The ONE thing that will make your nursing life easier

Nurses General Nursing

Published

Hi everyone,

This is a broad question to all of us:

What is that ONE thing that will make your nursing life easier?

This could mean many things like:

- Is there something you wish you discovered earlier in your career that would have made nursing easier?

- Is there something you wish existed that will make nursing easier?

- Is there something that you'd like to eliminate? eg. pain points

In the ER I work at now, there is ONE, seriously, one tech who does her job without me even having to ask. We hardly ever work on the same days, but I do get to work with her at least twice a month. It sounds stupid, but sometimes I am so overwhelmed with appreciation for her by the end of the night I nearly have a tear in my eye and I always have to hug her and tell her how much I appreciate her. If I wasn't running around collecting all of my own urine, answering every single one of my own call lights, weighing all of my own patients, charting vitals hourly on top of everything else I have to chart, doing all my own orthostats, cleaning all of my own patients with no help to turn people over, cleaning my own stretchers, etc. I would be able to enjoy my job a lot more. Obviously it is impossible to expect a tech to do all of those things when we are slammed. And of course, I do not mind doing those things, but when it's ALL me, all the time, it gets exhausting. Especially when I have IV's to start, meds to push/hang, report to call, and extensive documentation to chart on top of worrying about doing all the things I just mentioned. Every time I try to delegate techs are either no where to be found, have some excuse, or look at me like I have three heads.

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I'm an ER nurse, and I have it pretty good, but it would help a lot if I could document less and care for patients more. Yes, time management is important. Yes, documentation is important. But when did it all become about reimbursement and covering our orifices? Wishful thinking, I know.

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Specializes in OR, Nursing Professional Development.

New one: management that doesn't target a small segment within the unit staff.

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I'm an ER nurse, and I have it pretty good, but it would help a lot if I could document less and care for patients more. Yes, time management is important. Yes, documentation is important. But when did it all become about reimbursement and covering our orifices? Wishful thinking, I know.

we have to chart in real time...imagine how fun that is while striving for that perfect 10 score on HCRAPS (that's what I call it, anyway)

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we have to chart in real time...imagine how fun that is while striving for that perfect 10 score on HCRAPS (that's what I call it, anyway)

Yep.....today I was just so tired of it all, I really wanted to just quit. That's not an option, but I sure wished it was. Sometimes it all just gets a little overwhelming!

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Senior Management spending a week working shifts on the ward so that they actually understand what 'being a nurse' means

Yeah....i'm pretty sure that isn't going to happen. At least not where I work!

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In the ER I work at now, there is ONE, seriously, one tech who does her job without me even having to ask. We hardly ever work on the same days, but I do get to work with her at least twice a month. It sounds stupid, but sometimes I am so overwhelmed with appreciation for her by the end of the night I nearly have a tear in my eye and I always have to hug her and tell her how much I appreciate her. If I wasn't running around collecting all of my own urine, answering every single one of my own call lights, weighing all of my own patients, charting vitals hourly on top of everything else I have to chart, doing all my own orthostats, cleaning all of my own patients with no help to turn people over, cleaning my own stretchers, etc. I would be able to enjoy my job a lot more. Obviously it is impossible to expect a tech to do all of those things when we are slammed. And of course, I do not mind doing those things, but when it's ALL me, all the time, it gets exhausting. Especially when I have IV's to start, meds to push/hang, report to call, and extensive documentation to chart on top of worrying about doing all the things I just mentioned. Every time I try to delegate techs are either no where to be found, have some excuse, or look at me like I have three heads.

Exactly!!!!!

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