Bus Sighting, or, Nurses Are A Waste of Time

[Bright_Star]

Nurses have so much medical knowledge that they may as well be doctors!

[Antisocial_Worker]

Me like male nurses. They're hawt.

You're not alone in that opinion... I rather enjoy it when my boyfriend wears his scrubs. Yowza.

[Hyndis]

Nurses have so much medical knowledge that they may as well be doctors!

They pretty much are.

A doctor is a specialist. Many doctors specialize very, very heavily in one field, but as a result they tend to be inexperienced in everything else. While a brain surgeon is awesome at what he does, he's not the guy to go to with regards to, say, heart problems.

A nurse sees it all. They cannot do brain surgery, but a nurse can do a bit of everything. And nurses end up doing most everything, leaving the specialist doctors to do their specialty.

[trailerparkmedic]

Nurses have so much medical knowledge that they may as well be doctors!

Yeah, but nurses worry about people instead of diseases. I mean, a nurse will pay attention to what diseases you have, but they're more worried about how you react to them, whether your reaction is to stop breathing or freaking out because you don't know how to cope. At least, that's what the theory I'm learning now says.

Thanks everyone, especially Amina and Panacea. I like people, but with my medical background being military, I'm not one of those "angel of mercy" people. I can be very patient and caring, but I dislike bs. Some of my classmates have a very different view than me, which makes me very glad there are many different ways to be a nurse.

The thing that gets me about WOG is that medicine is crazy nowadays. I'm going to be taking care of people on the floor that would have been in the ICU or dead 20 (10?) years ago. One of my friends works in the acute wing of a nursing home and some of her patients are discharged to her from the ICU. I'm going to be a trained, competent professional who has a hell of a lot of responsibility and I'm tired of the white dress stereotypes, especially since I see them perpetuated at one of the local community colleges.

For the person who suggested a jacket over my uniform... I don't know if my lab coat over my scrubs would make things any better. Then I'd look like a doctor!

[Sapphire Silk]

Yeah, but nurses worry about people instead of diseases. I mean, a nurse will pay attention to what diseases you have, but they're more worried about how you react to them, whether your reaction is to stop breathing or freaking out because you don't know how to cope. At least, that's what the theory I'm learning now says.

Thanks everyone, especially Amina and Panacea. I like people, but with my medical background being military, I'm not one of those "angel of mercy" people. I can be very patient and caring, but I dislike bs. Some of my classmates have a very different view than me, which makes me very glad there are many different ways to be a nurse.

The thing that gets me about WOG is that medicine is crazy nowadays. I'm going to be taking care of people on the floor that would have been in the ICU or dead 20 (10?) years ago. One of my friends works in the acute wing of a nursing home and some of her patients are discharged to her from the ICU. I'm going to be a trained, competent professional who has a hell of a lot of responsibility and I'm tired of the white dress stereotypes, especially since I see them perpetuated at one of the local community colleges.

For the person who suggested a jacket over my uniform... I don't know if my lab coat over my scrubs would make things any better. Then I'd look like a doctor!

If it's a short coat, you can get away with it. Believe it or not, there is a protocol to lab coats in the hospital.

Student nurse uniforms are usually pretty dorky looking, but if you can suck it up until you finish your program, then you can wear whatever the standard uniform is, scrubs or what ever. More hospitals are requiring nurses to wear either white, or a designated color so they stand out from other staff. A warm up jacket or lab coat with a uniform is always acceptable (you'll be able to wear a longer coat after you graduate without raising eyebrows).

I know what you mean about patients on the floor who would've been in ICU 20 years ago; I've watched the progression over the last 25 years (yeah, I'm dating myself). Technology and drugs have gotten a lot better, but the futility of some treatment and watching some patients just linger and struggle for no good reason other than either the doctor or the family or both can't let go is a big part of the reason why I embrace the hospice model.

And I would much rather be a nurse than a physician. I like talking to my patients. I left the ER (very reluctantly) because I loathe the assembly line nursing management forced me into . . . I actually had my supervisor complain because I spent too much time in patient rooms!

@jedimaster: last week I had students in the nursery when we got a preemie in. The pediatrician was having a hard time understanding what the nurse was telling him about what was in a syringe she was handing him (1mg of 1:10,000 epi in 1ml . . I thought she was perfectly clear).

After he finally figured it out when she told him for the third time what he needed to push to get the dose he wanted (he was managing the umbilical artery catheter), he said, "Never let a doctor do what a nurse does."

[Seshat]

Just popping back into the thread to thank all of you who are nurses.

Also the pharmacy techs, radiology techs, and everyone else in the medical field. I owe a lot to your professional brothers and sisters.

[Wenchie]

My dad & stepmonster are both nurses. The step does remote ICU and my dad is in oncology. After seeing my dad go through school to be a RN while I was in college, and hearing all of their stories, I have the highest respect for the nursing profession.

Individual nurses... sometimes not so much. It look the ER three hours to rule out a heart attack when I went in with chest pains a couple of months ago, because the nurses managed to cancel all of the blood tests (yes, I know this for a fact... heard them talking about it at the nurses station) and who knows what the xray tech was off doing... with women, a heart attack doesn't always show up on an EKG, but since the EKG was normal they took their sweet time about getting anything else done... and this was in an almost empty ER too. Luckily, shift changed after two hours and the new nurses on shift actually redid my tests (I just love getting stuck with needles too... not!) and saw that I was taken care of.

[Sapphire Silk]

My dad & stepmonster are both nurses. The step does remote ICU and my dad is in oncology. After seeing my dad go through school to be a RN while I was in college, and hearing all of their stories, I have the highest respect for the nursing profession.

Individual nurses... sometimes not so much. It look the ER three hours to rule out a heart attack when I went in with chest pains a couple of months ago, because the nurses managed to cancel all of the blood tests (yes, I know this for a fact... heard them talking about it at the nurses station) and who knows what the xray tech was off doing... with women, a heart attack doesn't always show up on an EKG, but since the EKG was normal they took their sweet time about getting anything else done... and this was in an almost empty ER too. Luckily, shift changed after two hours and the new nurses on shift actually redid my tests (I just love getting stuck with needles too... not!) and saw that I was taken care of.

Yeowch. Sorry that happened to you. You're right, you don't diagnose or rule out an MI with one EKG. You get an EKG and a cardiac panel, and even then you still might not make the diagnosis (depends on how the patient responds to initial treatment).

This is exactly the kind of thing I'm always trying to pound into my students head. They usually get it when I kill the simulation manikin

[DeltaSierra]

I wish you all the best - nursing is such an incredible profession, and nothing to be mocked. One of my best friends from high school is a nurse, and so is his wife. He got a heckuva lot of flack for going into the nursing program 15 years ago, but when he graduated with top honors, and proved himself to be an amazing ER nurse, the flak turned into admiration. I'm incredibly proud of him. I can remember being his biology lab partner in high school, and he used to voice his desire to go into nursing, but his father had been telling him it was a "sissy" profession. I'm so glad he followed his heart. Kudos to you!!!

[Wenchie]

Yeowch. Sorry that happened to you. You're right, you don't diagnose or rule out an MI with one EKG. You get an EKG and a cardiac panel, and even then you still might not make the diagnosis (depends on how the patient responds to initial treatment).

This is exactly the kind of thing I'm always trying to pound into my students head. They usually get it when I kill the simulation manikin

Heh. Initial treatment? What treatment? Not even nitro. My parents were PISSED when they found out how the ER treated me... or didn't treat me, as the case was. They put me in a bed, did an EKG, did blood tests (took them 7 tries to get a vein and my veins are EASY to poke so I don't know what was up), did chest xrays, and then promptly forgot about me and accidentally canceled the blood tests. I was in a room across from the nurses desk and they were sitting there chatting most of the time with their back to my room. No call button within sight and I was short of breath (because it hurt to breathe) and COULDN'T yell for them.

When the shift changed, the new nurses redrew my blood (got got the vein the first time), actually put an oxygen monitor on my finger (yup! 2 hours in the ER at that point and they hadn't even monitored my 02 stats) and gave me a call button. And a blanket since I was in a hospital gown. They sent me on my way after giving me a shot of something to help with the pain, and that was it.

It took me three days after that before I could walk more than 4-5 steps at a time without pain. I was shuffling around like an old woman.

And they never gave me a diagnoses, btw. It was.... "Well, doesn't look like a heart attack and your lungs look fine. So we're sending you home." They weren't even going to give me anything for the pain until I literally started crying because I was tired and frustrated and in MORE pain than I had been when I came in.

Luckily, I know most nurses are NOT like that. But needless to say, that's a hospital that I'll be avoiding.

[Skelly]

I'm so glad I have a car.

Granted, I run into idiots everywhere I go.

If you run into idiots everywhere, maybe you ought to slow down a litte .

[BlaqueKatt]

all I will say is I would much rather be seen for 90% of my medical issues by an NP or PA-simply because they usually have more "personal experience" dealing with patients, while doctors have more "textbook knowledge"-plus I don't feel as rushed by NPs or PAs as I do by doctors.

Heck it was a Nurse Practitioner that diagnosed my second and third cases of Mono, and explained that yup I could get it up to five times(five different viruses can cause it), doctor never told me that....

And it was a nurse in the ER that diagnosed my viral meningitis-doctor said migraine-nurse yelled at the doctor "no this is not a migraine-look at the patient and not the patient's chart". Apparently the nurse had seen around 14 cases of viral meningitis that week-it was going around and he knew it.

And it was a nurse that got me through being drugged at a bar, while the doctor just dismissed me as "having had too much to drink" I had consumed half a bottle of beer and started vomiting and convulsing-by the time I got to the hospital my BAC was 0.0-the doctor didn't believe me-the nurse did, I was scared, and that nurse refused to leave my bedside, or let me be discharged until whatever I had been given was out of my system.

[Sapphire Silk]

Heh. Initial treatment? What treatment? Not even nitro. My parents were PISSED when they found out how the ER treated me... or didn't treat me, as the case was. They put me in a bed, did an EKG, did blood tests (took them 7 tries to get a vein and my veins are EASY to poke so I don't know what was up), did chest xrays, and then promptly forgot about me and accidentally canceled the blood tests. I was in a room across from the nurses desk and they were sitting there chatting most of the time with their back to my room. No call button within sight and I was short of breath (because it hurt to breathe) and COULDN'T yell for them.

When the shift changed, the new nurses redrew my blood (got got the vein the first time), actually put an oxygen monitor on my finger (yup! 2 hours in the ER at that point and they hadn't even monitored my 02 stats) and gave me a call button. And a blanket since I was in a hospital gown. They sent me on my way after giving me a shot of something to help with the pain, and that was it.

It took me three days after that before I could walk more than 4-5 steps at a time without pain. I was shuffling around like an old woman.

And they never gave me a diagnoses, btw. It was.... "Well, doesn't look like a heart attack and your lungs look fine. So we're sending you home." They weren't even going to give me anything for the pain until I literally started crying because I was tired and frustrated and in MORE pain than I had been when I came in.

Luckily, I know most nurses are NOT like that. But needless to say, that's a hospital that I'll be avoiding.

Understandable. If the patient is young, it's easy (but wrong) to believe it just can't be an MI. Doesn't matter; it very well could be.

It also could have been a pulmonary embolism (don't show up on chest xrays), reflux, gall bladder, pancreatitis, or costocondritis (irritation of the chest wall muscles). I often remind my students that with the chest, the sky's the limit . . . lots of things cause chest pain. Some serious. Some not.

If you keep feeling bad, see your regular doc.

[telecom_goddess]

I respect the nursing profession but I had a bad experience when I was in the ER with a freshly broken arm. They kept trying to rush me home when i kept complaining that I didn't have anyone at home to help me and what could i do....I was rendered helpless by that break because it paralyzed my whole arm....that never got resolved by them and I had to find my own resources. Plus before they discharged me I had to ask for a sling....it hurt my arm to have it hang down. And I discovered after I got home that they left the iv needle in my arm . On top of all that the splint they put on my arm was put on in such a way that it was pinching a nerve and causing me untold agony until I went back into the er two days later.

[Sapphire Silk]

I respect the nursing profession but I had a bad experience when I was in the ER with a freshly broken arm. They kept trying to rush me home when i kept complaining that I didn't have anyone at home to help me and what could i do....I was rendered helpless by that break because it paralyzed my whole arm....that never got resolved by them and I had to find my own resources. Plus before they discharged me I had to ask for a sling....it hurt my arm to have it hang down. And I discovered after I got home that they left the iv needle in my arm . On top of all that the splint they put on my arm was put on in such a way that it was pinching a nerve and causing me untold agony until I went back into the er two days later.

Ack.

The rush came from the orthopedic surgeon. Orthopedics are notorious for not wanting to come to the ER to see patients; they usually tell the ER doc to split it and send the patient to the office in the morning. Trouble is, when the patient gets there they have to pay the office fee up front; EMTALA no longer applies. Many patients can't afford it, and the orthopod doesn't have to provide uncompensated care.

Leaving the IV in was just plain negligent. The poorly placed splint probably should have been caught too; an assessment of circulation and sensation is part of the care for that kind of injury.