Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Sims?

Think I am going to talk about that highly addicting game? NOPE

The-Sims-2

Sorry to disappoint. Tomorrow at the ass crack of dawn I get to travel about 2-3 hours to Radford U and get trained on the Sims patients. What is that? Well if your a fan if Grey’s Anatomy you have already seen something like it. Its a mannequin that looks real, talks and has medical symptoms and issues. In fact you pretty much treat it like a real patient. It can even die on you and you have to perform CPR on it. Fun right? My luck I will be doing CPR tomorrow…lol I guess it can tell me it has chest pain and I have to demonstrate what actions, questions and assessment techniques to use. It sounds interesting…but it still gives me butterflies in my stomach. I hope I remember what the hell I am suppose to do. I know the knowledge is in my head somewhere. So I have to be there at 830am which means I have to be up at the crack of dawn. After 3 hours there I have to go back to college and take my test. Fun fun. This ones is on med administration (not to worried) Legal issues ( not too worried) Ethics, (not too worried) and last Nutrition (extremely worried) I mean hey while she was teaching it I was eating chocolate cookiesbalanceddiet and Mickey D teatea_thumb …healthy? So not really sure if I will do well in that department. So I better get back to studying…nite

Narcotic use and diversion

okay i had to do a discussion paper for class on a nursing legal issue. This blog is for my nursey buddies that are already nurses or those that are just starting. I don’t think enough people are informed on this so here goes…my paper

Narcotic use and diversion in nursing is growing and is becoming even harder to identify. More training for nurses is needed to teach the signs and symptoms of nursing diversions. Drug abuse is the number on reason named by state boards of nursing for discipline action against nurses. Not only is this abuse but it’s also neglect on the patients behalf. Some nurses pretend to give the drug to a patient, preferably one that cannot speak for themselves, and take the drug themselves. I had wished that my facility had been more proactive on teaching us the warning signs of diversion and also the signs of nursing drug abuse, even if they are hard to spot. Stricter rules and regulations on accessing medications should be enforced. Unfortunately most places like long term care facilities do not have the newer equipment to avoid easy access. Being at one of those facilities I learned that my med cart was easily accessed and that was a hard lesson to learn. 32 Lortab were missing at the end of my shift. It was my cart and I was supposed to be the only one that had accessed it. The culprit was caught but only after drug testing, having my rites read to me by the police and 3 weeks of investigation, crying, sleepless nights and a full investigation from the nursing board. A fellow nurse while talking to me had stolen the narcotics from the backside of my cart, which opened from both sides. I never even knew she had had gotten them. I had to Protest against the old med carts and requested that they be replaced with better locking and one sided accessible carts, which we now have today. Reading other articles has helped me identify some of the diversion signs: Volunteering to administer medications for others, noticing that patients are not receiving relief from administered narcotics, frequent reports of waste, re-taped packets. Not to mention the physical signs: agitation, sedation, hand tremors and headaches. This nurse may offer to work overtime, but takes many breaks, tardiness, or many miss days of work. Most nurses are users not sellers and will use at work. They may inject the drug and administer the rest so that the patient shows some relief to keep down suspicion. The nurses need to be educated about narcotics use and diversion in order to report to the manager with their concerns. If they lack the education they may be helping the abusing nurse and are unaware. Narcotics need to be monitor and discrepancies should be reported. Don’t assume that the liquid narcotic is just off it could be diversion. This is your license on the line are you going to protect it?

Saturday, July 18, 2009

Riddle me this

Okay so my first day of clinical went well. The hard part was trying to figure out how to do this care plan. Now don’t get me wrong I have done care plans for work, but this is no ordinary care plan. Its for the riddler or Nazi care plan lady.

riddler

Why do I address her as the riddler now? Cause she never answers your questions. I know this thing is going to be time consuming but if I don’t know how to do it how can one finish it? So when I ask specific questions you would think that I would get a direct answer but instead I get some sort of a riddle and I am suppose to try to figure out what the hell that means? Just tell me damn it! Grr… So all 8 of us in class are trying to meddle thru this. I am hoping to find someone that has had this class to direct me in the right direction. Its not like I am wanting the answers or a short cut just tell me how to do this so I can get it done.

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Death

Being a nurse you are a custom to death. Especially when you work long term care where most of your pts have come here to die. What makes it hard as a nurse is when you work home health care and have one pt. that your work is centered around. Especially when they are a kid. Taking care of a pt since they were a baby and having them die at the age of 15 makes it feel like you have lost your own child. Even though your not suppose to cross that line of nurse/pt relationship. But spending 40-50hrs a week for 15 yrs makes it hard not to think of them as family. Your suppose to move on to the next case and act like they were never part of your life. How does one do that? Should you go to the families house? Or is that past the nursing relationship? These are the question a relative of mine is facing. How do I help her put the pieces back together?

Thursday, July 2, 2009

Jump for Joy

Okay I have to toot my own horn…I freakin passed the Head to Toe exam. Yippee! joy I felt like a little kid at Christmas…I wanted to shout it at the top of my lungs and I couldn’t wait to tell someone…so I called just about everyone…lol Seriously thought about calling everyone on my cell phone…but I don’t think pizza hut or Wal-Mart would really care…I was really shocked we passed cause we even got the dag gone teacher that was failing everyone. I was so happy to hear I passed. I couldn’t believe the people that I heard say that they barely studied…are they on crack? We studied are butt off and it was rough…sheesh
Now all I have left is to pass the exam with at least at 70 and I will have completed this dag gone class. I am not wanting a 70 I just wanted to know what leeway I have. Anyway on with Rn transition class…I think my teacher is the Nursing Care Plan Nazi...I can’t believe what I have to turn in to her after our first clinical. I am not even sure I know what the hell I am doing. My lab partner kept looking at me…what the hell look..lol Even the teacher said you all have that deer in the headlight look. No shit lady…we have no idea what we are doing. I mean I have done care planning before but this is crazy. So as soon as I am done studying for my exam I have to get my butt in gear and get this care plan a going…Just have to make it till Aug5…come on summer I am ready for you to end!