Nurse Emicat @nurse-emi-cat - Tumblr Blog

Just discovered the NCLEX maxes out at 145 questions now (it used to be 265) and I just feel like this is proof that it never needed to be so ridiculous.

specialtynurse

The minimum is 60 insteaed of 75 now, too.

nurse-emi-cat

HELLO IS THIS WEENIE HUT JRS

thesigilwitch

I was just about to spiral into a bad panic attack, and my boyfriend goes "Stick an ice cube in your mouth." I'm not really sure where he got the idea, and I kinda laughed at it because I didn't see how it would help, but he was insistent. So I did it.

And now I'm on my second cube, because it worked.

thesigilwitch

He explained his reasoning to me when he got home.

1. I would initially think "what the fuck" and be distracted from the anxiety. (Correct.)

2. The cold of the ice would shock my system, bringing me back to the physical world and reality, drawing my focus to the cold in my mouth, and keep my brain away from thinking "I'm panicking, I must be dying." (Correct.)

3. He assumed I hadn't drank much water today and wanted to keep me hydrated. (Triple correct.)

pigeonwithaknife

It also forced your mouth to make saliva!

When you go into fight or flight mode, non-crucial body functions stop working so you have more energy to do what you need to do to survive (oooor to spiral into a panic attack). By forcing yourself to make saliva it helps calm you down because since fight or flight is an all or nothing response, they can’t happen at the same time.

Learned that from my old therapist, who would use it with veterans with ptsd

queer-papayas

I’m doing this right now and its working????

autumnsnuggling

THIS! Do this!

Anxiety is an emotional thing BUT there are feedback systems in place in your body that pay attention to physical states as well, which is why you then experience raised heart rate and so on when anxious. Eliminate or confuse one feedback system? Reduce anxiety.

Go be free!

nurse-emi-cat

Oh yeah! I use this trick with my clients all the time at work. Now they know to ask for it. Since we made it a recognized calming thing at work I’ve had to give way fewer PRN medications.

The Abuse Hotline is Way too Easy to Abuse

Where I work, there is a number you can call if you suspect abuse or neglect against a patient. I work in a state psychiatric facility.

This number is mainly used by three different kinds of people

1. Paranoid Schizophrenics

2. People with BPD who didn’t get their way

3. Disgruntled Staff

Never in my time here has it been used for a substantiated case of abuse or neglect. It wastes time and displaces people from their units for nothing.

Sometimes it gets to a point if the same patient keeps calling they get their own caseworker and the reports get thrown out, but that’s rare.

I didn’t place a client on a 1:1 observation who asked to be on one. This client is attention seeking, and when other clients are getting 1:1 observations or being put in restraints or are otherwise not giving her attention, she acts out. As a nurse, I can’t even put her on a 1:1. Her record shows that she will act out for attention. The doctors know her pretty well because she tries to manipulate them to get around rules I’ve set. I refused to feed into that. I put her in her place by stating she just wanted attention. Thats also known as a “reality statement.”

She destroyed all her belongings and cried to the next shift that I ordered my staff to do so.

The next day, I found myself kicked off my own unit and under investigation for abuse.

How is that fair?

Why are we taking the word of a teenage girl with known behavior issues over a veteran nurse?

#psych nurse #rn #nurse rant #story time #nurse advice #charge nurse #bpd

inahiddenplace

will i ever feel fulfilled? yes. i have felt fulfilled before. i will feel fulfilled again. will i ever be content? yes. i have been content before. i will be content again. will i ever be happy? ecstatic? overcome with joy? will i ever feel surrounded by love? supported? encouraged? will i ever feel proud? will i ever feel hopeful? will i ever feel confident in myself? will i ever feel optimistic about my future? yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. yes. my present is not my eternity.

Need some advice

Nurses of tumblr, has there ever been a time when you questioned whether you had made the right decision when you chose to become a nurse? I’ve been questioning myself lately. I feel like I did make a good choice, like nursing is the only thing I wanted to do, and other nurses say I’m miles ahead of where they were when they first started as nurses, and I always hear that I’m a good nurse, but I don’t know. Perhaps it’s a feeling that all new nurses get.

How do you cope with that? Should I move jobs?

#the young nurse #nurse #psych nurse #rn #baby nurse #new nurse #registered nurse #professional #nurse rant #nurblr #nurse advice #advice

Stuck between a rock and a hard place

I love psych. I’ve worked in psych for 9 months and I honestly can’t picture myself working in any other area of nursing. The facility I work in is part of the state, which means really good benefits and a pension. I adore my patients and the staff that I supervise.

I still am not happy where I work.

I know work isn’t supposed to be fun and games all the time. It really isn’t WHAT I do or WHO I work with that is bothering me. It’s the way things are run. You’ve got to do your job but there are policies that prevent you from doing your job. We still do basically everything on paper and there are forms to fill out when you fill out forms. You get dinged by Quality Management if they can’t read your signature on something but they know that that signature is yours. We don’t have enough staff, and the few staff we have keep getting mandated to the point where they get injured. We have patients here who are not appropriate for the inpatient psychiatric care setting. My facility makes me feel like the only thing that makes my presence worthwhile is my RN license.

I basically got thrown to the wolves. They didn’t care that I had just come from nursing school. They just saw “RN” on my resume and hired me. They expected me to know everything and provided me with no coaching whatsoever. I know how to do the things within the scope of my practice but I didn’t know how to do them within the policies of my facility. They didn’t show me how to be an RN. They just made sure I knew how to pass meds because a license is a license. I can do assessments and can even straight cath. They didn’t teach me how to run a unit like an RN is supposed to. I figured it out with help from my aides, but then I got spoken to by an administrator about being too friendly with them and being too impressionable. I figured they knew how the unit worked the best, and made things work that way. I get told all the time about how I need to be more assertive. I don’t know how. Nobody has given me any advice.

I have contemplated moving on to something else, but I don’t want to go through all that nonsense with the job hunt again. I sound selfish, but I dont want to lose my retirement benefits because I need to stay in state service for a number of years before I am vested and can keep my pension. I need to be excited about work again but I don’t know what my next move is.

#the young nurse #nurse #psych nurse #rn #nurse rant #down with management

When someone comes into the med room despite there being a sign saying “do not disturb the med nurse”

#nurse #psych nurse #rn #med nurse #lpn #angry

Fact

LPNs are just as valuable as RNs. A lot of my training at work was done by LPNs and I learned so much more valuable stuff from them than the RNs who trained me.

Things that Nursing School DIDN’T Teach Me

Nurses of Tumblr, please add

1. How to deal with being abused by a patient

2. How to tell your poor tired aide that they have been mandated

3. How to deal with facility politics

4. How to deal with staff splitting patients

5. How to maintain patient safety while working short

6. How to get psychotic patients to take their meds

7. How to call the provider to clarify an order

8. How to say no

#the young nurse #nurse #nursing school #nursing student #psych nurse #med surg #rn #lpn

Me trying to fend off people nagging for their nicotine gum PRNs while my med nurse sets up for the HS med pass

#the young nurse #nurse #psych nurse #charge nurse #med nurse #rn #lpn #nicotine #this stuff turns people into monsters #animals #monsters

When you’re made the charge nurse for the shift

#charge nurse #psych nurse #nurse

When you’re the med nurse for a unit of 23 patients and you have to set up meds but also you have blood sugars to check and 5 people want their PRNs and 3 people take their meds in applesauce and you’ve got skin creams to administer and it’s 10 minutes until med pass

#the young nurse #nurse #psych nurse #med nurse #ahhhhhh #nurse emicat

Say it with me kids

The psych hospital is not a place for an individual with Alzheimer’s

#nurse #psych nurse #alzheimers #mental health

dragon-in-a-fez

I just discovered there’s a clause in my contract that literally says I’m not allowed to work

dragon-in-a-fez

like from the context of the section above it it’s clearly supposed to say I’m not allowed to use my time on the clock to do anything connected with another job but what it actually says is just:

you may not under any circumstances undertake any duties of any kind during your hours of work