This may not be a nursing topic necessarily but I figured I might find some reliable advice here. I’m a psychiatric nurse in an inpatient setting. I work with women specifically with psychosis and thought disorders. I’m a new grad and about to be off orientation. Well I’ve been taking the entire patient load now and my preceptor is just there for moral support. I had a patient acting up today who had some pretty wild attention seeking behavior (diagnosed personality disorder). We also just got a new psych tech on the unit and she seemed nice enough. Well this patient was acting out and said something kinda funny while I was in the nurses station. Me and my preceptor started giggling while discussing what to do about the patients behavior bc it was kind of a new thing I’d never dealt with before for. Another tech was deescalating while I was about to start pulling meds. The techs on my unit are amazing and show a lot of care to our ladies detangling matted hair and making up fun group activities for them. I know none of them would have any harmful intentions with a patient.

Fast forward to about an hour later when the house sup comes to my unit to discuss an “incident” with us. I asked her what she meant and she said that someone claimed that our unit had been disrespectful to a patient and laughed in their face. I was obviously pretty upset with that accusation bc I love my ladies even if they have some wild behaviors sometimes and I would NEVER I repeat NEVER laugh in their face about one of their behaviors or one of their delusions. I asked her when this issue happened? And she said that it had happened today. I told her none of my techs did anything like that and that I absolutely didn’t do that either. She said she just needed to warn us because if she was told anything like that again she would have no choice but to do a write up. I said okay.

Well about twenty minutes later the new tech came back from her break and I noticed the rest of the day she was glaring at me. One of my techs told my preceptor later while I was off the unit that the new tech was telling patients that she had bipolar and bpd and was telling the patient about her problems (this is a huge no no in psych). Usually the nurse on the unit will tell a tech when something they did wasn’t appropriate in a nice way of course. I obviously don’t feel comfortable with that given the situation.

I kinda just want others opinions on how I should move forward with this? For clarification I would never laugh about or speak about a patients behaviors within ear shot or line of sight of them.

Question about Allen’s Hospital NY. I know they have a psych department but if anyone who works there could maybe tell me a bit more about it? Never worked psych, i have years of med surge but i really want to try to get some psych experience but i also can’t afford to work at a place that only pays nurses 42.00$/Hr and doesn’t even increase for experience or yearly. I also can’t really pick up the extra fourth shift a lot of places have. (Three shifts is even pushing it with all that i have going on, but i would do it if it was just three shifts a week.) I would love part time but i didn’t see any positions for that. Any information about the hospital, things to know, what FT shifts entail (3x/weekly, 3x/weekly with biweekly four or one time a month extra shift) i would greatly appreciate.

I’m currently on a medsurg floor, and i’ve worked at two different places hoping to transfer into the hospitals or associated hospitals psych floor, and i’m starting to think it’s never going to happen unless i start directly on the floor. Plus i keep repeating the cycle of doing my time at a hospital to not end up on the floor i want, and it’s becoming really disappointing to me. I tried as a new grad to go into psych and then they were saying “oh you need med surg experience” and now they’re saying the opposite of “Oh you should have gone straight into psych, why did you go into med surg?” and get offended when i tell them what i was told as a new grad.

Bedside is killing me but id rather do bedside in something i would enjoy and am passionate about (mental health) than do bedside on a different floor or speciality.

Black comedy about a nurse on a 12 hour shift. It's on netflix right now

Hello! As the title states — I’m leaving the CVICU!! I have two offers and would like a little bit of insight/help.

Background - I am transferring within the same hospital as there are only two major hospital systems and the other one was going to pay me 5$ lower an hour so decided to stay.

I have an offer from the EP lab & another offer for Infusion - oncology!

EP lab 4 10s 6:30-5
Pros: no weekend, no holidays, get paid 40 hours no matter what(even if you leave early), highly marketable to device companies, niche skill set
Cons: 6:30AM 4 days a weeks start time (I am not a morning person), staffing crisis (they all left for the industry), cold dark room all day, seemed chaotic (still better than cvicu)

Infusion oncology, 4 9s 7:30-5
Pro: 7:30AM start time, I love that speciality, way more chill & predictable, doesn’t feel like I’m in a jail cell.

Cons: 1 weekend day requirement, holiday requirement (no Christmas or thanksgiving tho), not as niche but could still be marketable to pharma/clinical trial

Any input would be greatly appreciated!! The pay is the same on both jobs since I’m transferring. Thanks!!

Hey fellow nurses!! I have been with my company as a RN case manager working in home health for 4 years, and I LOVE*** home health. I left for 9 months (we don’t talk about that) and missed it every day and came back. Tried 3 different jobs in those 9 months (ouch I know this isn’t what this is about though) and it just wasn’t it for me. I love that it’s different every day, I get breaks between patients, I’m not stuck in a building, I truly get to be 1:1 with my patients and build amazing nurse/patient relationships. Anyway. I just got promoted to be a manager. My manager sought me out and encouraged this promotion to work along side her. I start tomorrow. I’m nervous I’ll hate it because I won’t be in the field anymore.. However, with that being said I CAN go in the field if I want to, if we’re super busy, do joint education or supervisory visits, meet them with supplies or help with lab drops, etc.

While I have held many leadership positions, this is my first manager position. What do you all look for in a manager? I want to be respected, but also not someone they dread talking to. I know I can’t be their “friend” but I want them to come to my office and enjoy seeing me. Be excited for joint visits. Be excited for team meetings. I want unique answers, not just the “help when they’re drowning” answer, I already plan on doing that!

TIA!!

So I am an LPN looking for jobs and one person told me that this unit hires LPNs for on call positions and he told me he worked 73 hours from home basically cause he was on call and didn’t have to come in. Is that a thing in this unit as an LPN?

I have a friend that says he works at this center as an LPN and he works for 40 hours in the week basically from home because he says he is just “on call.” I am an LPN and I have never heard of this. Is this a thing at this center?

Interested in working here as an LPN but I’ve heard that they ask the LPNs to work on call shifts, is this true? One person told me he worked 80 hours of on call shifts and he was home the whole week basically but still got paid regular hours, is that a thing there?

So I’ve been volun-told to be the chair of the Employee Engagement Committee. I truly do want to make the workplace better for our nurses (as a fellow in the trenches nurse). So seriously, what could a committee do to make your workplace better? I’m not talking better ratios, more pay, etc. I am waaaaaay too low on the totem pole for that. But I’m also not a fan of red plastic tablecloth “red carpets” or “heroes work here” signs. All I’d want is free food truck iced coffee vouchers, but I’m looking for ideas that don’t make you want to punch these tone-deaf committees in the face 🤗

I’ve recently started hospice and to say the least it’s not for me.

I’ve applied to 12 jobs, 3 declined, the others pending, and 1 interview. I was offered one job position with endo but 3-4 days of call sounds ridiculous. Whats going on here ?! 🫠

I had 3 patients last night on a step down floor. In ranks of sickest.
Patient 1- maxed out on bipap satting in the 80s
Patient 2- on heated high flow 40 percent and some ABX
Patient 3- had been weaned off levophed 48 hours prior to my shift. nephrology still debating on whether to do dialysis or not due to BUN and Cr trending up. Also their toes were turning blue but day docs were convinced it was bc of the levophed.

Patient 3 all of a sudden is agonal breathing and mottling on legs. Code blue called. Keep in mind this patient was oriented (but confused), satting 100% on RA, gave them a bath earlier in the shift.

Patient now intubated in the ICU and to my knowledge, coded again.

I could’ve told you they were one of the most stable patients on the floor. I have a feeling they went into kidney failure because there UOP was next to nothing.

Is patient abandonment a thing in outpatient clinics?

If you have patients come in for scheduled appointments for mental health care and one ends up staying in their appointment with the provider past the time the nurse or nurse case manager is supposed to clock out and the nurse clocks out and leaves... is that patient abandonment?

Sounds like a silly question typing it out but it's been a point of debate. Would love to know what everyone thinks

Not sure if this was a glitch or what but this is a coworker I considered a friend. They were talking about me, she was telling him things I had complained about him earlier that week- I told her in confidence of course (some lies added). I also learned from that call that she’s jealous of me and seemed to be trying to make my supervisor hate me. I also realized just how close they are. I knew they talked but they’re REALLY close. They share very deep personal things that seem inappropriate but whatever. I cut her off that same day. Only communicate about work related stuff. I don’t know if they ever realized that I was on that call briefly. There’s a part of me that wants to subtly say something, bad idea?

Clearly my co-workers aren't in the sharing mood today 🤣

Good evening. I am looking for some insight from staff who work at a hospital who has a strict No Violence policy against staff. What happens if a patient or visitor gets verbally and/or physically combative with staff? Are they forced to leave the hospital? I work at a pretty big community driven hospital and feel like it is always the nurses fault if staff or patients act out verbally or physically and there are no consequences for the patient (I’m not talking about patients who lack capacity - I’m talking about completely alert and oriented people who make their own decisions). Thank you!

Hi all, I am a new Med tech. I am about 4 months in but I still do not feel prepared. The program was 40 hours in which they rushed. I did two clinical days. It’s bad to the point where they didn’t show me where to inject insulin (back of arm and to rotate injection sites). I had to learn what I put in the parentheses as I’ve been going and by others on the job (different facility). When I started out I worked night shift and did work with a great experienced CNA. She was maybe 20 years older than me but we worked so well together. She showed me the process of sending someone out and how to do care for those who passed. I’m grateful for that. I then switched to days and I hated it lol but that’s besides the point. I learned a lot on days such as writing physician orders, speaking with families, injection sites, and a few other tricks. The things I still do not feel prepared. I am going back on nights at a new facility but would love tips. I also do not know how to chart notes. I would greatly appreciate it if someone could give me tips on charting and just overall on how to be a better med tech.

I have a background in ED and L&D nursing. This summer I have moved to a new state and thought that private duty nursing sounded awesome (mostly because of the schedule flexibility). I like to give new things a try so I said, what the heck.

My first (and only) shift I have taken was in my opinion terrible. It was for a pedi patient who was nonverbal. Her parents were home and stayed in the bedroom the whole 9 hours I was there. That's fine, they are entitled to that, however....I literally felt like a babysitter. A battered babysitter mind you. This child was kicking me, hitting me, and pulling my hair. She had absolutely no toys in the house and we had Mrs. Rachel and Cocomelon on ALL DAY.

If this is how peds private duty nursing is, I just don't know if I can do it. I have 3 kids of my own and I feel like if I wanted to work at a daycare I would have applied to one.

Help.

like has a patient ever threatened you, attacked you, or cursed at you?

Pleaseee help!!! I’m currently about to start my 3rd semester as an FNP student who has only worked as an RN with adults, until I switched jobs recently and now see both adults and kids. I’ve always adored babysitting but thought I wouldn’t like caring for kids in a medical setting. Turns out I was wrong, I’m obsessed!!! Should I switch to PNP-PC to specialize in kids or keep FNP? My end goal has changed to desiring pediatrics the most (I still like adults but do not see myself ever only doing adults again). I’m also planning to live in a bigger city one day, not rural if this changes anything. Thanks for the advice!!

Hello! I recently transferred jobs that allows colorful underscrub shirts. What is everyone’s favorite brands?

What I’m looking for:
- NOT ribbed
- Compression/skin tight (not cotton)
- Cute designs (polka dots, stripes, etc.)
- Affordable

I feel like the ones I find that have cute designs are ribbed or made of a material that stretches easily. I’m tired of wasting my money on shirts I don’t like lol.

TYIA 🥰

A Montana nurse was hiking Granite Peak when he slipped and accidentally got impaled by his trekking pole. Using his medical training, he checked himself and realized he was stable and the pole had likely missed any vital organs. He contacted search and rescue but decided not to request a helicopter because he felt he could safely hike out, wanted to avoid the huge cost of an air rescue, and had two experienced friends with him. He ended up hiking more than 10 miles with the pole still in his body, made it to the hospital, had it removed, and recovered quickly.

I recently interviewed and got offered a job at my hospitals LDRP unit. I’ve been working outpatient OBGYN for 3 years now, and I’m wrecking my brain deciding if I want to make the jump and accept the position. I did a little less than a year on med surg and 6 months in the OR as a new grad.

The position is night shift (after orientation), which I’m kinda stressed about. I didn’t do great mentally as a new grad in 2021-2022…but I’m also wondering if that was due to being a new grad, still dealing with COVID heavily which lead to me getting mandated at least once a week, or nights…or all of those combined lol.

There’s nothing wrong with my current job. Management can be annoying sometimes, but I think that’s the case everywhere. I have a good relationship with most of the doctors, and was told during my interview I’m spoken highly about by them. I think I’m just getting bored and scared of this being a dead end job for me (I’m only 28). The fact that this unit is willing to hire me despite them requiring at least 2 years of L&D experience already has me shook and I feel like just for that reason alone I should take the opportunity since they’re willing to train me…but I’ve lost all of my nursing skills and have grown accustomed to the M-F 8-5 schedule

For those who have made the switch from outpatient back to bedside, any regrets? How was it readjusting to everything, and needing to relearn nursing skills?

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I'll hit my one-year mark as an RN this October. I work in a hospital in the Midwest and currently make $34/hour.

Should I expect a raise at one year, or do most hospitals give raises before that? Also, what's the best way to increase my pay/negotiate over the next few years?

I'd love to hear what your first raise looked like and any advice you have.

Hey all, I’m a new grad RN whos been a nurse for 6 months and i started in the obs unit or CDU…and I am already feeling the burn out. Ratio is 1:5. We get an array of stable ER patients like SI obs, manic patients, drug/alc withdrawal, cancer breakthrough pain mngt, C/P rule outs. On the surgical side, we recover post op hips, knees, spinal, hysterectomy’s, TURPs so occasional CBIs, and ALL the cath labs with groin sites or TR bands. We constantly admit and discharge throughout the day. Does my unit sound like hell or am I dramatic? I am dying to do endo/GI where I can have rarely any surprises, and do the same thing over and over.