What's a day in the life of a nurse?

♑ Capricorn ♑ · Jan 10, 2012

First of all, why are you asking this in the "students" section? Just curious.

allnurses Guide · Jan 10, 2012

Because she's a student?

7P Meet in the break room, get assignments, charge passes on any info/announcements (ER)

1915 Find my day nurse, get report, look at charts at the desk, then go to each room and do a bedside intro and change over

1940 or so, depending on how much there is to assess, do a brief head to toe on each patient, check the IVs and gtts, do VS, chart it all. Review any admit orders, catch up with anything that days left (like they do for nights), meds, admit orders, new IV, whatever needs doing.

Get phoned in admit orders and send to pharmacy for MARs on the admits so we can see what needs to be given if we don't get room assignments

Set up for pelvic exams, walk folks to the bathrom to collect urine, do the point of care testing for UA and HCG, do the MRI reviews, get the CT scan dye mixed in a liter and get the abd pain/vomiting person to drink the liter of it.

Answer the radio for the 5th time, notify the charge of what's coming in.

CHeck for orders on the 3 newest patients, and see who needs their meds first. Get the history from the cop and the person in handcuffs that just came in the back door, charges or just a drop off.

Give the drunk sleeping it off on the hall bed his 3rd sandwich and juice, and fuss at him for throwing the garbage on the floor (or sometimes telling him its okay, you'll throw it out, he shouldn't climb over the side rails to look for a trash can and thank you I think I'm beautiful too). Go to the next hall bed and grab gloves because he passed out and is choking on his sandwich that he'd been loudly yelling for (gotta love those up and down levels of consciousness)

Go back and see if your NS bolus has finished going in so you can dump another liter running wide open, and hope blood bank gets the PRBCs typed and matched pretty soon.

Type up the discharge instructions, and teach a scared first time mom about colic, fevers, tylenol, etc.

By now, its all the way up to 2100. Got 10 more hours to go.

allnurses Guide · Jan 10, 2012

On the floors, what I used to do was make a chart, pt rooms down the side with space for dx, special info etc. Hours across the top. Put in your meds and routes for each hour, so you'll know how busy any med pass might be. Stick in scheduled stuff like PT, dressing changes, etc.

Start with a 5 minute head to toe (LOC, ABCs: listen to lungs, heart, belly, legs for edema. IV sol and site) from room to room, see what they need and what you'll need to come back in with (yes, I'll be sure you get some fresh water, pillow, etc., what their "needs" are). Review VS, either do yourself or see what the aide wrote down, its the pits having something out of whack that you didn't get told about soon enough. That way you have a baseline on each patient (and you know they're alive) for the day.

Check your orders for anything new that came up.

Start passing meds, it takes forever! especially if they can't swallow, or you have to program the IV pump, etc. Get your charts opened as soon as possible, because paperwork is never ending, and staying on top of it is a skill best learned early.

Time management is the hardest thing to pin down, on top of learning everything else your instructor will be quizzing you on. :cheers: Nurses get stuck behind the desk far too much, looking like they're doing nothing, because of online charting, orders, lab values, phone calls, and charting everything. They learn to assess on the fly!

mitral · Jan 10, 2012

Excellent response, wow! I have actually googled this question too, but ive only found flowery commercial type videos on how great nursing is. This is the reality i was looking for. Hilarious, too- I visited the ER for an hour and loved it but I couldnt do it full time. Thanks for posting!