What do you do to protect yourself on floor?

[juana15]

I am a new grad, bedside naive nurse.

I use standard precautions, isolation precautions, airborne, droplet when in pts profile however....

I've noticed in hind site for newly admitted patients, (where it could potentially be a problem due to not having a complete medical history I.e., Unknown TB exposure or other droplet/airborne diseases) that I could've been a bit more careful. For example, accucheck, ID band check I'm facing pt & next thing, he/she coughs on me :/. We have occasional homeless pts, IV drug users, etc. I have to remember to not stand so close. It makes it hard due to kind of work we do, caring for others but remembering to protect ourselves too!

anyway, what do you do? Have any of you or co-workers picked up something from work? Hope not, but it can make for a good reminder/ learning experience for us all to hear.

I see a seasoned nurse wear a mask all day & my guess it's on to protect herself & family.

[Sunflowerinsc, ADN, RN]

Satire? (Asked Shelton)

[sistrmoon, BSN, RN]

For awhile, I kept getting admissions from the ED with blatant flu symptoms but they hadn't been swabbed and the symptoms weren't reported to me. I would swab them and lo and behold, they were positive. Kind of a big deal when they are rooming with a cancer patient. So I was exposed but thankfully never got it. The protocol now is they are supposed to swab and wait for the result before sending the pt. But a mask doesn't seem like a bad idea.

[sistrmoon, BSN, RN]

I just wash my hands. I mean we go to the store, use public restrooms, use public transportation, hug our children who've been in school all day--all with no PPE.

Yeah, we've been constantly sick now that I have a school age kid. It's the worst! I'm convinced school is just a cesspool of roving infections.