NYC Saga 1

I know it has been a while since I have updated but there has been lots of things going on since the last post! So here it goes!!

The unit I am working its good in the fact that they take excellent care of their patients but they treat the travelers like shit! They have done some of the most shady assignments I have had in my career. Granted in the last place was a death trap but if I was tripled at least 2 or more other nurses were tripled too! Example: I was tripled and there was another nurse with only 1 patient who wasn't classified a 1:1! Just shady business all over this unit! Not to mention that everyone is miserable and thinking of leaving the unit! I have never worked around so many selfish, miserable people! So basically at the end of this assignment I am looking to move to another unit or another facility! I know as a traveler I shouldn't be able to complain but hell im still human! I called myself trying to trust some of the staff and complain a little and they showed me none of them are to be trusted! And i don't trust any of them!! Oh but what really pushed me over was this assistant manager! SHE PISSED ME OFF!!! So I walked into the unit 7 mins late (I like to eat before I go to work because I never know when I am going to get floated!) and she makes this big deal out of it and decided to remind me of the unit practices for showing up! It took all I had to keep it professional but, this is my blog damnit and I can say whatever I want: she can kiss my ass. I understand you may have had the thought "oh he is never late so we should worry", however, I am a grown adult and if im not going to show up im professional enough to give a courtesy call! "Well people transcribe the schedule wrong all the time", this is why I do it electronically off of the MASTER schedule! You guys just don't understand how WRONG this rubbed me!!

The 1st code:

There was a patient who was circling the bottom of the toilet, I knew something was probably going to happen...some people you look at and you get a bad vibe...yeah this was that patient lol! Low and behold they coded! So of course I immediately thought of home and the code team! LMAO! Please see my previous posts about my 1st real code ever lol! So anyway I jump on the red cart and ended up charting too! PULLING double freaking duties! Any way, I was not impressed one bit by what I saw! Clearly codes come far and few between because it was an unorganized mess! One nurse thought her CPR cured the patient and started prematurely celebrating, ummm yeah. They had probably the oldest guy in the unit doing CPR for an extended period of time, hell I thought we were going to have to code his old self! LMAO! I was like um, yeah is someone going to relieve him? LOL! So I am just sitting at the cart laughing to myself at how horribly this is going, its like there is so much "experience" and no one can get it together to run this code smoothly. Needless to say, I am not impressed at ALL. Just because you work in a CT ICU doesn't mean jack snap nothing!! Well the code ended how most do....and you would think someone in charge would stay to help to chart, since I was not familiar with the code charting? YEAH RIGHT! They left their own staff member there ALONE! ALONE! They did their postmortem care alone, charted alone, and I did the code charting with a per diem nurse! I have no respect at all for them! Most travelers go find something more important to do during codes, yet I was there in the thick of it when i didn't have to be! and their thank you: LEAVE.

The Aide

This one aid makes me pray every time I have to interact with her! I have never met someone proclaim how proud of the fact they are an assistant and not a nurse YET try to ASSESS DIAGNOSE PLAN INTERVENE AND EVALUATE patient care! Everything I did with this woman, "you need to elevate their arm" "You need to wipe from left to right" "Im going to talk to the doctor" OH YESS!! It drove me crazy!! How in the hell are you going to talk to a doctor in the place of a nurse!? In addition, they would disconnect IV's, arterial lines and silence IV pumps! Oh you know I was ready to print out the nurse practice act and bring it to work!!! But the straw that broke the camel's back: during the code mentioned above this same aid kept interrupting the code for me to go check a patient's colostomy bag! Now this patient belonged in step down vitals every 4 hours minimal care-and she wanted me to STOP THE CODE, STOP CHARTING to go check a colostomy bag! AND had the nerve enough to chastise me for not attending to my patients! I was LIVID! How DARRRREEEEE you chastise me over anything not being done in an emergency situation!? ITS AN EMERGENCY! I wanted to ask her the following,"How we about we stop your life resuscitation to go check on some shit bags!?" But I didn't...or else I would be blogging from Houston at HOME! LMAO! Oh yes Ms. Thang is something else! Of course I complained to some of the staff and instead of being like "yeah I know" they were like "Well I have been dealing with it for 6 years", well THANKS!!! UGH! Its time for me to make a move!

Floated

I was floated to this cardiac step down unit recently and I was PISSED! I haven't worked on a floor since nursing school and I know my time management skills aren't built for step down...or so I thought! I go to this unit and I think the fact that it was something way different intimidated me more the actual work! Oh I was being an asshole! But the more I looked around, the more I was like: oh SHIT these nurses are SOOOO COOL! YES THESE STEP DOWN NURSES ROCKED! They had the kind of positive attitudes that I hadn't seen since leaving Texas! Two nurses started dancing, one asked me if I wanted to order food, one asked me if i needed any help. I was like, omg, have I been jaded so bad by my home ICU I actually had an attitude working with these ladies?! Oh i apologized to them and explained my current working conditions...they understood and accepted me into the fold! It was so refreshing! I just can't wait to go back! My current assignment ends October 9th, and I am looking for a different unit!

More to come!

BS RN BSN