat, hindsight is always 20/20. But if you are going to take the position that this nurse should have made better judgments and predictions than the experts in the CDC, I fear for whatever tiny 'toe over the line' misstep YOU might make in your career. I can't imagine there would be many nurses willing to stand up for you when you (according to you) had such poor judgment and therefore SHOULD be villified.....for following appropriate instructions.

Food for thought.

I appreciate your thought provoking post invalidating my opinion because I'm a new nurse. I realize I have a LOT to learn about nursing. Heck, I still have a lot to learn about life (even though I am in midlife myself, having decided to go back to school in my mid-30s and getting my BSN in my early 40s). With this I realized something. Common sense. It's not something I necessarily had a lot of at 29 (Amber's age), so perhaps her age played a role in this.

3 years ago, before starting nursing school, I still would have known to err on the side of caution. At 29, possibly I would have looked to the CDC, or the 'experts' for guidance. I didn't have a whole lot of life experience at the time.

I'm being sincere when I say thank you, I am seeing this situation a little differently. You're right in that hind sight is definitely 20/20. I wish nothing but the best for her.

[imenid37]

Here's a story about a "voluntary agreement" with health care workers who might have been exposed to Ebola. It's not made clear whether these people are still allowed to work. If it's dangerous for them to go to church, isn't it dangerous for them to be around patients?

Dallas leaders announce ‘voluntary’ containment orders for workers exposed to Ebola; no emergency declaration | Dallas Morning News

OMG...maybe they can go out and have soup with Dr. Nancy Snydermoron! Hospitals are so fixated on people being out sick that they are blind to common sense. Texas Presbyterian is now at the top of everyone's do not work for list!

[SnowballDVM]

I just want to commend whomever came up with "Dr. Nancy Snydermoron". Fits the situation perfectly.