What have other nurses done that have freaked you out?

[texas_lvn]

What have other peers done intentional/unintentional to freak you out? Good or bad. Happy or sad.

On my FIRST day as an LVN, (LTC) a res was screaming in her room as I was walking out to leave. I went in to see what was going on. She was having an anxiety attack and severe pain (post stroke). I pulled the call light, and no one came. Uggg.

So I peeked out the door and saw my CNA walking down the hall, and told him to come sit with res. I went down to get her a Xanax and a pain pill, well relief nurse was in the restroom, and relief CNA (with call light still going off) was sitting behind nurses station reading a newspaper. I told CNA to tell the nurse to get a Xanax and pain pill for res. She said OK. I go to relieve my CNA. Said goodbye to him, and stayed with res. after 10 minutes, CNA COMES INTO ROOM WITH XANAX AND MORPHINE PILL. She is soooooo shocked to see me still there, she hands me the pills and RUNS to the relief nurse. I could NOT BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW!!!!

(I did immediately call DON and tell what happened. Luckily, my CNA was still checking on another res, and saw the whole thing.--------they got a slap on the wrist! that was it!!!) :madface: :madface:

[jlcole45]

After 20+ years, this is the first time I've ever heard of this .... a new grad hired in a long term care facility reported that during orientation that her 'preceptor' another nurse, told her that if the residents refused to take their oral medication - to give it rectally!!!

Oh my God that is wrong is so many ways. Wrong route, the fact that some meds are engineered to change once they reach the gut to the usable form of the med (specifically the liver), the wrong Ph, the fact that it might not be absorbed at all, or absorbed all at once, etc....

Has anyone ever heard of that? I told the new grad to report it immediately to her DON. (I didn't work with her, but if I had I would have reported it - and I'm not one to run to the boss but that is soooo wrong).

[singingtothewheat]

This comment is 100% on target! It is impossible to provide the kind of care we would love to provide in many settings. The people above us have determined just how many people can work so that they get their healthy profit margin (NOT ALWAYS A BAD THING) but as nurses and nursing assistants, that number has NEVER, in my opinion been enough.

The bad thing is that even when you do have rare days where you have enough staff to get by well, you have staff that will take advantage of that and sit around doing little or nothing. What we as nurses can do to stop that is unite in a national nursing collective bargaining group. National Nurses United, previously California Nurses association is working to get us there. Sure it would be fantastic if it didn't require a Union to give nurses the right to make choices in what are safe staffing levels but let's face it. We've been talking this thing for years and years and the managers/ boards of directors /owners just will not listen.

It greatly helps to place one's self in the shoes of the CNA, especially a LTC CNA. I work at a nursing home, and each one of my CNAs is assigned 12 to 15 patients each. They simply do not have the time to sit with one patient for an extended period of time when there are other call lights that need to be answered in an expedient manner.

In addition, most LTC facilities suffer from high employee turnover and attrition rates, so the DON usually won't bestow severe punishments upon lazy staff members. The DON is just happy that a warm body has arrived to fill the necessary shift. In addition, there's typically not enough quality time for most LTC nurses and aides to devote to non-emergencies such as panic attacks and screaming. Few, if any, procedures are done by the book in LTC. You'll learn as you spend more time in your new LVN role.

[singingtothewheat]

And for the record. We have to stop counting bodies and start counting acuity. PERIOD

[Jamesdotter]

And for the record. We have to stop counting bodies and start counting acuity. PERIOD

Amen. I agree wholeheartedly.

[teeniebert, LPN]

And for the record. We have to stop counting bodies and start counting acuity. PERIOD

We also need to quit counting bodies for staff--a new orientee needs to count as -1/2 or -1 on the staffing grid, not +1!!!

[Kellyma]

The union I used to belong to, was often the excuse of lazy or selfish complaining CNAs. Some not most but some would do whatever they wanted and say "I'll call the union if they try to do anything." used to make me so mad. So a union like your talking about would've been fantastic.

[lamazeteacher]

Post # 780 is about a nurse who never medicated a patient who didn't ask for it, truly an example of lack of compassion and communication skills.

I once heard of one who would only medicate a patient for pain on a post surgical unt, if he/she asked for it, using "Please". Now that's cussedness elevated to A RARE FORM!!

If nurses have goals other than caring for patients, in a caring way, they shouldn't be in nursing.

[Vossome]

I once had a fellow nursing student get kicked out of the program, because she neglected to replace the Nasal Cannula on a very O2 dependant pt. The pt. desat'd to 80%, and she did this TWICE. Also never put up the side-rails to an extremely high risk fall pt, and the pt, like clock-work, fell right out of bed. The girl still "doesn't believe she should have been kicked out". ...really?

[aehart]

I work as a tech on a very busy Neuroscience and Trauma Med-Surg unit. A nurse was demonstrating to another tech how to start an IV. She pointed to the antecubital area and said, "Feel here. It's just like a rubber band, bouncing all around." The tech felt and said, "Are you sure that isn't an artery?" Nurse assured her it was not and proceeded to start the IV.

Needless to say it WAS an artery and then the RN tried to convince us "dumb" techs that it was okay and she had done it plenty of times before. But then she "decided" to remove the IV and squirted HEPATITIS C BLOOD EVERYWHERE.

I don't know about your hospitals or agencies, but there is some definite paperwork that has to be filled out, not to mention a pressure dressing when you accidentally hit an artery with a peripheral line.

Did the RN do any of that?

Um, no.

[LuvNurseJackie]

OMG! Illiterate much?

[MissJulie]

Now, I'm only a first semester student nurse, but the first day of clinicals, I was in the middle of my physical assessment, trying to remember what came next, when an NP with the cancer center came in to speak with my patient about his high WBC count (46,000 if I remember right), anyway that's not the important part. She introduced her self as Nurse Suzie with the Cancer Center, now mind you, this patient hadn't been told she was coming in, and was now scared to death that he had cancer and no one had told him. So, how that he's completely freaked-out, she begins to palpate his lymph nodes, without gloves. Sure, neck and head without gloves probably wouldn't have been a big deal, not right but not the worst thing ever, but lymph nodes in the groin area without warning to the patient and no gloves, I was shocked!

[lamazeteacher]

Miss Julie:

You are right to have been incensed, but not by the NP examining a patient's lymph nodes without gloves. As long as the patient's skin and her hands' skin is intact, gloves aren't required. If the patient suffered incontinence and/or was excessively moist, examining the groin region might have been the exception to that. It looked like she wasn't aware that he may not have known his diagnosis, and she didn't ask permission to touch him, or tell him why she was doing that!

"Teaching" hospitals are usually in noncompliance with patients' rights, as often their objectives follow teaching, as an excuse to be inexcusably ignorant of patient needs for explanations or decency. Please be one of those students, who set the tone by keeping your patients covered and informed about their conditions and treatment. You can't help patients by keeping them in the dark.

This early in your education, you need to have "explain the procedure to the patient" ingrained in your mind, and be mindful of everyone's boundaries. That NP needed to say, "excuse me" to you for barging in with her need to see the patient you were working with, too.