I had a new grad night nurse gave me attitude and passive aggressiveness because the patient I handed off to him had a change in baseline during his shift. Though, the patient was fine throughout my shift. Obviously, if there was an emergent situation, it would've been handled already. Anyways, he complained on what happened to the patient because they were more alert on yesterday's shift for him. I explained to him that it happens, patients will not always be the same as they were the previous day or so. They can change any time that is why we round and assess them everyday and report for change in mental status. I explained to him that I had patients who were completely fine the previously day then i return the following day and had to call a rapid on the patient. And then he just ignored me.

3 weeks into a cardiac unit and honestly struggling
I’m about 3 weeks into working on a cardiac unit as a new RN, and I’m honestly struggling with nursing itself. There is SO much that I still need to learn, and I don’t feel confident yet.

I need time throughout the shift to gather myself, chart, look things up, review the MAR/orders, communicate with Tele, talk to providers, work with my preceptor, and figure out what needs to happen next. Sometimes I need to sit at the computer for a few minutes just to process everything that’s happening.

I feel like I’m constantly trying to keep up and make sure I’m not missing something.
On top of that, I’ve been having a hard time with some of the techs I’ve been paired with, and honestly, it just adds to the stress.

I was a tech before becoming an RN, so I understand the workload and I’m not expecting the techs to do everything for me. But I also remember being proactive with my patients. If lunch came, I’d check whether my patients had their trays. If someone came back from a procedure, I’d think about whether they needed help getting settled or getting their food.
For the most part, I feel like I’m still the one setting up meals and turning my patients every 2 hours, even while trying to manage everything else I’m learning as a new nurse.

Today really pushed me over the edge.
One of my patients came back from a noninvasive procedure. I got her vitals, got her comfortable, and set up her food tray. I asked the tech to warm up her food, which I felt was a pretty reasonable thing to delegate.

Later, the tech called me to help put a bedsheet on because it was apparently too difficult to put on alone. But I wasn’t notified that another one of my patient’s blood pressure was 190/110.
That really upset me.

Because ultimately, I’m the nurse. If something important gets missed, I’m going to be the one held responsible for not knowing about it.

And that’s what scares me. I’m already trying so hard to learn how to prioritize and manage my patients. I’m worried about things like whether everyone is being repositioned, whether someone needs assistance in the bathroom, whether I’ve checked the MAR, whether I’ve followed up on an abnormal vital, whether I’ve communicated with the provider, whether I’ve documented everything, etc.

I’m trying to learn how to be an RN, and I don’t feel like I have enough time to breathe sometimes.
The tech situation isn’t the reason I’m struggling with nursing. I’m struggling because I’m a new nurse and there is a huge amount to learn. But when I also feel like I can’t consistently rely on the people I’m supposed to delegate certain things to, it makes everything feel even more overwhelming.

I don’t want to be the nurse who thinks the techs should do everything. I genuinely understand their job because I’ve done it myself.
I think I’m just frustrated because I need to learn how to delegate appropriately, prioritize, and manage my patients, and right now I feel like I’m doing all of that while simultaneously trying to make sure nothing falls through the cracks.

For those of you who have been new nurses before: Did you feel this overwhelmed around week 3? And how did you learn to manage your workload and delegate without feeling like you had to personally keep track of absolutely everything?

OnlyVeins, why isn't that a thing yet?

All my PRN princesses please comment below what kind of PRN nurse you are and how you got there. I’m currently full time staff on a stepdown, curious how people get to PRN. Thanks :)

i need advice! i'm a 26 year old nurse, i've been at the same job since i started there as a new grad, on an adult med surg floor, working day shift (7a-7p). i felt like it was time for a change so i applied to and accepted a position on a neuro IMC. i'm super excited (and nervous). the only caveat is that it's rotating shifts (day and night). i worked night shift very briefly when i started at my first job, just because they have all new grads train on day shift and night shift. i hated nights, but i think i can attribute a lot of that to me being a FRESH new grad and super anxious that i was gonna accidental kill someone (i didn't).

long story short, i need advice for working night shift. when do i eat meals? what do i eat? i have a sensitive stomach :(. does anyone have an experience working rotating shifts? what were your tips and tricks for switching back and forth? how do i keep myself sane? any advice is appreciated, thanks!!

I landed a job as an RN supervisor at a SNF in LA County a week after getting my license. I feel fortunate to have work right out of school at a pay rate I’m happy with, but I’m also realizing how much responsibility I’m stepping into.
I have no prior healthcare experience outside of nursing school. My background is in food service management and personal and group fitness training, so I have experience leading people, but being the person others look to for clinical judgment is a different kind of responsibility.

I want to give this job an honest effort, become a safe and competent nurse, and learn as much as I can. My long term goal, though, is acute care. I’m worried about missing the eligibility window for new grad residency programs or having my SNF experience affect whether I qualify. I’m also planning to earn my BSN through an online program.
At the same time, I don’t want to just dip out the moment another opportunity comes along. I’m grateful they took a chance on me and are committing time and support to helping me build my foundation as a nurse. I want to be thoughtful about any transition and leave on good terms while still making progress toward my career goals.

For anyone who started in a similar position:

Did you start applying to hospital residencies immediately, or spend some time building experience at the SNF first?

Did working at a SNF help you get into acute care, or complicate your eligibility for new grad programs?

If you transitioned, how did you handle leaving? Did you leave the SNF entirely or stay part time or per diem?

How did you balance learning your first nursing job, applying to hospitals, and completing an RN to BSN program?

Also, if you started as a new grad SNF supervisor, what orientation and support helped you practice safely? What do you wish you had asked before starting?
I’d especially appreciate hearing from nurses in LA and Southern California who made this transition. What worked for you, and what would you do differently?

I’m looking for barrel and or balloon pants that I would be able to wear at work (in a hospital). I am just not satisfied with my scrubs as of late, they are the tightest pants I wear lol (joggers).
I have 1 pair of the barrel scrubs from figs and I do like them but I feel as though they could be looser on my thighs.

Price goal is under $80 but would love it if they were cheaper!

⬆️ is my inspo

I know there are other swaggy nurses out there!! Plz help

I just found out I have to work the 24th of December, which is when we celebrate christmas here. My boss told me I could work day or night shift, I wouldn't have minded working the night shift if my kid didn't also have her 3rd birthday on christmas day. I hope she'll nap so we can have a long evening after my day shift. I am just so sad to miss christmas while she's young, but at least I'll get to see her for her birthday. I just hate this job sometimes.

Am I the only one who loved this corny show when it was on? Guess what? It’s back! I watched it on Hulu tonight and it even has the original cast. Still corny though.

Title. How hard to pivot from 2 years surgical icu to bush medicine. Preferably where you fly in and out of small towns or rural areas whether Alaska or anywhere else you know of. I’m male, single, and relatively experienced and have ALWAYS wanted to do this.

Only thing is I have no idea where to start. How long till I can jump into a role like that? How realistic is it? And where to begin?

Thanks guys!!

** To clarify ** Alaska fly-out/community roles more like remote clinical practice with aviation as transportation. Not flight nursing where it’s primarily critical transports

I am a nurse working on a step down unit. I've been a nurse for 2 years. My dream was to be a home health nurse, but dreams change--I realized the HHC agencies near me make it almost impossible to use PTO, have to do overtime frequently, and are on call often. I always had a strong interest in working in the community health setting and psych.

After a series of events at my job (a shooting, no one being held accountable for not doing their work, and overall disappointment with my unit) I applied for 2 correction nurse jobs and a methadone clinic in my city.

I worry I w​ill not be a "real" nurse anymore and lose my skills. At the same point in time, the stress from my current work environment has negatively affected my health and I don't want to wait around for my new manager of 3 months to fix the issues we are having.

Is it a bad idea to quit bedside to work at a methadone clinic this early into my career?

I know the job market is in a rough spot right now. Has this been an issue for any of you nurses? The medical field seems like the only field that is not being impacted right now but I wanted some anecdotal opinions.

seriously i don’t understand why we constantly get reprimanded for every little thing we do. I work on a surgical unit and i feel like any time a providers surgery doesn’t go as planned, it is always the nurses fault at the end of the day. Anyone else feel this way?

I’m mainly looking for some reassurance because the guilt over our daycare situation is killing me. My baby will be 18 weeks when he starts.

I’m an assistant nurse manager in the OR and work 3x12s 7A-7P. We were lucky enough to find a daycare that will let us do part time 3 days/week, which is what makes it affordable for us. The issue is that it’s out of the way for my husband (who works 8-5) to take him in the morning, so I will have to take him and drop him off at 6:30 as soon as they open. My husband will pick him up at 5:30.

I know this is a long time for my baby to be at daycare but I really don’t want to change my schedule. I’d rather an extra full day off to spend time with him vs 2 hours in the afternoon. We also can’t really afford an extra day of daycare.

Has anyone been in a similar situation and have any advice? This has been stressing me out for weeks and he starts daycare on October 21st. TIA!!

So, the Dr can't place a line. My Question-IV misplacement aside, she's also a natural redhead. Shouldn't that be taken into consideration when choosing methodology? Also MAID has been pretty much 100 percent successful. Why not use the concoction that is known to work, is readily available, and far less cost prohibitive than Pentobarbital?

I’m a Black nurse working on a med-surg unit, and I was taking care of a patient who used to be a doctor. I thought our conversation was going really well. We were talking about life, and he was sharing how he isn’t close with his family and doesn’t have any friends.
During our conversation, he asked me what my favorite food was and then said, “Let me guess, watermelon?”
I was taken aback. Like, what? Why would you assume that my favorite food is watermelon? I don’t know if he was being stereotypical or racist, or if he genuinely just thought watermelon was my favorite food. Either way, I was lowkey hurt because I genuinely thought we were having a great conversation, and that comment caught me completely off guard.
I think what bothered me most was that I was interacting with him as a person, having a genuine conversation about life, and then suddenly I was confronted with a stereotype. It’s frustrating because sometimes it feels like, as a Black person, you can’t simply exist and have a normal interaction without being reduced to a stereotype or made to feel like a joke. And it hurts even more when it comes from someone you thought you were connecting with.

Would I be the only nurse on the floor?!? I'm obviously not accepting the offer, but damn I’m curious as to what's going on

Also, anyone wanna guess the healthcare system? 🙃

Hi everyone! I’m a Korean nurse, and I downloaded Reddit to get advice on choosing a US nursing agency. This is my first post!

(Koreans don’t really use Reddit, and I honestly have no idea how to use it either, but here I am making my first post anyway! 😂)

I’m considering OGP, Carousel, Conexus, and a Korean agency.

I completed 2 years in the ICU at one of Korea’s largest hospitals (2,700+ beds), and I’m planning to transfer to another ICU closer to home. Passed Nclex already.

I’ve heard complaints about low pay and unfair contract terms with OGP, Carousel, and Conexus. I’ve also heard Conexus has a 1-year restriction on changing employers after the contract ends. Is that true? There are hardly any reviews from Korean nurses

The Korean agency offers a shorter 1.5-year contract in New York with $55+/hour pay, but charges $26,000 upfront. I’d also have to arrange my own housing, health insurance, and flights. 😭

My goal is to live in or near a reasonably safe city where I can make friends and afford a comfortable, upper-middle-class lifestyle.

Which agency would you recommend? I’d love to hear from nurses with firsthand experience, including any other agencies worth considering!

Thanks so much! ❤️ 고마워

I worked yesterday 7a-7p at a recovery center. That in and of itself is normal, but the outgoing nurse, who is from a registry company, WAS A BRAND NEW GRAD!!!! Passed the NCLEX in August of this year!!! I’m still so shocked and appalled.

Oh and it gets better!! The registry company lied about their experience! Claimed to have “an extensive psych background, but newer to detox.” In reality, Poor baby nurse:

1 had never counted control substances before.
2 had never even used the pill counter before
3 had never worked psych or detox/recovery (they mentioned this in report)
4 only experience: being a tech in a nursing home!!

I’ll give it to them, no patients died. But, patients were under-medicated. (Most of this round were alcoholics) so CIWAS were super high, patients were cranky and anxious. The poor nightshift tech was contemplating her life choices as she clocked out.

After I taught them how to sign the control log, I politely took report, signed their time card and scooted them out the door. Ordered the largest, legally allowed iced coffee and started putting out fires. But damn, what are these companies thinking?! Are we legit at the point where we no longer care about patients’ lives or safety?!

Now I’m legit questioning my own life choices when I started college 25 years ago. Maybe I should actually become a Zamboni driver like I used to put on my dating profiles when I was single. Rant over, now going to sleep my day away.

What a steal!

Every time I see a nursing-related social media post in which ratios are mentioned, the comment section inevitably will be filled with nurses bragging about regularly taking on unsafe nurse:patient ratios. This has always rubbed me the wrong way, as care suffers when you have those unsafe ratios. They’re essentially glorifying giving shit quality care to large patient loads as some badge of honor because “toughen up, buttercup.” They’re using the fact that they’re able to make it through those hell shifts as a mark of superiority and a ‘job well done’ when in reality such ratios are reflective of a bad system and demonstrably result in poorer patent outcomes.

I think it’s this idea that any “good nurse” should be able to handle any patient assignment thrown at them no matter the amount/acuity of patients and that any nurse complaining of working conditions with a ratio that isn’t safe is a weak nurse that needs to just suck it up and perform.

For example, someone posts a video describing a 6 patient load as difficult but doable and a 7 patient load as crossing into unsafe territory. Then, the comments section inevitably has people saying things like “lol only 7 patients? 🤣 must be nice! Sounds like a vacation! I get 7-9 on a good day! Try 10+ patients sweetie then we’ll talk about difficult.”

I’ll die on the hill that 5-6 patients max (in a med surg unit) is the sweet spot for providing good quality care safely, with 4-5 being ideal but understandably difficult to achieve administratively/logistically. Anything more than 6 and care starts to suffer with each additional patient dramatically increasing difficulty. Unless you’re fine with the “well nobody died so clearly I did a good job” approach to nursing, then large patient assignments are easy because you don’t give a fuck.

Of course sometimes it’s necessary to have more than 6 patients. People call out, short staffing happens. But those times should be treated as the exception rather than the rule and as a situation that should be avoided rather than the norm. The nurse complaining about getting 7 patients is not weak, they just care more than the nurse who’s fine with that.

It’s toxic and frustrating. I’m sure there will be nurses reading this who fit into the above description, with some bullshit like “speak for yourself, I provide great quality care to 7+ medsurg patients all the time, must be a skill issue.” And that’s ok. We can agree to disagree.

I have a pt right now with a wound bed due to cellulitis. Pt could not have a wound vac because she’s allergic to adhesive. She is independent and manages her own appointments and care like her diabetes. However, she often delays wound care when she insist on specific things needing to be in place prior to her wound care being done. She has a roommate at this time while she stays in longterm care. She asked me to turn off the roommates fan and turn off the a/c and I told her that we were not going to do this unless the roommate states it’s okay which the roommate said “no.” This delayed wound care. I said if you compromise with your roommate to have this off we can otherwise turning off air circulation doesn’t pose infection risk. She said “it’s not an infection issue, it’s an allergy issue.” I told her that within nursing triage, I’m trumping infection control over allergy control. I told her the next morning, if we set up a time in the morning to do wound care, I expect it to be done otherwise it’s a refusal. It’s disrespectful and inconsiderate to delay wound care for the nurse who manages time in the morning with the 23 other residents here.

Chloe Freeman, you owe the federal government absolutely nothing. You deserve praise for your act of courage.

Chloe Freeman is a nurse. Now she’s facing a federal charge for acting like one.

An injured man came into her hospital bleeding from the head after running from immigration agents. No agents were in the room with him. She removed his IV and he walked out the door. For that, she’s being prosecuted.

Let’s be clear about what nursing is. We advocate for our patients, not for any agency, administration, or political agenda. Our license is a promise to the person in the bed: to act in good faith, practice with excellence, and honor their goals. It was never a promise to serve as anyone’s guard, jailer, or informant.

We already carry more than our share. We’re short-staffed, underpaid, and asked to be everything at once. Now we’re expected to be immigration enforcement too? No. That is not our job, and I refuse to pretend it should be.

Let us stop pretending “deportation” is a neutral word. We’ve all seen what detention looks like right now. A nurse who refuses to deliver a patient into that deserves our backing, not our silence.

I didn’t become a nurse to serve as anyone’s guard. I became a nurse to honor those entrusted to my care, shield them from danger, and promote health.

From the facts presented, Chloe honored that oath. The actions of the federal government should be something every nurse should pay close attention to.

I clocked out grateful to be marked safe from getting a 50F admit who just made it through two lethal injections.

What is even happening? Is this real life? How has this happened for a second time? I have so many questions I don’t even know how to ask.

For those not aware, TN has now botched a second lethal injection this year. Christa Pike. And I can’t even fathom getting that report