June 11th, 2009 by MotherJonesRN in Better Health Network
No Comments »
Life is good. I’m settling into my job at UGH (Undisclosed Government Hospital) and I have a couple of days off from work. I’m using my time constructively. My house looks like hell, but I am doing other important things like writing, reading blogs, and visiting Twitter.
Yes, I’m addicted to Twitter. I started tweeting when I hooked up with Pixel RN and Dr. Val at BlogHer last year. They showed the joys of micro-blogging and my life was changed forever. Twitter is great place to meet people using 140 characters at a time. You can hangout in cyberspace with people like Ashton Kutcher, Lance Armstrong, and Stephen Colbert. You can also hangout with a lot of great healthcare providers. I make new “friends” by putting the word “nurse” into the Twitter search engine. Then I sit back and see what pops up.
Yesterday, something very interesting caught my eye. Dr. Hess, a plastic surgeon, tweeted that nurses were being offered free plastic surgery. I love free stuff, so I followed the link in his tweet, and checked out his blog. He wrote a great post. I also checked out the link in his post to the New York Times. The upshot of the story is that some places in Europe are offering plastic surgery as a recruiting tool for nurses. The story talked about the enormous social pressure that some nurses are under to look good. It’s true. Even some hospitals in the United States are using young and beautiful nurses as a marketing tool to entice more patients into their facilities. Age discrimination is rearing its ugly head. I wrote this post about a nurse who lost her job because she was getting old and because she wasn’t pretty anymore.
I tweeted Dr. Hess. I told him that there wasn’t enough plastic on the planet that could make this sow’s ear into a silk purse. I also told him that I look forward to tweeting with him in the future. He wrote back and told me that he thinks that I’m charming. Just wait till he really gets to know me!
I’m going to Twitter my way through life.
*This blog post was originally published at Nurse Ratched's Place*
June 5th, 2009 by MotherJonesRN in Better Health Network
No Comments »
I wrote this post a long time ago when I first started blogging. I’m recycling the post because this information bears repeating. I’ve been seeing some behavior lately that is inappropriate, and I’m telling you this stuff for your own good. Please, never roll your eyes at a nurse who is old enough to be your mother. She may be going through menopause, and it could be the last thing that you ever do. Just sayin.’ Don’t make waves at the nurses station.
I worked as a neurosurgical nurse many years ago at a teaching hospital in the Midwest, and twice a year a new crop of interns descended upon our unit. It was the best show in town. The spectacle began with the chief of neurosurgery, Dr. Holier Than Thou, strutting on to the unit with his entourage marching behind him. He stood before the crowd in his impeccable white lab coat, telling everyone within earshot of his importance, and how he held the power of life and death in his hands. I would sit at the nurses station and snicker at the biannual parade, and remembered my first day in the hospital as a nursing student. Two interns had asked me to go into a patient’s room to get a set vitals signs. They didn’t tell me that the patient was cold, stone dead. I walked into the patient’s room, saw the dearly departed, and calmly walked back to the nurses station to find the interns laughing their fannies off. I told them they were going to make damn good doctors one day, but first they had to learn what rigor mortis looked like. Nonetheless, because every new group of interns looked like lambs being lead to slaughter, I pitied them, and I gave them information to use as a survival guide. These are the rules I taught them about working with nurses.
1) Nurses deserve respect. We are with the patients twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, while doctors are only able to see patients a few minutes a day. Smart interns forge alliances with the nursing staff, and understand that nurses can save their butts when something goes wrong with one of their patients.
2) Don’t take the last piece of pizza in the nurses lounge unless you are invited to do so. Nurses are territorial about food.
3) Nurses do not tolerate interns with a budding God complex. Nurses have no problem calling arrogant interns every hour on the hour for Tylenol orders, especially at night. Arrogance breeds contempt.
4) Don’t be stupid. If you want to complain about nursing care, be careful when you approach a nurse who is working the last half of a double shift. Refer to rule #3.
5) Nurses are your friends. We want to see you succeed, and if we like you, we will make sure that Dr. Holier Than Thou doesn’t find out that you order Demerol 1000 mg, instead of 100 mg, IM q 4 hours PRN because you were dead on your feet after being on call for three days in a row.
*This blog post was originally published at Nurse Ratched's Place*
May 28th, 2009 by MotherJonesRN in Better Health Network
No Comments »
Nurses are experts at navigating through rough waters. We are always there for our patients in their time of need. Check this nurse out. She is using her critical thinking skills while she sails her boat through a stormy ocean. It’s true. Nurses can do just about anything, just so long as they have a good mentor to show them the way.
From time to time, I get letters from new psych nurses asking me for advice.
I was very lucky when I first started out as a psych nurse. Nurses and doctors who gave me valuable tips when I was new in the field surrounded me on the unit, and made sure that I didn’t get myself into trouble. Here are some pearls of wisdom that my mentors passed onto me when I was the new kid on the block. I hope they help you, too.
Pearl of wisdom #1: The first rule that I learned was that I never was to accept abuse from a patient. Patients may be angry about how things are going in their life, but they must learn to vent their anger appropriately. That means no hitting, swearing, or throwing stuff at other people. Period! Just because someone has “problems” doesn’t give them a license to act inappropriately on the unit. Seriously. Nurses are not punching bags. We have rights. Nurses must teach their patients to function in the real world, and we do them a disservice if we allow our patients to act out on a psych unit.
Pearl of wisdom #2: The second pearl of wisdom has to do with the myth that nurses can say something wrong to a psych patient. Many nurses are afraid that a patient will crumble if they say the wrong thing to the wrong person. I’ve never seen this happen during my nursing career. Just listen to your patients with your ears and with your heart. Everything else will fall into place.
Pearl of wisdom #3: Never turn your back on a patient. This is self explanatory. Psych units are unpredictable.
Pearl of wisdom #4: Don’t get offended if a patient hates you. That probably means that you are doing your job. Many patients come to the hospital because they have boundary issues, and issues involving the need for immediate gratification.
Pearl of wisdom #5: Never forget that you are a REAL nurse. You may not be caring for a wounded body, however you are caring for a wounded soul.
*This blog post was originally published at Nurse Ratched's Place*
May 21st, 2009 by MotherJonesRN in Better Health Network
No Comments »
My husband and I did something amazing last weekend. We went out to see the new Star Trek movie before it came out on DVD. You may not find this to be mind-blowing, but we are frugal people. We don’t part with our money easily.
At first I hadn’t planned on seeing the movie. I was afraid that the new movie was going to be a crappy sequel, so I wasn’t going to waste my money on it. Like I said, I’m cheap. Then I heard some of the younger nurses on my unit talking about the movie at work. These kids couldn’t stop talking about the movie. I was amused by their verbiage as they described the movie. One nurse said that the movie was “new, different, and completely groundbreaking.” I just rolled my eyes. I guess they forgot that old nurses like me were watching Star Trek back in the 1960s on our black and white television sets. I just smiled and flashed them the Vulcan peace sign and said, “Live long and prosper.”
My husband and I bit the bullet. We bought our movie tickets, along with a $20 bucket of popcorn, and we walked into the theater just in time to catch the 11 AM matinee. There weren’t too many other people in the place, and the ones who were there were all AARP eligible just like us. I guess my husband and I weren’t the only two old timers who wanted to see what all the fuss was about. I’m not going to give away the plot, but the storyline delves into how the characters first meet up. Unfortunately, Nurse Chapel was nowhere to be seen in this movie. Maybe she’ll show up in their next movie as a student nurse. I’d love to see her in her student nurse pinafore and wearing her nurses cap. They just better not make her into some sort of sex kitten. See my previous rant about Nurse Jackie.
I give the new Star Trek Movie an arthritic thumbs up. Geezers, impress your younger coworkers at the nurses station and go see the movie. They will find it quaint you know about Captain Kirk. You don’t have to tell them that you knew who he was before they were born.
*This blog post was originally published at Nurse Ratched's Place*
April 27th, 2009 by MotherJonesRN in Better Health Network
No Comments »
Holy cow! I can ha
rdly remember when nurses use to wear these types of uniforms. They were so white, so professional, so spotless. Believe me, my uniform wasn’t white and spotless when I went home after a long shift at the hospital. I spent many hours after work fussing over stains on my uniform. Barco made a ton of money off of me. I ended up throwing a lot of uniforms out because I always wanted to look professional. I wish that nurses still wore their caps. Yes, I’m just an old fashioned girl at heart.
I stopped wearing my white uniforms about 20 years when I became a psychiatric nurse. I missed my nursing uniforms and I was thrilled when I found out that I was going to get to wear them again at my new job at UGH. Hallelujah! I was going to get to look like a nurse again. I hopped into my car and sped off to the mall.
Images of Florence Nightingale danced in my head as I walked into the uniform boutique. A perky clerk who offered to show me all the latest fashions greeted me at the door. I was amused by what I saw. I’m still trying to figure out why someone would put Betty Boop and her Harley Davidson Motorcycle on a scrub top. I went for something a little more age appropriate, so I bypassed the Disney Beauty and Beast scrubs and I bought three pairs of white twill nursing pants with elastic around the waist and four flowered scrub tops. I really miss my white uniforms, my nursing cap, and my navy blue cape. You young people just don’t know what you’re missing. Maybe next year I’ll take a walk on the wild side and buy a few uniforms sporting Snoopy prints.
