SOOOO HOT AT WORK!!

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Let me start off by saying I'm currently 31 weeks pregnant. I get so darn hot at work it's unbelievable. Especially when I get stuck in an isolation room assisting with a thoracentesis for 30 minutes in one of those plastic blue gowns, or if I'm in a TB isolation room wearing a fricken N95 mask. I have had to stick my head in a freezer for like 15 minutes a couple of times because I thought I was going to pass out. What do you think about getting a little fan for my cow? (Computer on Wheels) Have you ever seen anyone do this? It's always so hot in a lot of my patients rooms because I work on a pulmonary floor and a lot are old with pneumonia and are "freezing cold!!"

Specializes in LAD.

Bed Bath and Beyond and Walmart sell cooling towels. You place it on your neck and they stay cold all the time. They are not wet either.

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Specializes in retired LTC.

I used to use a small battery fan on my medcart. Sometimes it was just too darn hot for me (never had really 'hot' hot flashes) but I do flush freq. I have roseacea so at times my face feels like it's on fire!.

When I was done my medpass, I'd take the fan to the desk to chart if needed. Of course, I worked 11-7 so no big issue, but I don't think anyone would have objected on the other shifts.

I've also seen little battery fans on a cord for around your neck. The fan is shaped so it can lie flat on the chest. I've also seen fat fans shaped like a cigar on a cord.

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I vote for the cooling vest/ice pack option. We use them in the OR and they are great. I can't imagine being pregnant or hot flashing at work...they already call me the human furnace :/

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Specializes in NICU, Peds, Med-Surg.

I learned from a nurse to rub Peppermint Essential Oil on the back of your neck....it is like Nature's Air conditioning--soo refreshing! You can also massage it into your temples for tension relief....:smug: Sooo nice! I also soak my tired, painful feet in Pepperming oil and water when I get home......sweeeet!!! The peppermint oil foot soak honestly revitatlizes me sooo much, it is amazing!!!

Another thing I do when hot at work (I HATE that, some shifts, I feel like I need a shower within the first hour!) Run cold water over your wrists.....ahhhhh!!! Unfortunately, it's only temporary, but I love it. Good Luck...being hot is the pits, oh, and those yellow isolation gowns....:devil: :no: :madface:

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Why would you not put a pregnant woman in an isolation room?

Ummmm...maybe because your immune system is depressed during pregnancy and you need to be concerned about catching something for which the treatment may be contraindicated during pregnancy like so many of the potent antibiotics that you'd need to take if you caught something like TB or MRSA.

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Ummmm...maybe because your immune system is depressed during pregnancy and you need to be concerned about catching something for which the treatment may be contraindicated during pregnancy like so many of the potent antibiotics that you'd need to take if you caught something like TB or MRSA.

Which is why the patient is in isolation and the pregnant nurse needs to follow isolation protocol.

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Which is why the patient is in isolation and the pregnant nurse needs to follow isolation protocol.

You go ahead then..I wouldn't do it.

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You go ahead then..I wouldn't do it.

Is that on top of refusing smelly patients, big patients, patients at the end of the hall or just too far apart, along with all the other irrational reasons that the LAZY of the pregnant nurses give for refusing to do their job?

Nobody is asking you to lay your fetus in a pool of pseudomonas infected wound exudate. Just asking you to do your job when there is no increased risk. If you were being asked to care for a patient with parvo, you might have a point. MRSA and TB? You're either grossly uninformed or just being lazy and banking on the "You're a horrible person if you'd ask me to RISK MY BABY" being enough to make people scared to call you on it.

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Specializes in Hospice, Case Mgt., RN Consultant, ICU.

Wow! That was rude!

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Specializes in CDI Supervisor; Formerly NICU.

Wooh-d

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Is that on top of refusing smelly patients, big patients, patients at the end of the hall or just too far apart, along with all the other irrational reasons that the LAZY of the pregnant nurses give for refusing to do their job?

Nobody is asking you to lay your fetus in a pool of pseudomonas infected wound exudate. Just asking you to do your job when there is no increased risk. If you were being asked to care for a patient with parvo, you might have a point. MRSA and TB? You're either grossly uninformed or just being lazy and banking on the "You're a horrible person if you'd ask me to RISK MY BABY" being enough to make people scared to call you on it.

No..as a matter of fact, I am not pregnant and am not planning on being ever again. If there was a pregnant coworker on my floor and I could take her isolation patients so as not to take any chances, I would. You are the one who is grossly misinformed. There is increased risk in working with people who have transmissible diseases even with that great paper gown they give you and if I could protect a coworker who is in a state of decreased immunity and sacrificing 9 months of her life to bring a baby into this world, I would gladly help her out. I feel so sorry for your coworkers. Sounds like you are the one who is lazy and selfish to boot!

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Specializes in ER.

Showing up at a hospital at all increases risk of infection, more than taking a known isolation patient. I'm with Wooh.

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