Would this bother you?

Yes, that would bother me. Just the sound of my phone ringing increases my blood pressure by about ten points. It's usually in the middle of an IV push, and it's usually someone like dietary wanting to know if my patient down the hall would be okay with egg salad instead of tuna salad.

However, as a diabetic educator, she does not do bedside patient care. She probably does not have a number for the machine either. I'd have just taken a deep breath, asked for just a second to finish up what I was charting, then gone and done it, all very nicely and without an attitude. If another nurse who was caught up with their work were nearby, I might ask them to do me a favor and do it.

That would definitely not make me happy. Everywhere I've been, the "diabetic educator" is the one who ensures proper use of whatever glucometer is being used at the time, and should have a number, code, or whatever. I would feel like such a louse hunting down a busy nurse to do something like that. I swear, sometimes people get way too big for their britches.

At my facility, the lab and nursing do glucomenter QC, and proper use is taught to nursing staff by our nurse educator. The diabetic educators do patient teaching.

I am a diabetic educator. I have never had this situation but will know now to avoid it! Are nurses the only ones allowed to check blood sugars in your facility?

I am a diabetic educator. I have never had this situation but will know now to avoid it! Are nurses the only ones allowed to check blood sugars in your facility?

At my facility, the CNAs can do fingersticks if trained to do so. Of course then, the nurse will have the CNA teed off for taking "ten minutes to track them down", when you "could have just done it yourself". Sometimes, you just can't win.

I am a diabetic educator. I have never had this situation but will know now to avoid it! Are nurses the only ones allowed to check blood sugars in your facility?

PCA's are also allowed at my facility but they have to take a competancy like everyone else.

Wonder what she would have said if you said "I'm a bit busy right now, and I don't have a number, would you mind doing it for me?"

Funny, I never even thought of this today. I hope I can remember to be extra nice next time. I don't think I was cross once today (honestly).

I don't work in the USA, but I have in the past. My own CNM would not ask me to do a blood sugar. She takes patients, works nights and we are always, always busy. Perhaps I mis-read the situation or just had my own little story goin' on. Sometimes the stress gets the best of me and I act like an idiot.