What are you really good at?

[proud nurse]

I'll be wrapping up my 10 week hospital orientation in about 3 weeks. I've worked with about 4 different preceptors. Each one of them has commented that my head to toe assessments are amazing. Most people also really like my documentation. I have to admit I'm thorough. I can't think of a time in my nursing career when so many people have raved about any of my skills. Makes me feel good!

This isn't a thread to brag, but tell me what you're really good at. Nothing wrong with patting yourself on the back for a job well done!!

[Wave Watcher]

I excellent at giving injections! I don't feel a thing! :)

[Perpetual Student]

Reassuring and comforting fearful patients, especially those in severe pain. Riding that fine line between agony and apnea is my specialty.

I am the BEST at making a mess. If you want wrappers and such all around the garbage can instead of in it, I'm your man. Need something spilled? Can do!

[liveyourlife747]

I used to be great at organizing in home health, now that I'm in the hospital, not so much. Hee hee. But even though I have only been in the hospital a few months I have been known as the "trach" queen, I also get asked how to teach Pts for home care and advice on wounds when wound nurse isn't around.

[Indy, LPN, LVN]

If you want to know how foolproof your -whatever- is, let me have it and I will break it for you. I can force the computer to work by accident, but plain mechanical devices I can just break. I can spike a pressure bag all the way through the bag and my hand too! I recently learned how to make art lines work reliably for the entire week when the previous nurse said "it's gone, probably should be pulled out."

I don't usually let patients know that I can break all their stuff, however. :-) I can read good tele and I can spot an evolving inferior MI off of two leads before anyone else knows what's going on. I can stick in an NG fast and true, however I also have a talent for putting dobhoffs in the right lung just as often. I hate those little things, by the way and will choose a salem sump any day if it's my choice.

Also I can make up curses out of non-foul language when I have to. It really comes in handy.

[prinsessa]

I'm really good with dealing with difficult families/patients. Plus I remember random information from nursing school

[tokebi]

Selective hearing, noise blocking mechanism right in my brain.

Served me well over the years but it can backfire though. My patient's bed alarm was going off and I didn't even budge. I'm trying to disable the mechanism now...

[onthejourney]

I'm a new nurse so i'm not the best at IVs or phlebotomy, but I'd like to think I give good care. I always try to lotion up those dry legs and take care of those chin hairs on the little old ladies!

[Esme12, ASN, BSN, RN]

I'm a new nurse so i'm not the best at IVs or phlebotomy, but I'd like to think I give good care. I always try to lotion up those dry legs and take care of those chin hairs on the little old ladies!

The technical skills will come in time......but a real nurse cares about the little things that makes a patient feel better and maintains their dignity.

I was a nurse with plenty of experience in Critical Care, the Emergency Department, and Trauma....I had been a Director of the CVICU/ICCU/ED when I moved across the country to marry my husband.....and started from scratch. I was working in a prominent "world renowned" CVICU and of course I was only given the "gomers", or the comatose/poor outcome DNR Patients who were "dying anyway", for at least "she won't hurt them" (insert eye roll here) as they walked away. Whatever...their loss....so I went about my merry way caring for these neglected comatose patients.

One night as I was doing my required baths, because my patients "wouldn't know any better". I was busy chatting to my patient, shaving his face, re-taping his ETT (breathing tube) and chiseling away the weeks of gunk and crud because no one bothered on this "dying Gomer" because "they would know any better.......When an ICU/CVICU nurse came into my room and demanded to know why I was "wasting" my time because they were "not there mentally" and they were "never going to wake up" when I asked her to go outside of my patients room to talk with me.

I informed her that you never "know" what they patient can hear or whether or not they may be sitting in the corner of the room waiting for their soul to be released by death and hearing every single word you say and that someone loves them and will appreciate to look at their loved on clean and care for and the even if they are homeless with no one they deserve respect and to NEVER speak like that in front of, or to, a patient in MY care ....please. She gave me lip and informed me their resources are not wasted on these gomers....... they had people who were going to wake up and live to care for....that they don't "waste their time" caring for these patients for they are going to die anyways.

She told me she was being kind enough to let me know "how things are done around here in this part of the country" because I was new.....and not from around here....

I went to the manager about this disturbing exchange and relayed what I thought was a disturbing display of negligence and standard of care when I noticed....looking past all of her degrees and accomplishments in the and lacking the resources that they "focus their efforts" on those they can help.

I was God-smacked . I though surely they couldn't be serious!!!! Sadly, They were. I quit that job right then and there......

It's the little things that matter.

[pookyp, LPN]

The technical skills will come in time......but a real nurse cares about the little things that makes a patient feel better and maintains their dignity.

I was a nurse with plenty of experience in Critical Care, the Emergency Department, and Trauma....I had been a Director of the CVICU/ICCU/ED when I moved across the country to marry my husband.....and started from scratch. I was working in a prominent "world renowned" CVICU and of course I was only given the "gomers", or the comatose/poor outcome DNR Patients who were "dying anyway", for at least "she won't hurt them" (insert eye roll here) as they walked away. Whatever...their loss....so I went about my merry way caring for these neglected comatose patients.

One night as I was doing my required baths, because my patients "wouldn't know any better". I was busy chatting to my patient, shaving his face, re-taping his ETT (breathing tube) and chiseling away the weeks of gunk and crud because no one bothered on this "dying Gomer" because "they would know any better.......When an ICU/CVICU nurse came into my room and demanded to know why I was "wasting" my time because they were "not there mentally" and they were "never going to wake up" when I asked her to go outside of my patients room to talk with me.

I informed her that you never "know" what they patient can hear or whether or not they may be sitting in the corner of the room waiting for their soul to be released by death and hearing every single word you say and that someone loves them and will appreciate to look at their loved on clean and care for and the even if they are homeless with no one they deserve respect and to NEVER speak like that in front of, or to, a patient in MY care ....please. She gave me lip and informed me their resources are not wasted on these gomers....... they had people who were going to wake up and live to care for....that they don't "waste their time" caring for these patients for they are going to die anyways.

She told me she was being kind enough to let me know "how things are done around here in this part of the country" because I was new.....and not from around here....

I went to the manager about this disturbing exchange and relayed what I thought was a disturbing display of negligence and standard of care when I noticed....looking past all of her degrees and accomplishments in the and lacking the resources that they "focus their efforts" on those they can help.

I was God-smacked . I though surely they couldn't be serious!!!! Sadly, They were. I quit that job right then and there......

It's the little things that matter.

Good for you! That place was sick!