r/nursing

My hospital decided that instead of doing lump sum bonuses for performance, they will pay a smaller amount in every paycheck. Maybe it's just because I need a down payment this year, but I'm super salty about it, and I'm sick of the enterprise claiming that changes are for "our benefit" when it's really just "we spent too much on expansion to pay for what we already have."

That and over half of the top 25 paid hospital executives are from our system. Tone deaf as hell

Can we please talk about the guilt that comes with calling out??? I want/need to but it's eating me up 🙃

For the nurses moving to California from out of state for the amazing unions, conditions, and pay. Please do not keep voting red and for the very same policies that have kept nursing in other states working in unsafe conditions. From what I have heard, some nurses who land a job in Cali are very opposed to unions and keep voting red and against the very policies that California nurses have fought tooth to bone for. It was particularly concerning seeing the recent election results. If you vote for the same policies in your state, be prepared for California nurses to make below living wages and with unsafe ratios again :)
California nurses have fought and spent their blood sweat and tears to ensure nurses here get adequate pay and most importantly, work in safe conditions. If you are moving to California, please vote for those very same policies. If nurses from out of state keep crossing the picket line, California could very well lose the very protections that makes nursing here great. Please don’t “uncalifornia my California.” We all deserve to work in conditions that are safe for both nurses and patients. Thanks!

TOOK MANY TIMES of picking up his hand and placing a marker on the WOOD. But after 2 hours we did this.

https://preview.redd.it/htvle3rb6ibh1.png?width=1152&format=png&auto=webp&s=ba0f03428f82572acda70f72095195b6c3f51eab

Forget the hospital, Sure its great for skills, but talking to older patients with no family really hits different

i live alone and work 12 hrs overnight.

i desperately want a kitten but i think it’s unethical because they’ll be alone so much, 12-14 hours when i include the commute, plus sleeping in the daytime.

how do you guys live alone & own pets without neglecting them? this is my first time having a house where i can own a pet. i grew up in foster care and never had a pet my entire life, and i just wanna be a present pet parent

New and more experienced alike. Healthcare is a team sport. The system is extracting labor from us all, and we shouldn’t take out all of our burnout, fatigue, and frustration on one another. Nurses who have been at a hospital for a while have institutional knowledge that the residents don’t have, teach someone a weird systems quirk that will make everyone’s jobs smoother this week.

Happy July!

I was helping a patient get from his chair to bed when he pointed to the garbage all over his bed-side table and said, “throw that all away.”

I moved his garbage can next to his bed and said, “you can do that.”

He repeated, “throw the garbage away.”

I stood my ground and said, “you have two working hands— you can throw away your own garbage.“

It took a few years but I’m finally confident enough to encourage people to “maintain their independence”/not treat nurses as their personal maids 🙃

Any nurses on here get a breast reduction? I’m interested in getting one, but curious how long you were out of work for. I know it depends on healing and things like that. I’ve read that it’s usually about 6 weeks since our job is not sedentary and requires heavy lifting/pulling/overall movement. Thank you for any and all insight!

I took a PRN private duty assignment for a young adult pt who requires a lot of care. The pt lives with mom and grandma in an apt. They are always home, and the pts room is the living room and i can't tell if the grandma also lives in the living room, but she is there sitting by me every shift. She doesn't speak to me except if its to criticize how I did something. She also gets upset by random things, like for example, the apt is very cluttered and there is no table counter space anywhere and only one dining chair I can sit in the whole shift. I briefly placed a pill organizer on a chair that I hadn't ever sat in, and she got mad I did that, it was either the chair or a random stack of boxes or ontop of my open lap top which im sure wouldve also been a problem. I understand why that was an issue but I had to set it down somewhere quickly to go tend to the pt. I switched my shifts from 12 hrs to 8 hrs which did make a big difference, but its still hard because of the constant monitoring and I feel like I have no autonomy because I get criticized. There is a lot of down time and I feel weird doing anything like getting on my lap top because shes right there. I thought maybe she was there in the room the whole time for the first shift because they didn't know me yet, but no its every shift the entire shift. It makes me feel untrusted, and they have other rules which makes me feel unwelcome. I haven't ever had a pts family like this. They also have a hard time retaining nurses but I was told it was for another reason, but I think its because of the grandma and unwelcoming environment.

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Hey everyone, I don't know if anyone can help me clear this up. I graduate in December with my RN (hopefully) in TX. My partner needs to relocate to OR in August and I want to follow them but want to make sure I am going about my licensing in the right way. OR is not part of the NLC but WA is. I am trying to figure out if it would be better to get a TX multistate license and work in WA, test in WA and get a license there, or just bite the bullet and get a single state OR license and apply for endorsement later when we move after a few years. ANY help would be so much appreciated, no one in my life works in healthcare and my instructors have had ZERO answers for me haha.

I feel it in my bones.

I finally am out of survival mode in my person life, but work has been my personal hell.

The old lady that takes her pills crushed takes little bitty bites and makes it worse for herself. I just sigh, and redirect.

The person that refuses turns (A&Ox4), and has a self inflicted pressure injury makes me roll my eyes.

The addict who complains about not having family members. I educated on cycles of addiction…..I’m empathetic, but I’m more stern with delivery.

The person that says they can’t do their wound care, but is a walky talky and can use a mirror to do it….and also works in healthcare (also very simple wound care).

The person that takes 15m to talk about random things while they can see the beads of sweat on my forehead and heavy eyes. I just have to literally walk out the door.

The entitlement to take a bunch of food/drinks every day so you will have different snack at the shelter….when you are give food/shelter for practically nothing while recovering from addiction. You also are given a job, structure, resources at this shelter. The entitlement for you to tell your whole story for 20m…..maam I just got to work.

The nitpicking of having management go through your room….this pump has a service light, the IG dressing needs to be changed (came yesterday from ER…could’ve been done two shifts ago), line tube labels, double charting on post op vitals, CBLs, skin, etc.

It’s too much, and I do not get paid enough for my time and energy.

My body is tired and my neck is so tight from trying to hold myself professionally.

So we get to work and one of our usual nurses called in sick at night. So we had a nurse from the emergency department float up to our unit. Our breaks start at 10 and we get half an hour each.

So the float nurse was on first break. He went off the unit to get food. He came back 40 minutes later and went ‘woah the line at the canteen was crazy, Ill go for my break now’ 🤨🤨 so he didn’t class the 40 minutes he was gone as his break even tho we had taken csre of his patients for 40 minutes and now it was my turn for break. I mentioned it to the charge nurse and she said it’s fine and I just go when he comes back. So he came back again after like 40 minutes so I said ok I’ll go on break now. He said if I go now there will only be 1 nurse on the floor. So I asked how if he is back from break. He said he has to go praying now. He said it’s non-negotiable and as it’s his religious he can’t be stopped from going. So he went and was gone again around 45 minutes.

Me and the charge nurse missed our breaks as when he got back it was basically lunch time so missed breakfast. I wake up at 5am and don’t eat until first break. So I didn’t eat anything until almost 1pm and felt dizzy and sick as we can’t have food or drink on the unit and I was too busy managing mine plus his patients to leave and grab something.

I kept complaining to the charge nurse because we’ve just had 15 patients each for the last almost 2 hours and she was saying it’s fine he’s a really nice person, he’s come to help us and it’s religious purposes. But he didn’t come to help us he was sent to help us. Not like he volunteered.

I don’t care about him praying that’s fine it’s the 1.5 hour long break which was all 3 nurses breaks. If he had his notmal 30 minutes we would have all had a break before he even needed to go praying.

Not sure how he is getting away with this in the ED department. I just feel so annoyed. Not only did I work through a break I don’t get paid for but also had extra patients that were all due antibiotics and vitals ect. Not to mention none of us knew anything about these patients and were constantly being asked questions we couldn’t answer.

It’s not fairrrrrrrrrrr. I sound like a toddler having a tantrum but I don’t care 🤣

Why stay in nursing if you can’t be nice to patients or at least be a little empathetic? Why not go elsewhere or get away from the bedside all together? I know a majority of it is because of money and the benefits but still.

Sincerely,
A very tired ER nurse that is annoyed with certain coworkers but can’t say it to their faces because I like my job and don’t want a target on my back

(Yall don’t have to reply to this, just venting a little after working 4 12s this week)

nurses, what’s yours?
From an ER nurse
Patient coming in and immediately asking how long they’ll be there??!!! Or coming in with NVD and wanting water before they even hit the bed 😵‍💫
Also I had the floor fight with me today saying a pt with a BP of 176/80 was unstable and needed to go to ICU instead of medsurg. Asymptomatic and is diagnosed with HTN by the way LMAOOO

I travel to different ICUs around the US, and I occasionally take LTAC contracts. What I’ve noticed is the glaring disparity of respect I receive depending on which role I’m in. When I speak to physicians when working in an ICU setting, they normally take into consideration what I say and if they disagree then they will explain why. On the contrary, physicians in the LTAC setting do not seem to have the same rapport with nurses.

I’ve also noticed that colleagues (other nurses) generally do not have respect for the work that LTAC nurses perform. Is it an issue of understanding? LTAC is high acuity, high nurse to patient ratios. It takes a lot of dedication and knowledge for nurses to work in the LTAC environment.

What are your thoughts? If you haven’t worked in an LTAC, what is your understanding of what the work entails?