The "Teach a Student Something-a-Day" thread!

[agent]

In an effort to not enter nursing school as a completely nieve individual, I was hoping that some 2nd years or RN's could share something beneficial with us students each day.

It can be anything little or totally meaningful. Whatever you contribute will be greatly appreciated and hopefully will help me to be a better student and nurse

Thanks!

[spuropathy]

^^

I definitely need to follow that. Procrastination is a bad habit of mine.

I have learned that you should never EVER give a white IV fluid into a vein or a central line with the exception of Diprivan and TPN. NEVER. (Its not my fault, it has occurred one time with the patient dying of IV Maalox.)

[Straydandelion]

It can be anything little or totally meaningful

Something little but helpful.. on very bad days i.e. spills among other things on shoes and scrubs it is very nice to walk in your place through a laundry room, kick off the shoes and throw everything in the wash putting on your fav robe etc. right there.

[tracyd77, RN]

Awww... your mom is the kind of nurse I want to be!

[midnight*sky]

Great thread!! :) Looking forward to reading more! :up:

[Panthyr]

When drawing up two types of insulin, always draw go from clear to cloudy. Clear is usually the regular insulin, Cloudy the NPH.

Sorry if someone else mentioned this, I haven't finished reading the thread yet. But a great way to remember insulin draws is "Nancy Reagan, RN." You inject air into the NPH (Cloudy) then withdraw, inject air into the Regular (Clear), then draw up the Regular (Clear) then the NPH (Cloudy). Hence the initials, NR:RN = Nancy Reagan, RN. If your school doesn't teach to inject air into the bottles first, you can just use the RN part!

[newstudentn09]

Ok, I just started school but thought about this after I had to take a trip to the ER. I hope this isn't something completely obvious but if it helps someone great. So I had to go to the ER and I ended up needing to have a catheter in. The first lady tried unsuccessfully several times and by the time a different lady was sent in to try I was dreading it. I should also mention that rougly 6 months ago I had surgery and when the RN did my catheter she had a very rough time as well. In that instance she actually brought in another nurse to help and I swear it took at least 6+times, which is why in the ER I was dreading it so much. So in the ER the second lady is sent in and after preping me she tells me to take a deep breath and she gets it on the first try! I was so relieved! She told me that she didn't know why I was so hard for the others and explained that she always, male or female, has the person take a deep breath b/c it automatically relaxes the muscles and makes it much easier. She was very humorous in the way she explained it and it made perfect sense. I thanked her and told her I was starting nursing school and would remember that tip. It seems like a simple thing but after I thought about it, I realized that no one had ever done that before so maybe it is a great little tip to remember!