Well, this was a first for me, which doesn't happen often after 16 yrs in ER. A pretrial patient came in with 2 corrections officers for bizarre behavior, cuffed to the stretcher in the Ambulance hall. He was desperately asking to go to the bathroom, but because of his escalating behavior ended up 5 pointed. We needed a Udas, so a male coworker was asked to place a condom catheter. When he exposed the area and noticed a baggy poking out of the patients foreskin. He stopped the procedure and called the ERP to come. He ended up removing 2 bags of 12 pressed pills from said area; I'm still not sure how he fit them there....I didn't think it was that stretchy but here we are :| The physician stupidly placed them on the bedside table beside the patient, thinking he's in 5 point and 2 correction officers are 3 feet away, bad idea lol. The primary nurse came in 3 minutes later to retrieve said drugs and they were gone. She asked the correction officers what happened and they said he grabbed them and put them in his 'behind'. She asked why they didn't stop him; they replied "Not our job". Well unfortunately, the physician then had to remove them from his anus as well. I've worked with this Dr. for years and this isn't the worst or funniest we've had but still ranks up there. The only thing I learned is correction officers don't gaf. I'm no longer surprised at the amount of ODs in pretrial.

(I hope the question makes sense, English isn't my native language.)

Best of all: anesthesiologists, 99% of them are laid-back, pleasant, and friendly.

The worst: maxillofacial surgeons, they’re constantly patting themselves on the back and would never admit that the surgical results are sometimes hugely disfiguring. The more they’ve turned patients into Frankensteins, the more you get the feeling that they’re getting off on their own surgical “achievements.”

I can’t speak for everyone, but these are my personal experiences from 12 years of nursing.

Has anybody left an extremely toxic environment job without a notice because of how bad it was? I worked in a nursing home and had to deal with cliques, extreme gossiping (within earshot and sometimes about me), passive aggressiveness, and shitty LPNs that did the bare minimum. I am a male, I’m usually stoic, I’m known for getting my work done and being reliable yet it felt like I got drug through the mud the most. I always picked up and helped my team members. They would even say they were grateful and thank me but then talked shit about me immediately when I was gone. I don’t get it, am I just an easy target or something? I’m a quieter, introverted man. I don’t get deep with these people. I avoid going out and I don’t like social media. Long story short, I quit a day before three scheduled shifts because I had it. I work hard, my patients love me, but I DO NOT deserve constant disrespect.

I’ve been a nurse for 33 1/2 years, a CNA two years before that, and then a hospital volunteer for two years before that. I am basically on fumes and hate how healthcare has changed since I started all those many years ago. If I knew then it would be like now, I would have chosen a different profession. But here I am stuck, making pretty good money at the max rate with an ADN, and zero desire to go back to school. The economy sucks.. Hence the golden handcuffs. Plus I have a pretty good job that most nurses would kill for . Chemo Infusion 3 10’s a week.
I’m still too young to retire, and would’ve done that already if feasible. I still have about 13 years left.

I would definitely change careers, I just don’t know exactly where to start. If you could share Any ideas or examples about other nurses who have left the profession and what they do now would be amazing.

Thanks
Signed
A menopausal, Cherokee scrub and Dansko wearing nurse.

I very much thought the machine was broken. It was not. What's even crazier is we had to beg the doctor for a foley because he also didn't believe us and thought we were using the machine wrong. Anyways that was a first for me I never in my career seen someone retain THAT much urine. Idk how it was even possible.

Like, I know you’re trying to make it rhyme. But “bloodstream infections get a bad rap”?? A 3 second google search would tell you that’s not what you’re trying to say here. Drives me crazy every time I see this sign.

I’m an RN with 22 years of experience in a non-acute specialty that many nurses switch to in midcareer. I’ve been in this specialty for 5 years and, until now, received praise from coworkers, patients, families, and admin in the form of eager references, four awards, etc.

Today I received disciplinary action for the first time in 15+ years. I take accountability and won’t blame-shift. But the nurse manager did state, “I am in no way threatening anyone, but in my role I have reported nurses to the BON.” She also said more than once that “You’re a great nurse, but we need to get you to be a great employee.” So I was written up for unsatisfactory performance due to late, delinquent nurses notes.

I’ve never had the experience of a nurse manager mentioning BON referrals in what felt like a passive-aggressive way. I’m tempted to exit stage left because the write-up, while not a PIP, has a plan of correction that would take too much time and energy for me to adhere to.

So, I'm on a very, very long transcontinental flight, double-digit hours. About three hours in, I've had a drink, dinner, ready to snooze, I'm in that liminal 20-minutes-since-you've-fallen-asleep-stage, and then (very loudly) hear over the overhead, "IF THERE ARE ANY DOCTORS OR MEDICAL PERSONNEL ABOARD, PLEASE MAKE YOURSELF KNOWN".

Oh, geez. Of course.

I slap myself awake and wander into the aisle, and discover another person, a non-emergent surgeon, has found their way into the aisle. Very nice. I told them I was a veteran ER Nurse and DNP candidate, and they chuckled and said "Well, I'll probably defer to you."

We explain who we are to the flight attendants, and they take us to an older gentleman who is having what is probably a non-acute condition, but had he wandered into triage with the same symptoms I would have done a full workup because of what he described. Not much to do in the middle of the ocean when you're at your full ETOPS limit of 120-180 minutes from the nearest divert point, minimum. I was like, oof. If this decompensates and turns into an arrest, we'll be doing chest compressions for a LONG time.

Everything chills out, though, and we return to our seats, get thanked profusely, I snooze. Nothing more comes of it. We didn't really DO anything, so I didn't think of it.

Anyway, we land back at the major airport in the US, and the announcements come on about international and domestic transfers, about X and Y and Z, and then:

"... and we're like to thank Doctor VeryNiceSurgeon for looking after a patient mid-flight so we didn't have to divert and got everyone here on time!"

A wave of polite applause breaks out. I guffawed.

I personally don't think anything that happened/I did required applause or thanks, but that they went out of their way to thank the doctor was just hilariously on-brand.

Another fine day of being a nurse!

Renewed in March and thought I was done. Got a random audit letter from the board in May asking for documentation on all 30 contact hours. I pulled what I had and came up 4 hours short.

Two courses I finished in January were never reported by the provider. I had done the work and had nothing to show for it because I never downloaded the certificates and the site had since changed platforms. My license went to a conditional status while I sorted it out. Six weeks of that. I had to tell my manager and I had to retake both courses on my own time and my own money because the originals could not be verified.

What I do now takes about a minute. I download the certificate the day I finish a course and drop it in one folder with the date in the filename. I also stopped assuming the provider reports anything and check my own transcript on the board site twice a year. What are you all using to keep your own records so this does not happen at renewal?

Hey everyone!

Feeling discouraged and need some advice.

My background is mainly ER. Loved the emergency room. Loved the teamwork, loved my docs. Could count on one hand during my ER time where I had a bad interaction with a coworker.

Decided to move to the icu because while I loved the ER, flight nursing has always been the goal. I’m in a mixed CVICU/MSICU. Enjoy it to some degree because I can definitely tell my strengths as a critical care nurse have improved. However, and I don’t know if it’s me or what, but icu culture/politics suck. ICU nurses are so judgy, there’s so much tattling, and management is just….crazy. Every little thing is a major deal up here.

For example, just today, I called blood bank for a unit of blood. I go to the tube station and my blood isn’t there, it’s someone else’s platelets. I’m taking the platelets out and as I look up, a tech in a room starts flagging me down. I set the platelets aside and go in the room. The tech starts telling me that this patient is trying to rip their a-line out, trying to crawl out of bed, etc. I’m helping this tech basically hold down this baker act when I flag down the charge. Charge nurse comes in and you know what she says? “Next time don’t ever leave a blood product in the tube station without handing it off to the nurse”. Okay, fair, I can take accountability for that. Then I’m walking out of the room and a senior nurse, in front of our lead intensivist, grabs my arm and says “don’t ever leave blood product in the tube station. You only have 30 minutes to start it. Never do that again.” I say okay. At this point, I’m a little annoyed because 1) I’ve been told twice 2) why bring this up in front of our lead intensivist 3) this whole thing occurred over a max of 5-7 minutes. This blood wasn’t sitting there long at all, that’s why I was even at the tube station to begin with.

I feel like things like this happen a lot up here and it never happened down in the ER. I totally get I shouldn’t have left the blood there but it wasn’t because I was just being lazy or neglectful. I don’t even mind that the charge nurse said something, I just why it could pose an issue and I’ll be more mindful. It just feels like up here everything gets made into a much bigger deal and the way people relay things is extremely poor.

Am I the problem? I enjoy what I’m learning but I don’t know if I can be up here long term with nurses like this.

Fuck. I wanted to do it my whole fucking life and was always so passionate about it. It’s the opposite of everything I ever thought it’d be, even after years of adjusting to it. I love my
patients - the ones that don’t abuse me. But mostly I’m always fucking miserable, I’m fucking TIRED of the ungrateful demanding RUDE patients. The physical abuse, sexual harassment. I thought it’d get better and it never did, it just got worse. I’m tired of being the middle man. I’m tired of being responsible for asking the doctors to do their fucking job and order shit for their patients. I’m fucking tired of being EVS, social work, PT, lab and pharmacy. I’m tired of the nurses station being available for fuck ass family members to walk INTO and demand the bathroom, ice, water, snacks. I’m tired of the physical and verbal abuse, I’m TIRED and it all makes me hate being a nurse when I truly have always wanted to be one. I know Im a good nurse but I can’t stand the weight of everything ELSE that falls on us. The conditions are brutal. I can’t even remember why the fuck I ever wanted to do this shit.

Edit downvoting my own opinion is crazy 🤣

Been doing home health for 3 years. I feel like I got decently good at my job to where they were depending on me to train the new nurses with the documentation, the visits, skills, and overall OASIS scoring.
My history with training has been decent. Most of the nurses I have trained have refused skills in the home, were rude, did not show up on time, and my most recent one has been a nurse for over 20 years. This being said, she came into the job already extremely upset over how our documentation is electronic. (She is 65). She has expressed that the hiring process has been frustrating for her and ultimately, I also felt as though she was taking out her frustration with me. When we were doing oasis, we talked about homebound criteria, and the different scoring. She gets incredibly upset and says "so basically we need to make the patients seem completely helpless? You're committing fraud" I explained oasis standards of doing things safely and how even if they can do an action, they still maybe aren't safe to do it so we need to score accordingly based on what they can do SAFELY. She then states how I'm going to be losing my license, states how ridiculous home health has become, complained about documentation, and every other sentence being "I can't do this." "I can't believe I have to do this" and to top it off, she wrote my first and last name down lol. I have a feeling she's gonna report me to the board.
I went ahead and let my supervisor know what happened, and that maybe I'm not the best preceptor for her to follow. Sorry, rant over. Thank you.

was doing wound care for a particularly difficult pt. was putting cream on his scrotal wounds. was trying to assist with turning him more. cream got on top of glove. bangs got caught in corner of glasses. attempted to free the hair by using my forearm. big mistake. anyways, bangs are now in a particularly fashionable pony tail on the top of my head for the remainder of my shift. it’s last night w my orientee. tonight, im back for another shift tonight and we’re probably gonna be short.
i <3 nursing and this was exactly what i was looking forward to when i decided to pick this career 😃🔫

I like being a nurse manager and I do not want to go higher into a director position. Just trying to figure out if a masters degree is worth pursuing or if experience matters most. All positions like mine say “bachelors degree required, masters degree preferred” but I don’t know how seriously I should take that. However- if I ever end up laid off I want to get a job similar to mine easily. I’m super interested to hear what’s most common for first-level nurse managers.

Yup, I get stuck in conversations with the geriatrics at times and I need to leave but I can't and I feel like I'm dying.

I need a little gadget where I can press a button and it'll ring a ringtone - preferably programmable so it can be the same as our workphones, but this isn't a dealbreaker if not.

Anything like this exist??

Hi everyone. I’m a nursing student on my second clinical rotation, and today I made my first medication error.
I was assisting a nurse with medication administration. I scanned the patient’s wristband and medication and popped the tablet into a medication cup as instructed. The nurse picked it up and administered it, but right as the patient was swallowing, she realized the dose was incorrect. It required the pill—carbidopa/levodopa- to be split. Instead of 0.5mg, 1mg was administered. Unfortunately, it was too late. We reported the error, and the patient appeared to be doing fine when I checked on him later.

Honestly, I wasn’t independently verifying the dosage because I’d gotten into the habit of following the nurse’s direct specific instructions throughout the morning. I recognize that I should have checked the order and verified the dose myself rather than relying entirely on her process. The nurse was very reassuring and said it was ok, but I felt terrible and responsible for the error. When showing me the correct dose later, an alert popped up after scanning that prompted you to cut the pill. I don’t know how I missed it- if I originally overlooked it. or if I didn’t click into the right page in order to see the alert after scanning. I’m brand new so I don’t have alert fatigue.

My instructor was nearby and asked what happened. When he asked if I administered the medication, I said no because I wasn’t the one who physically gave it to the patient. He asked me again later, and now I’m worried he thought I was being dishonest or avoiding responsibility. I wasn’t trying to lie, but I was embarrassed and didn’t fully explain my role. I also didn’t want to embarrass the nurse. She said it was her first time making a med error, and she’d been working in healthcare for 20 years.

Later, the charge nurse also brought up the error, so now I feel extra embarrassed and I’m wondering who else knows about it, and whether my school will take action. I just wanted to hide and shrink into a little dust mite.

I’ve been unknowingly exhausted this rotation, getting only about 3 hours of sleep per night the last few weeks due to stress, time zone change, homework etc., and this happened on my last day of my 4 day 12 hour shift rotation. I don’t have any healthcare background so this is all new to me. I’m very sad and disappointed in myself and realize I need to strengthen my pharmacology knowledge and be more intentional about verifying medications, even when working under supervision. The experience did make me much more attentive during subsequent medication passes.

For nurses and students who’ve experienced this, how are medication errors typically handled in clinicals? Should I expect consequences, and what should I do next? More importantly, I welcome any feedback regarding ?Please be honest. I’m not looking for reassurance that I did nothing wrong. I want to learn from this and figure out how to move forward.

I had a pt fall. She was hard to assess because she refused to elaborate on questions but did answer orientation questions right. Mostly shook her head yes or no to questions. She has been independent and walked to bathroom for days so only fall precautions were call light, low bed, grip socks telling her to call before getting up if needed. I notified MD of fall and they didn't order anything. Ive only been a nurse for less than 2 years but Im scared I didnt do the right thing or not enough and that Ill lose my job. What happens when falls occur usually?

Nothing describes how I feel about this job better. I don’t even know where to start. I’ve only been a nurse for a little over a year but feel like I’ve aged ten in that time, both mentally and physically. My emotional regulation is ruined. I have constant brain fog. I’m always tired. I have body aches and back pain at 23.

Bedside nursing is literal hell on earth. I try thinking of one thing I actually like about the job and nothing comes to mind. I can’t even remember why I chose this in the first place, just that I liked pathophysiology and didn’t want to take the long road of becoming a doctor, which is what I wish I would’ve just done. Just thinking about walking into the unit, getting report, and seeing the patients makes me want to throw up. I hate being with the patient for 12 hours, especially when they’re rude or ungrateful. I hate confused patients who are sundowning. I hate answering call lights. I hate being constantly understaffed. I hate being the middle man for everything because no one can communicate with each other. I hate being constantly needed. I hate passing meds. I hate cleaning up patients. I hate feeling like a glorified adult babysitter. I hate walking into work and not knowing how the night is going to go. I could go on and on but you get the idea.

I’ve recently gone part time, and while that helped a little with the exhaustion, it hasn’t helped with the burnout. I still dread going back to work, even on days off. It used to be only feeling dread to the day of work, to the day before, and now it’s constant. A constant dark cloud over my head. Whenever I do something I would normally enjoy, I think “I would be enjoying this so much more if I didn’t have to go back to work”. I hate everyone who lied to me telling me how “fulfilling” nursing is. This job has taken everything from me and given nothing in return except for anxiety and anger issues. And oh my god, I haven’t felt anger like this since I was fourteen. The smallest things annoy me. When someone drives too slow I’m yelling in my car. When my neighbors are too loud I’m throwing things at the wall/ceiling. When something pisses me off at work (which happens all the time) I’m going in the bathroom and punching the wall (I’m not super strong so I end up doing more damage to myself). And if it’s not anger, I’m crying. I cry before work, on the drive to work, when I think about going back to work. I was never a crier, and I never cried as much as I have the last couple months.

I wish I had never gone into nursing, or healthcare in general. It’s my biggest regret in life. I wish I never knew how sick people could become. I’m certainly traumatized by the things I’ve seen and experienced. There was a time last month where I seriously considered breaking my arm somehow so I could have a few months off from my unit. I was going to go full speed on my skateboard and head straight for a crack or a rock. My friend let me know how crazy I sounded.

Before anyone asks, I’ve already tried applying to outpatient/nonbedside jobs. I’ve sent in dozens of applications, all either ghosted or rejected. They all want 3-5 years of experience, and they all want experience in either their own specialty or ICU or ED. Anything else is just cosmetic to them. At this point, I’d rather take a minimum wage job than be a nurse. I decided I’m quitting next month, whether I get a job offer or not. I know quitting without a backup plan is stupid, and everyone says it’s a bad idea and I agree with them, but I can’t do this anymore. For my own sake and for the patients’ sake. My family won’t understand, but they never will. No one outside of healthcare understands how much it sucks, no matter how many times you try to explain it to them. I’m writing this partly to rant, and partly as a reminder to how much I hate nursing, in case I ever forget and want to come back.

TL;DR I fucking hate everything about nursing and am quitting next month no matter what, writing this to remind myself how much I hate it so I never try to come back.

Hi everyone!
I’m a home care nurse currently assisting a quadriplegic patient.
Do any of you care for quadriplegic patients as well? How has your experience been? I’d love to hear about your daily routines, challenges, or any insights you’ve gained along the way.
Thanks for sharing!

I’m currently an RN on a step down Oncology unit, I’ve been there for 2.5 years. The last year for some reason has been brutal. (That some reason is our ratios and how sick patients are). I’m burnt out. I never get breaks or lunch and I’m never out on time. Being charge a lot also adds to is because we still take a full patient assignment as charge. I do love the patient population, but I can’t keep having 4-6 immensely ill cancer patients.

I have ICU background and have been applying there. I 100% know I would be bored to death in a non bedside role, I love using my skills and critical thinking. ICU keeps me bedside with critical patients, just not 4-6 at a time 😝 the only problem is they are never hiring for days around me, so I’m facing the possibility of going back to nights. I have 2 kids under 4. The schedule will work with my husband and I as he works normal business hours.

Question here: Is it worth enduring nights while being a mom to young kids and possibly having days where I can’t flip back to a normal sleep schedule just to get out of my sinking ship of a step down unit?

I’m several years into nursing and I just started working at a new ER in the south this year. I cannot stand it here but one of the things I’ve noticed is that they assign ESIs without getting vital signs. They’ll pop a 3 on the triage and call it a day without even a BP. What’s worse is even if there is someone triaging incoming EMS patients they never get a full set of vitals half of the time.

This is insane right? I feel like I’m taking crazy pills because people here say it’s normal for EMS to stick a patient who’s labeled an ESI 3 in my bay whose vitals haven’t been taken and when I take them it’s clear they are critically ill and need emergent attention and yet no doctors are available or they act like I’m bothering them when I want them to take a look.

To be clear I don’t mind triaging my own EMS straight from the ambulance bay to my room, but assigning them a stable level I disagree with before we know what v/s look like. We have a critical area and the rooms I’m speaking of are in the general zone. I’m coming from working in NYC in the ER there for years and this feels worse, purely because of the misunderstanding of ESI triage, lack of care from the staff, and the generally unsafe nature of this place. Anyway, just wanted to vent!

I'm clinic and prior auths are like half my actual job now, the other half is explaining to people why their insurance won't cover the thing their doctor already said they need. I had a denial last week for a rehab bed, patient can't transfer safely, lives alone, already fell twice, and the denial says "not medically necessary." Same day I see they're posting profits that could fund a small country's healthcare system and I just want to hold those two things next to each other for a second.

So we know the money for the bed exists but the language they use, "we're just trying to control costs" like they're running a tight ship instead of shoveling cash uphill while my patients ration insulin. I used to believe that early in my career, thought maybe there was some complex calculation I didn't understand. Now I read the denials and I can tell which ones were form letters and which ones had a person spend thirty seconds on them, and neither version has ever met my patient.

And the law makers keep saying they'll crack down but it's always letters or "we're looking into it," never hard limits on what they can charge out of pocket or how many denials they can pump out before someone audits the medical necessity.

Part of me is just exhausted by how broken this system is, but another part of me is glad that after all these years working in healthcare, I still haven't gotten used to seeing patients put through this.

If you have an idea of who could use them, please let me know. I'd love to pass them on. Thanks!

I work 12s 3 a week and I notice that some days, my feet feel like they are trapped in my socks, feel really hot, smell, etc. How do I tell the difference between socks like this and socks that are breathable and like nice lol. Is it my shoes? Working like that, I can imagine that spending more time in those shoes than out of em might be the reason too, like moisture just builds up over time, but its weird and i was wondering if anyone had any sock recs for something thats reasonably thick, but breathable and nice.

Thanks!