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Hey, fellow Freepers. I just wanted to extend my prayers for a blessed and safe Thanksgiving Day to all of you, your families, and especially to our nation's finest men and women in the Armed Forces far from home, defending us so we can celebrate in safety. I know that not all among us celebrate this day in its original Christian context. But I hope such among you will not mind my saying how blessed I feel to be counted among you here. I am thankful for you. We still have much to do. Fill up, and mount up. Love...

After more than eight years of employment at a busy hospital in the Seattle area, I felt it was time for a change. I had considered travel nursing in the past, but either the timing was not right or the opportunity was not there. I wanted to learn different approaches to emergency nursing and see new sights. And I wanted to make more money doing it. My household was knee-deep in debt and the extra money made by traveling was going to help us reach solvency. Once we got to that point, I would look for a permanent job again....

Wow. It's been over a year since I've last posted anything related to ER nursing. It's been a busy time for me, loaded with change. To spare the gory details, I will cut to the chase. I have changed jobs. After eight years with the same organization, I found that a combination of leadership changes (for the worse) and "hitting the ceiling" as far as my position and pay are concerned have led me to cast my gaze towards the horizon regarding my profession. At the same time, I had been courted rather aggressively by a number of travel nurse...

Introduction: I recently wrote an article describing a variety of examples of poor behavior demonstrated by patients in the Triage section of my Emergency Department. While the article was written primarily to introduce the reader to some of the actual (rather than media-generated) challenges encountered by an ER nurse in a humorous vein (which is the modus operandi for all of my writing), my article evoked a tremendous negative response with regard to the readers' personal ER experiences. A majority of responders related their unpleasant experiences when they or a loved one was treated in an ER. The most common...

Once again, the media has released a "nature is out to kill us all" article. Source: Comcast News. The writer of the article was, to be quite blunt, pretty damned irresponsible in selecting the information with which the reader is presented. Go figure. I will break this down point by point and fill in the blanks after each article snippet. My comments are in boldface: Para.1: More than 10,000 people per year are hospitalized with Clostridium difficile.Response: 10,000 people is about 0.00003% of the population of the United States. Hardly a widespread epidemic. Para. 2: The germ is resistant to...

If the public ever stopped to think for themselves, the 'eco-friendly' hybrid would be banned from our highways. They are not 'green.' They are, in fact, blacker than Hitler's bastard heart. Do any of these bunny-hugging, sign-waving morons stop to think about what it takes to make just one of those big-assed batteries? Come to think of it, do any of these idiots stop to think about what it takes to recycle one- which is necessary every five years!? Of course not. And you can bet your sweet ass that none of the proponents of these toxic deathtraps is about...

It was about 4PM on a Sunday. The waiting area was packed with malingering whiney-baws, harried soccer moms and their bruised, violent hooligans, armchair football warriors who tripped over their coffee tables and sacked themselves- right into the TV-, and the "Bucket Brigade" (seasonal GI bug sufferers). I was float RN and I was covering the Charge RN for a lunch break when the Charge RN's phone rang; I picked it up. On the other end was the Triage RN. Her rather hushed tone was laden with, oh, I don't know... a strange, pressured awkwardness, I suppose. (I am here...

I was recently shadowed by a high school senior during a couple of shifts. She was considering becoming a nurse and had an interest in Emergency Nursing. She followed me as I provided care for patients with a broad spectrum of problems- from a known narcotic seeker who demanded (read: screamed) that we address his pain, to a homeless patient with a peritonsilar abscess and no access to continuity of care, to a nonogenarian woman who suffered cardiac arrest and whose family had kept her on "full code" (all measures to maintain life) status because they could not let her...

I had spent the first half of my shift in the "Fast Track" section of the Emergency Department. Cases that are a level 4 and 5 on the 5-point triage scale are sent to Fast Track in order to make room for the more acute cases in the main ER. Cases that rate a 4 or 5 are cuts, sprains, bumps, bruises, series antibiotics, migraines, the mother who brings her six kids in because the ER is her family clinic, and such. (I am a fervent proponent of "Fast Track." It keeps the patients suffering from non life-threatening ailments from...

Looking back, I can't really explain why or how it happened. The moon was not full. Quite the contrary; it was a mere silver cutting of a fingernail in a pristine, clear sky. It wasn't Friday, Payday, State Welfare Check Day, Psych Facility Dump Day, Rehab Reject Day, or even Taco Tuesday. Tent City was nowhere near my location. It wasn't raining, and yet it wasn't particularly hot outside either. It was really just a run-of-the-mill, clear, and comfortably warm, middle-of-the-week summer evening that gave me absolutely no warning that it planned on going straight to hell in a spectacular...

My dad flew in the Navy in attack jets. He flew multiple tours over Vietnam, was shot down once (made it out okay) and crashed off the carrier once (made it out that time, too). He retired with a chestful of medals, many of which he won multiple times. He was a scrappy, 5'8" wiry terrier of a guy, a Golden Gloves bantamweight boxer in his youth. He left home when he was 16 and lied about his age to get into the Navy. He became a nurse after retiring from the Navy, specializing in Geriatrics throughout his career. He...

God has a way of bringing patients into my life who serve to remind me of what this nursing stuff is all about. Through these encounters, He restores my sense of the holy purpose of nursing. Without this sense of altruism, nursing becomes nothing more than an application of mere science and aesthetics; The patient is reduced to nothing more than a problem to be fixed- the "kidney stone in room 3"- rather than a human being in need of care. Dealing with malingerers and drug-seekers on a daily basis tends to make me more cynical and suspicious than I...

They came out without warning. They seemed to have been dumped off by the busload (both short and long). They clogged our ER triage area all night long with non-acute complaints. They also filled the ER treatment areas with the high-acuity consequences of their stupidity. They caused highly-educated and battle-hardened ER doctors and nurses to bang their heads against the walls in frustration and dismay. They became fodder for endless hours of break room stories for months to come. The ER was awash in knotheads. On the night about which I write, it seemed like the Great Big Knothead Circus...

Sometime around 2AM a couple of weeks ago, a woman came into the ER complaining of nausea and epigastric pain that went up into her left chest and shoulder. She was old enough to be in the prime age group for heart attacks, and she was having a couple of the symptoms that make us a little nervous. That was reason enough for us to suspect that she was having a heart attack. Remember the ER chest pain creed, kids? Come on, say it with me... "Every human being who comes through the door is having a heart attack...

The prizewinner of this week's Stupid Award is a Hispanic woman who brought her child to the ER three times on the same day. The kid had a viral upper respiratory infection and the family's clinic was closed. The first time in, the kid got a chest x-ray (which was negative), a Rapid-Flu nasal wash (which was also negative), and a Rapid-RSV screen (which was also negative). Although the illness was viral, the mom demanded that her son be given an antibiotic. The MD refused. The kid was given Tylenol for a low-grade fever, the family was given a recommendation...

He came in at 1 in the morning, and I triaged him. His chief complaint: "Well, my chest kind of hurts, and my girlfriend made me come in." His girlfriend sat next to him, appearing fretful and unhappy. The patient was a 37 year old who appeared to be in general good health. I was tired. It had been a long shift so far, having been spent sticking IVs into dehydrated babies suffering from GI bugs that have been particularly vicious this year. I was shipping demented elderly people to the floor at a record pace, and the nurses in...

I just love it when people get angry at me for telling them they can't circumvent the rules and that they must play fair. It makes going to school for all those years feel so worthwhile. I had a whole family come in recently: two little destructive spawns of Satan, their unhygienic-looking parents, and the patient who was apparently the matriarch of the family. She had begun feeling poorly over the last two days. Small wonder; she had COPD, heart failure, renal insufficiency and diabetes. The triage tech walked them all past the nursing desk in my section. I heard...

When I decided to become a nurse, I made up my mind from the beginning that I wanted to work in the Emergency Room. I have never worked anywhere else as a nurse. Besides being a constant source of challenge and education, being an ER nurse has other benefits. Here are just a few: 1. The look on a belligerent drunk's face when you explain to him or her EXACTLY where that big ol' tube is going. 2. Wearing your pajamas to work. 3. The sense of awe that you get when looking at some of the things you find...