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medicalsurgical

“Your discharge is not priority”..

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“Due to short staffing, we are closing early. Sorry for any inconvenience.”

“Please expect longer than usual wait times due to short staffing..”

“Now hiring. $15/hr starting pay.”

These signs and statements look all too familiar within today’s society. The nursing shortage has been ongoing for years and only getting worse. Short staffing at grocery stores or restaurants cause frustration and inconvenience. However, short staffing in healthcare is deadly and only increases the shortage as healthcare workers are overworked and burnt out.

It is really hard to be the nurse that we signed up to be…

  • When we can’t talk to our patients like we would like to and truly listen to them without having 1000 other urgent tasks to complete
  • When we don’t have time to brush our patient’s hair or give them a shower
  • When we don’t catch a dangerous trend in labs or vital signs because we are too busy to think
  • When we make a simple medication error because our phone keeps ringing or call lights are nonstop
  • When we don’t have the compassion we did as a new nurse..

As a nurse, we pledge an oath to do no harm, but it is very difficult when we do not have the resources we need to be successful and advocate for our patients as we should.

What doesn’t make sense either, is that administration views short staffing as doable, giving more and more patients to staff because they have to. But, are these overworked staff receiving additional pay? Most of us are not. The healthcare system does not operate on the usual economical supply and demand system. As demand rises, our pay does not increase.

From a patient standpoint, outcomes and satisfaction suffers. Healthcare worker violence rises and staffing is a major factor. Nurses must prioritize care, especially when having high-acuity loads and no help.

  • We must treat a low blood pressure before performing wound care.
  • We have to prevent a patient from falling before administering your home medication on your own schedule.
  • We will attend to a code before patient teaching.
  • We have to administer scheduled medications and/or pain medications, before printing discharge instructions.

Your discharge is not priority. We are literally saving lives and patients need to realize that a hospital is not a hotel.

I guarantee you, nurses are not just sitting at the station playing cards, drinking tea, or any other outrageous assumption made by the media. We are trying…

Until next shift,

Shania

The Meaning of a Pin

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Shania Lynn The Cure For The Common Read Photo As a student nurse, the one day that you look forward to is even of greater significance than college graduation.. nursing pinning. The nurse’s pin dates back to the early Maltese cross in which a pin was worn meaning a service of Christianity. The servants would care for others with communicable illnesses. Since then, the meaning of the pin has transformed throughout different cultures and programs. Florence Nightingale, the creator of the first structured program for nurses, eventually adopted the pin as a symbol of knowledge, servitude, and compassion for the vulnerable. Today, all nursing programs (and other non-nursing programs) culminate with the ceremony of pinning.

As a practicing RN, we receive different pins to put on our badge. These include acknowledgements such as various awards, employee of the month, degrees, and years of service, among others.

Earlier this month, I received my 5 years of service pin. It feels like I have been a nurse for so much longer, while also feeling like just yesterday I spoke at my own nursing pinning ceremony. In 5 years of graduating with my ASN, I completed a BSN, got trained in chemotherapy and Pediatrics, became certified in Medical-Surgical Nursing and ACLS, worked as a Charge Nurse on weekends and nights during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, and now have the greatest honor of teaching last semester nursing students at a community college.

While I receive my 5-year pin, I have the honor of providing the nursing pin to all of my students. And in reminiscence of my own pinning, I recite the nurse’s prayer:

Give us strength and wisdom when others need our touch

A soothing word to speak to us, our hearts yearn for so much

Give us joy and laughter to lift a weary soul

Pour in us compassion to make the broken whole

Give us gentle, healing hands for those placed in our care

A blessing to those who need us, this is our Nurse’s prayer

Until next shift,

Shania

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/2694101/#:~:text=The%20nursing%20pin%20is%20a,symbol%20of%20service%20to%20Christianity.

It’s okay to take up space

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Do you ever say sorry out of habit? “I’m sorry for..”

Making it into the grocery line first

Being in the med room as another nurse walks in

Filing a valid complaint

Asking for a favor

Waking up a doctor for a patient need/concern

I have a habit of apologizing for things that 1.) are not my fault 2.) unintentionally inconveniencing others, 3.) allowing others needs to be greater than my own. In other words, I say “I’m sorry” for things that those words are not even intended for. The word “sorry” stems from a word meaning sorrow or sorrowful. Do I feel sorrow for any of the above scenarios? Of course, not.

While out wedding dress shopping for my sister, my sister was constantly apologizing for bringing more dresses into the dressing room or needing a different size, etc. Finally, the sales associate said, “you need to stop saying, ‘I’m sorry’. I told myself that I need to stop saying that because I am allowed to take up space.”

I am allowed to take up space. We should never let ourselves feel less than others. Apologizing for being a customer doesn’t even make sense! Also, we have learned over the years that empathy is way more affective than sympathy which the words ‘I’m sorry” go with. So, allow yourself to take up space in this world like the billions of other humans that walk the earth.

Until next shift,

Shania

Defensive Medicine: Protect Thyself

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The NIH defines defensive medicine as “departing from normal medicine practice as a safeguard from litigation.” In essence, it is over-prescribing to prevent from getting sued due to missing any clinical components. But this isn’t the type of defensive medicine I am referring to. The type of defensive medicine I am talking about involves appropriately and effectively documenting in order to cover your a**. We often use the improper term of CYA documentation.

“If it’s not charted, it wasn’t done.” This is a phrase I heard all of the time in nursing school. I understood this intellectually when it came to nursing skills, procedures, and medications, however, I didn’t realize that I would need to document a physician response, tagging and changing IV tubing, patient education, patient mobility, etc. Even the most mundane nursing activities must be documented.

In order to protect yourself from lawsuits or chart reviews, we have to chart everything that we do to our patient during our shift. It always made me laugh when I had to document inappropriate patient comments or physician responses that were either rude or incomplete. Documentation is what saves your butt. Even though it’s tedious, it is necessary.

Remember to CYA.

Until next shift, Shania

It’s Just a Bad Shift: The Importance of Mindset

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In the past several weeks, I have transitioned into a new job, got scammed out of $1000, lost and found my “sold” wedding dress, messed up my personal website, and our house closing has gotten delayed. Reflecting on these many frustrations, I remind myself that these are so little mishaps in the grand scheme of things.

I remind myself that I am so thankful that my family is healthy, my country is not under war, Covid numbers are decreasing, I have a successful side job that I love, we are building our first new home, among so many other amazing events that life brings.

There are bad days at the hospital, but there are also bad days at home. It is normal for humans to doubt their abilities and question our life paths. It is so easy to live in life’s frustrations, rather than choosing to embrace the oxygen that we breathe at every moment.

It’s our attitudes and perspectives that determine our outlook on each situation. It is so important to magnify the good and simply experience the bad. Experiencing every emotion- the good, bad, and ugly, is part of a healthy life. The problem lies in adopting a negative viewpoint that determines all future reactions and paths for greater things.

Inpatient nursing is already a high stress environment, so why bring such negative emotions and perspectives to the work? A negative aura is felt by others around you. It truly is amazing how just thinking negative thoughts can affect an outward appearance.

We need to choose to accept healthier perspectives and view all sides of a situation. A bright person is just as recognizable as a negative Nancy.

Until next shift,

Shania

What do you want to be when you grow up?

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Growing up and even now, many ask themselves this question, “What do I want to be when I grow up?”

After witnessing mental illness in my family and then struggling with my own eating disorder, my answer became “a nurse.” I chose to be a nurse because I wanted to influence others and educate others into creating a healthy lifestyle.

But just the answer of being a “nurse”, only goes so far. I then decide whether I prefer inpatient or outpatient, which unit, which patient population, short term goals, long term goals, etc.

I, ultimately, settled into an adult medical-surgical floor that also served pediatrics and Oncology. I began nursing school wanting to do pediatrics, then ER, then inpatient oncology. There was rarely a job available at the infusion clinic, so I remained on med-surg for 5 years and I enjoyed it.

I started as a student nurse tech, then a nurse extern, then a new grad nurse, then staff nurse, then charge nurse, and now a nurse Retentionist! My medical unit offered classes on chemotherapy administration and pediatric care at no cost to me. I was able to get a wide variety of training and experiences by remaining on the medical floor for as long as I did. I also had the opportunity to switch shifts and worked days, nights, and weekend nights.

Each different experience I had and extra step I took for myself, allowed me to be open for leadership opportunities. My transition into a charge nurse was not as difficult as I thought. And the creation of my new position as a Nurse Retentionist, allowed me to step fully into the role as a nurses’ advocate and leader.

Though the actual transition away from the bedside and into a 8-4:30 job was difficult mentally, the actual work came natural. I was able to utilize my strengths of communication, boldness, and listening to incorporate challenges at the bedside into solutions to present to nursing leadership.

I never went into nursing school thinking I wanted to go into leadership, but it was something that found me and I love it. Though I am not a typical bedside nurse, I am still a nurse. Instead of caring for patients, I advocate for the nurses that continue to care for them.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Until next time,

Shania

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