Posts Tagged 'advice for nurses'

Nurse Marge in Charge

Posted by kbuxman on October 3, 2010

Dear Nurse Marge,

So here’s the story: I work in a LTC facility. I’m helping a patient move from her bed to her chair, and along the way, I stepped in something — I don’t know what, but the floor was slippery — and down I went, bringing the patient along with me.

When we untangled, it turns out that my patient sustained a sprained wrist (it’s a miracle she didn’t break it, she is very fragile) My NM said, after the fact, that had I just let go of the patient, she wouldn’t have fallen. I feel terrible! Yes, I should have let go of her, but I didn’t think of that, what with falling and all.

Now this is eating me up. How do I handle this situation? I’m beginning to think that nursing’s not for me.

Signed,

Guilt Ridden

Dear Guilt Ridden,

You’re feeling this bad for a sprained wrist? Wait until you try to move that patient and you’re standing on the foley tube and out it comes — bulb inflated! That, dear Guilt Ridden, is guilt.

Well, except for this one patient who got a very strange gleam in his eye and asked me how much he’d be charged if I could only please just do that again…that wasn’t guilt I felt as I foisted him off on a student nurse…I mean, created a learning opportunity for an up and coming professional.

Back to the point here, mistakes happen. Yes, you could have split second timing and super awareness to help you remember to let go of the patient who needed your help to remain upright — but there’s no guarantee she wouldn’t have fallen if you did let go of her. Look at it this way: if we take it as a given that she was going to fall (which is why you were helping her!) then holding on to her was exactly the right thing to do — because you could control the direction and speed of her fall! And you also provided a soft landing pad, by creatively deploying your own body! Florence Nightengale couldn’t have done it better, and you tell your NM I said that.

So dust off your dignity, straighten your spine, and get back in there! You’re not the first nurse to have this happen, and you’re not the last nurse this will happen to. It’s just another moment in the long line of nursing history, part of our proud tradition.

Let the guilt go.

At least until the next time!

Good Luck!

Nurse Marge

Tags: advice for nurses, funny nurse, nurse jokes, nurse marge in charge

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Bedside Manners: Got Vim? Resolve to be a Flo Fo this Year by Patricia L Raymond, MD FACP FACG

Posted by kbuxman on January 4, 2010

So, with this new year, will you do things with verve? With vim? With vigor?

You probably know ‘vigor’, but vim (lively and energetic spirit) and verve (enthusiasm and animation) may be not so familiar to you. And neither was Florence Foster Jenkins, aka Flo Fo, to me.

Driving down the road, listening attentively to NPR’s “Wait, Wait…”, I heard a piece on the woman known as Flo Fo, and fell in love with her spirit, her verve, her vim.

Florence Foster Jenkins, born in 1868, wished to become a singer despite a distinct lack of any talent. Whatso-ever. After her wealthy parents refused to send her to Europe to study, she eloped (with Jenkins, a physician). Upon her father’s death in 1909, she inherited money which allowed her to launch her successful singing career, despite “her complete lack of rhythm, pitch, tone, and overall singing ability.”

After a taxicab crash in 1943, she found she could sing “a higher F than ever before,” and she sent the driver a box of expensive cigars. She sang happily and erratically throughout her long and ear-damaging career. At the age of 76, Jenkins finally yielded to public demand and performed at a sold out performance at Carnegie Hall on October 25, 1944. Jenkins died a month later. (more…)

Tags: advice for nurses, Dr. Pat Raymond, Dr. Patrica Raymond, joy

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Get a Life by Loretta LaRoche

Posted by kbuxman on October 5, 2009

Tomes have been written about how to say “No”, which seems to plague women more than men.

We’re beset with the “pleasing sickness”. Too often, our friends and family members perceive us as the eternal caregivers. Once we’ve taken on the mantle of Florence Nightingale, we become best known for our “nursing” skills and are constantly called upon to help others.

Most of us who exhibit this behavior also try to get people to recognize how good and kind we are by refusing to accept help ourselves. But this stoic behavior reeks of martyrdom and will often begin to rankle everyone else because no one can really give and give without showing resentment.

My grandmother and mother were both martyrs. Eventually, others will turn a deaf ear to our whining about how oppressed we feel. It’s a no win situation.

I can remember a time when I “HAD” to take care of others because I thought that was the only way I’d be appreciated or loved, but that’s never the way it works. Doormats are simply something for people to wipe their feet on.

If you’re a consistent people pleaser who often feels taken advantage of try the following exercise: Put a forlorn expression on your face, and slump forward so your body looks hunched over. Then say the following in a pitiful voice: “Whatever you say is all right with me! I don’t need anything for myself. I’m just here to do whatever I can for you. I hope you’ll be happy with me——-after all, if I can’t make you happy, my life is meaningless. Maybe someday someone will care about me”.

Repeat this dialogue over and over for about three minutes and then see how you feel.

Of course, you may feel absurd, but it may also get you to think about how this sounds to the people around you.
I suggest the next time you feel you can’t say no, respond with “Let me get back to you on that”, or “I’m going to take some time to think about it”. Or try my favorite: “I’m feeling confused right now. I’ll get back to you later.

Mohandas Gandhi said it best “A ‘no’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse to avoid trouble”.

Loretta LaRoche writes the Get A Life Column for the Patriot Ledger.

Tags: advice for nurses, dealing with stress, less stress for nurses, Loretta Laroche, nurse humor

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Nurse Marge in Charge

Posted by kbuxman on September 14, 2009

Dear Nurse Marge in Charge,

What do you do when you work with a bunch of slobs? I am at my wit’s end!

The nurses I work with are all pretty okay most of the time, except for one thing — they are horrible about keeping things clean. I mean how hard is it when you’ve used the last gloves to get another box? Or if there’s trash on the floor to pick it up and toss it in the trash! Don’t even get me started on the nurses’ station — between the food wrappers and the piles of paper, I don’t know how anything ever gets done!

Signed,

Disgusted in Detroit!

Dear Disgusted,

I was going to answer you. Really, I was. But then I got this email:

Dear Nurse Marge,

I work with a neat freak and she is driving me crazy! You can’t set anything down — not even for a second! — before she scoops it up and throws it in the trash. I can’t tell you how many times my meal has been gone, before I’ve had even half of it. What am I supposed to do? Ignore the call light or pretend I didn’t know about the code until after I was done eating? Half the time that was the only thing I’ve had to eat for hours — and I’m not made of money, I can’t keep buying more lunches when I already had one!

And I don’t know how she does it, but she’s always got all her work done so she has ‘extra time’ to straighten/restock/arrange the flowers. Me? I’m charting and answering the phone and dealing with patient families — because you know they won’t bother HER because she’s ‘busy’ cleaning! Well, I’m busy too, and taking care of patients is more important than dusting picture frames. That’s why there is housekeeping, as far as I’m concerned!

How do I get her to calm down?

Signed,

Desperate in Detroit

Now, I don’t know what’s in the water there in Detroit, but one thing is clear: you two need to talk to each other! Or at least take a moment to understand each other’s point of view. Priorities are clearly out of alignment, which creates stress, dissension, and one nasty nurses’ station.

If the messy folks would pick up a little bit — and the neat freaks would perhaps respect the sanctity of someone’s lunch — there may be hope!

Communication is key. A shift meeting might help, particularly if the messy folks could hold off recommending upping the OCD medication dosage and the neat freaks could avoid using the words bio-hazard, disgusting, putrid, and foul for the duration of the conversation. Every group has its optimal working conditions — you just need to find yours.

Or one of you needs to get out of Detroit! That city may not be big enough to hold the both of you!

Good Luck!

Nurse Marge

Tags: advice for nurses, funny nurse, messy coworkers, nurse humor, nurse jokes, nurse marge in charge

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Nurse Marge in Charge

Posted by kbuxman on August 31, 2009

Dear Nurse Marge,

I’ve been out of nursing for a while now. I meant to take a year off when my baby was born, and now that year’s stretching into a decade. You’ve been hanging in there this whole time, and so I’ve got to ask: what’s changed while I’ve been away? What surprises are in store for me?

Signed,

The Catch Up Kid

Dear Catch Up,

Let me see if I can cast my mind back ten years. Of course, I’m writing this after a surprise double, and it would take a miracle for me to remember where I parked the car ten minutes ago, much less what I was doing ten years ago!

What stands out from ten years ago? I was doing a lot of running then: running to answer the call light seventeen times a minute, running to the phone to clarify illegible orders, running to make sure all of my charting was done, running to catch the visiting child who co-opted a Geri chair and was about to race it right into an isolation room.

Is any of this coming back to you? If you’re remembering that, I want you to think about what you were wearing on your feet. Can you recall those heavy Reebok-style sneakers? Oh, we thought they were great. Support and (ha!) style, all in one.

Now, of course, the shoes are different. There’s more variety. Some of the shoes will even make your feet feel better, they certainly look more stylish (although I’m sure I’ll be laughing about that a decade from now!) and they weigh a lot less.

That’s great news, because everything else is pretty much how you remember it. The widespread adoption of text messaging and video games means that patients can now hit the call button much faster than ever before: anecdotal studies report some patients being able to summon help up to 85 times in a single minute. The handwriting’s gotten worse — who writes anymore? But many residents and doctors have really tried to help the nursing profession with that little problem by failing to record any orders at all! The new generation of visitor’s children don’t actually run around all that much — the whole exercise concept eludes them — but you still have to chase family members away from the med cabinet (It’s amazing how many look there for ‘souvenirs’ of their visit to Grandma’s bedside!)

Sure, there’s been some advances in the whole

Tags: advice for nurses, funny nurse, LOL nurse, nurse humor, nurse jokes, nurse marge in charge

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