Report

This whole week has been interesting to say the least. Clinical on Monday and Tuesday were tiring, more so than usual. My Pneumonia patient from the previous week was still in the same room this week. I asked my clincal instructor if I could take her room as assignement along with the two others i'd been given. So, three patients kept me very busy. Not to mention I had a few moments to help other students. H* in particular needed help with her older male patient whom it was obvious had cdif, though the nurses denied it. It wasn't until Tuesday that they finally gave in and got an order from the doc to do a smear test. This patient also had MRSA in the nares. So as you can imagine, we had to take every precaution going into his room, gowned, masked....the whole nine yards. We must have cleaned him from his very messy bowel movements at least 4 times just in the first 4 hours. Poor H* was exhausted just from that.

So we had an incident. It didn't happen to me, but it was quickly spread through the grapevine and we had discussion about it in post-conference with our instructors. Basically the "how NOT to nurse" speech.

When we get on the floor we are assigned two patients and first thing we do is find out who the charge nurse is for those patients and the pct so we can let them know we are working under them that day. Well, H* had what seemed to be such a great nurse, very informative at first, teaching as she went, etc. It came time to pass meds and H* was sent in with this nurse to give a subcutaneous injection (abdomen) of Heparin to her patient. This was the first time she has given an injection like this. She tents the skin, has correct finger placement and starts to go in, but hesitates, noticing something was not right with the needle. As she still has the skin tented, this nurse yanks the needle from her hand and jabs it between H*'s fingers, into the patients abdomen. She went through H*'s glove. So here is H* totally shocked at what just happened, and has her gloved hand pinned down to the patient as she then realizes the needle had broken at the hub. So what does this nurse do? She straightens the needle hub and pushes the med anyway. Heparin went all over the patient. So, this patient did NOT get his med, this nurse did not follow procedure and H* about had a stroke from the possibilty of almost getting a needle stick. Amazing. This nurse quickly started mouthing some bullshit trying to cover her ass when she turns around and sees our clinical instructor standing there, who had walked in at the moment she grabbed the needle. Nice.

Later that day, same nurse starts spouting off to H*, in front of a patient that "this is not the job for me", "I hate it here, I hate doing this", etc. I bet the patient felt wonderful hearing that while this lady is working on his dressings!

So, Tuesday. Same nurse, different day. A patient who was on ordered restraints because he pulls his tubings and IV's out, was for some reason unrestrained and now bleeding in various spots from his handy work. H* and I started cleaning him up, called this nurse in to let her know before that, so she could stop the IV. We are not autherized to do that yet. She handles the IV while we are cleaning the patient. Afterwards, we realize t here is water all over the floor and see it's coming from the IV. She NEVER stopped it, just hung it back up, that was it. I and another student go to find her so she can come stop the IV, when anotehr patient calls to us. We go in and her IV machine is beeping, stating her infusion is complete. She asks for her nurse stating to us "She told me how to flush it when it's done, or turn it off, but I forgot, can you go get her please?" Our mouth hit the floor I think. What the hell is this nurse thinking? So we checked the entire floor, room by room, asked other nurses, pct's, Charge nurse....no one knew where she was. She was on break. Nice.

So as you can imagine, our instructors felt it needed to be reported. They all went to the higher ups and gave statements, and were asked to write an incident report. We are not even nurses yet, and already...an incedent report.

The kicker...we go back to the same floor Monday. I really hope that nurse is not there anymore. Though I'm sure she just got a slap on the wrist. Whatever.

On a happy note....I passed and finished Med-Surg. Made a B on my final, made a B+ as overall grade. Now I'm looking forward to Nutrition midterm Wednesday, and we started Integumentary yesterday, first test in that class was today....I made an A. I'm loving it.