Stacked and not so Angry anymore

Aaahh my people. My fellow nurses, healers, friends, nemesis's, those I adore and admire, those I can't stand.

One more semester to go. So much to tell. So many thoughts have furrowed my brow, like a crashing thunder storm on a hot summer afternoon, passing as quickly as it obscures the sun.

I got real depressed this semester. Every afternoon, around 1530, after school and on the way to pick my son up from day care. I felt so empty. Tired and empty. I have never felt depression like that before. It was like, physically painful in my gut. I felt no joy. And let me tell you, picking up your child, and feeling depressed, joyless, really makes one feel ashamed or guilty. It can be a very destructive cycle.

So AMN, what was bothering you? Why so blue?

The critically busy 7 days a week schedule, the lack of sleep, the monotony of obligatory rotations that have questionable value, the constant degradation and mind games at the hands of perpetually insecure instructors. Friends, I was bummed the fuck out.

You know what I realized? I'm not Angry Male Nurse anymore. I realized I had become:

THE MOST SHIT TIRED BURNED OUT NURSING STUDENT IN THE HISTORY OF FUCKING NURSING.

But I'm cool now. I rested. I contemplated my sadness. I contemplated my anger. I wandered the hallways of my mind, pondering the meaning of a nursing career, directions to take, units to work in, mistakes NOT to be made. My friends, I pondered!
My wife and baby (he's doing great by the way) are visiting family out of town. Last night was the first night that I had slept alone since June 26th. It was the first time I did not wake up two or three times during the night in a very long time. And I realized: "Dude, your depression was secondary to your incredible exhaustion. Who the fuck wouldn't be depressed?"
I think Everybody, I think I was just really really tired.


I'll keep this relatively short:
I was working in the ER a month ago as a Student Nurse Worker. Basically an overworked NA. Two Samoan- American kids came in from a popular local rave. Roller #1 was a small guy, about 20, shaved head. Roller #2, was a pretty buff young dude, maybe 19, looked like a rugby player. They were under arrest for possession. They were handcuffed to their gurneys. And they were ROLLING THEIR SAMOAN BALLZ OFF! Dilated pupils, chewing their jaws like they were made of gum, rubbing their heads on the pillows of the gurney in ecstasy. Looking back, they probably had just ingested several pills prior to arrest to avoid more prosecution. Probably a good thing they got arrested because, frankly, I have never met guys their age with such warm, open, and funny dispositions. Such vulnerability. (It was also abundantly clear that neither of these guys should be behind the wheel) Maybe it was the E. Proably it was the E. Maybe they were just nice dudes. They got cleared after my shift was over, I worry about what happened to them in County lockup. But ecstasy only lasts a couple of hours, so by the time they got cleared they were probably more hungover than anything and got their sense back. (VS stable, both had fevers probably related to pharmacodynamics, no immediate cardiac or respiratory distress- though they both were hypertensive and diaphoretic.)

The following is a rough transcript of the conversation that made my soul feel better:

Roller #1: Hey man. Where is your wife? Your baby?
(I don't know how he knew that I had a wife and baby)

AMN: Home.

Roller #1: But you are here.

AMN: That's right. I'm working.

Roller #2: You can do it. Man. Keep on with yourself.

AMN: Gotta pay the bills. I'll see you guys in a couple of minutes.
( I came back fifteen minutes later. They watched me while I worked with other patients.)

Roller#1: I know you're tired. I can FEEL how tired you are. Keep on though. Keep on.

Roller #2: I'm not embarrassed to say it. Right now,I think I love both of you, dearly.

(His eyeballs kind of rolledback into his head, his eyelids nearly close-then his eyes popped back open. He satisfyingly grinded for a few moments.)

Roller #2: This is true.

Roller#1: Hey nurse guy, we believe in you. It's okay to be tired. You look really tired.

AMN: You guys alright?

This is no joke everybody:

Roller #1 and Roller #2: We're more worried about you, man. How are you doing?

AMN: Well, I guess I'm a bit tired.

Roller #1: I'm open to talking.

Roller #2: That's what we're here for.


I guess I looked as bad as I felt. Tired and blue! But what can you do when the only official protocol, the only mandate available is to Keep on'.

So I kept on. And we talked. Not advocating drug use, but their empathy was wonderful. I know, boundaries, bad idea to burden the patient with my problems, but in this instance, it just worked. I didn't give them intimate details but I summarized. I'm pretty much a closed book to coworkers and patients alike, I guess my soul was cold, and I needed their warmth.

Those young dudes completely shocked me. I realized, nobody had asked me recently how I WAS DOING. And yet another reminder to never EVER judge a book by its cover.


More to come friends!

Stay up Late

Fatherhood continues and evolves. For this first month, my wife and I have had a pretty moody little dude on our hands. Gas, poop, and hunger. Limited amounts of sleep. Something to work through. I couldn't hold him without him kicking and screaming, waving his tiny balled fists, trying to swat away whatever it was that was agitating his pain. My little dude was not having a lot of fun with this new life and frankly, I wasn't having a lot of fun, either. The wife did great though, kept her spirits up and worked with what she had. Mother in law came to stay with us for a month and that was immensely helpful. Mother in law left, and we still had the Moody Dude on our hands.

But!

For the last two days, miraculously, for who knows whatever reason, perhaps on of the thousands of tricks we employed to fight colic and fussiness paid off. The last two days have been awesome! Little crying, just a lot of looking around and even a few smiles. A vessel ready to explore the world. A baby that listens to and watches his mobile, as opposed to hysterically shrieking at it, he sometimes smiles at the hanging mobile that to me, is strangely reminiscent of a Pink Floyd concert I went to in high school. The change has been so dramatic, we noticed it immediately. And best of all, we pulled five hours of sleep. I probably shouldn't us "we" because my wife has to get up far more frequently than I do to give him the bizoobs but the change is duly noticed. And it feels great!

SO... to get to the meat, to get to my thoughts...today at work a 29 year old man ran into the ER carrying his crushed 1 1/2 year old child in his hands. When the father was leaving home, the boy ran out and the father backed over him with the massive family SUV. As bad as you've seen it in your experience, it was. I (thankfully) didn't see anything gnarly, I came into the situation as a big crowd of people moved into trauma. Staff came out of the trauma, talking in that glazed sort of way, when the adrenaline is high, the experience is burning into your psyche like a liver fluke into your gut. When your still not sure if what you saw was medically inspiring and challenging or you just voyeured into a devastating personal moment for someone. My co-workers came out of the trauma and I heard grim remarks, saw heads sadly shaking, "blood everywhere" "brain matter" " seriously not looking good". I only saw the father briefly, standing up, his head shielded by his arms as he leaned against a wall and cried, large numbers of family circling him, giving him support that must be baffling and terrifying at that moment. What do you do? What do you think? Are you angry at the father, do you feel sorry for him, do you forgive, do you dare to visualize what his life will be like after the so sudden and immediate death of his child? I was working in triage most of the night so I directed the upset and anxious family members as they poured in, asking how to get to the pediatric ER. I tried my best poker face, almost pretending that I didn't know what nightmare I was about to direct them into, "The pediatric ER is just to the left." Afterwards everyone in triage would also shake their head, what a nightmare.
And of course the Sheriff department tore apart the SUV, police lining it off where the dad had driven up to the ambulance bay doors. Furiously burrowing into the vehicle, under seats, in doors, looking, looking, for some proof that this father was a murderer and needed to be charged with a crime as horrendous as the accident. So weird, this tought looking family vehicle became a crime scene and I don't know the outcome of their investigation nor do I want to. What a shitty job...

I never felt like this before, I couldn't stop visualizing myself in his shoes, I kept imagining picking up my injured child off the ground with catastrophic injuries that I inadvertently inflicted. I couldn't imagine killing my own child. How do you live after that? How do you go to work, how do you be with family, what does your wife do? Does she hate you with the venom that mothers reserve for those who hurt their babies? Does life become a rollercoaster of self destruction, do you give up?
Do you try to die?
I'm so thankful that I wasn't even involved directly with the medical care. I've prided myself on my non-squeamishness around blood, around eagerly encountering the human wasted, the trauma's, the human drama, but I tell you what- tonight, just hearing the details, I thought to myself, "I don't have the stomach for this anymore." One of the most upsetting experiences of my medical career and I wasn't even involved.
Sadly, this validated my fatherhood more than anything else that has happened to me, more than any other joyous or challenging experience I have had with my boy, thus far, in this beginning first month. The thought of the sweetness, the innocence, the innate struggle to survive I see in my boy, for that to be taken away by my own hand is utterly upsetting.

Licensed to Ill

Sorry I've been gone for awhile. It's not good blogger etiquette to only write sporadically, it doesn’t bode well with my legions of fans and fanatics. But what can I say? Personal life has kept me busy and I needed a certain amount of time to decompress, because Angry Male Nurse was becoming Burned Out Angry Male Nurse as does happen from people who invest everything they’ve got into their career form time to time. I’m okay with that, I just need to make sure I have the tools, the support, and the time to chill when I need to. Which I do.

Finished off 2nd semester. Did okay. Made it through with virtually no personal drama, until the end when the students who failed the most absolutely ridiculous and unreasonable final written in the history of Med-Surge got pissed and started manipulating student and staff to get their way. I really felt bad for the students who didn’t get through, I felt that some of the blame did not lie on their shoulders, that teachers who couldn’t even write questions with 8th grade English skills should be held to count for it. But then I saw how the failed students played games and threatened and eventually turned on each other, and I saw that perhaps that the reason for their failings their failure lay more with their lack of professionalism and maturity than anything else. So I backed off, let the chips fall where they may and began to recoup.

My wife and I had a baby on Tuesday. He is the most enigmatic, beautiful, and poopy little dude I have ever met. I’d like to tell you his name but there are some haters out there so I can’t. But it is a fitting name for such a cool dude.
Labor was 30 fucking hours long. The epidural was too strong for my wife so at about 20 hours in her contractions basically stopped, which relieved her so she could rest but scared the shit out of me because the thought of C-section after my wife’s valiant efforts would have broken my heart. I have no problem with C-section, just that my wife wanted to go natural and her spirit was into it. 2 1/2 hours of pushing and the use of Pitocin and suction and my little baby boy came out. I cried when he came out, a good cry, tears that contained my fears, my stress, my anxiety. Also with it came utter joy and amazement, love for my wife and relief that we were all safe. The nursing profession, nursing school, became small dots in my mind, like light coming into the opening of the end of a distant tunnel. Put things into perspective.

I love politics. That’s who I am. But a game is a game is a game and even though it involves human lives I am not responsible for the millions of unbelievable outcomes, for all the incredible personal tragedies I see and some that I am involved in. When I am working I am in a state I call, “In the Mix”, meaning I float from one living to dying crisis from the next, I hear all the other nurses working alongside me performing in the mix, applying their knowledge and intangible personal skills, putting out fires, fucking starting them, dealing with it, I exist in all the noise and I can apply myself one situation at a time. Brains here, not breathing in the ambulance bay there, relieved discharge here, comforted by morphine here, change the patients diapers there. I am in the mix, talking to my mind, listening to the noise but being part of it, too.

I love becoming a nurse. I feel like I am becoming something useful and functional. Skills develop and flourish, unique skills that I am very proud to possess. Some nurses wield them with confidence, other dish the skills out in utterly small insecure amounts.

Sometimes I think about the Beastie Boys from “Licensed to Ill”. Their ZaZen in the mix of 1980’s partying, music industry, cultural racial significance wrapped around them like a blanket


Let it flow let yourself go
Slow and low that is the tempo
Let it flow let yourself go
Slow and low that is the tempo

Have you ever felt water pour on your head from a small waterfall? Not that I get to that often, truly I live in an urban jungle, but I have been in nature a few times. The waterfall is surprisingly loud, and forceful, all that water pushing down on your head and neck, feels like your skull might cave in. But it doesn’t, and after a few moments you realize that the tension in your shoulders is being worked out and you are bending to the will of the water and sort of being with it. That is how I feel in the ER. Stretched out but adjustable. And when the bull shit politics starts to overstretch me, when the patients bullshit becomes a bit too odious, when the doc decides that he or she will revert to pissy 14 year old nerd mode, I put my clasped hands over my head, like a shelter, and shunt off some of that cold water pouring onto my head from the waterfall, and I look around, catch my breath, and let the beating begin again.



Let it flow let yourself go
Slow and low that is the tempo
Let it flow let yourself go
Slow and low that is the tempo



Rainbows, waterfalls, and unicorns, bitches.

Bring it!

They sue doctors, they send nurses to jail

I just saw this in the LA times. Even though its like 2:30 AM and I'm study the umbilical placement of the fundus, this got my goat.

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-king20may20,0,6057993.story?coll=la-home-center

Attached is my letter. Dig it!

Subject: you idiot tool
Date: May 20, 2007 2:38:09 AM PDT
To: charles.ornstein@latimes.com

This is off the record...
Good job moron. By focusing your blame on a callous nurse and by publishing her name, you have now not only endangered her personally but you have done the bidding of various county supervisors who make unaccountability an art form. Your story is so full of holes and misinformation, all the details you forgot to include while you made a case against the nurse and police.

Incidents like this happen from time to time in the ER world. Somebody cries wolf and when it really is their turn nobody believes them. ER nurses know this better (and should know better) than anybody. So what can a nurse do in a situation like this, repeated discharges and the patient is still returning? Had they performed a full workup, or did they just send her off with Vicoden? All the triage nurse can do is check the patient in, monitor vital signs every 4 hours, as is county protocol, and let the patient do whatever the hell the want in the lobby (scream, cry, threaten, use drugs, fight). Which she did, followed county protocol. Doctor's decide when to intake the patient.

So there were no doctors involved in this situation at all? What about the too busy to be bothered doctor who couldn't figure out that she had choleolithiasis or a bowel obstruction. How is it that YOU PUT THE BLAME ON A NURSE WHO IS ONLY ALLOWED BY STATE LAW TO CHECK IN, MONITOR VITAL SIGNS, AND TRIAGE ACCORDING TO SEVERITY OF ILLNESS.
A nurse cannot order ultrasounds or pull lipase blood panels . A nurse cannot order laproscopic surgery. All she can do is check the patient in and inform a doctor of the situation. Do you think her getting a workup for the third time that day was on the top of the physicians list? Should it have been?
Obese lady is yelling that her gall stones have exploded and is carrying on. Number 30 for the day. Abdominal pain is the number one complaint in the ER. It is also the most difficult to treat and diagnose. It takes time, because all those people ahead of you with heart attacks, gunshot wounds, and diabetic ketoacidosis are in more danger than your vague (but vocal) complaint.
Junior Blogger: there was nothing the nurse or any medical professional could do for her. You know why? Because LA County DHS is run by a crew of egomaniac rich politicians. As an emergency professional, I can tell you, County Emergency medical care is fucking scary. Its called a lack of reasonable resources. That's not the nurse's fault. But guess whose it is?

You are a tool because the nurse is the most expendable member of the health care team, and as you may now be noticing, DHS is going into general quarters, taking their doctors with them into a protective PR wagon circle. You chump. And just so you know, other than increased pulse, decreased blood pressure (if the perforation was bleeding), and a temperature greater than 101, a complaint of severe abdominal pain means nothing. Ms. Rodgriguez was nothing special in the ER because half the people in the ER were waiting with the same exact complaint. Unless you are involved in a trauma or have an identifiable life threatening situation,you have to wait in the waiting room, just like everybody else at county, you wait your turn. HEY CHUMP! PAIN IS NOT AN INDICATOR OF LIFE THREATENING EMERGENCY. SCREAMING DOES NOT GET YOU BACK ANY FASTER, BECAUSE THEN EVERYONE WOULD SCREAM TO GET BACK. HEY YELLOW JOURNALIST, EVEN HER OWN BOYFRIEND LEFT TWICE TO GO "RUN ERRANDS." AFTER MIDNIGHT NO LESS! She must have been really bad then right?

She was seen by two doctors for full consultations and yet you blame the nurse who evaluated her at triage. Now some media horny DA is ruminating over filing criminal charges, we're not sure who yet, but we do already know that because of your brilliant piece of heart felt investigative journalism it'll probably be the nurse. But that's good for you, right? This ridiculous story goes on and on. Hey, maybe you'll win a Pulitzer.

Mr Ornstein, let me tell you what you are now the cathartic enema for. Nurses will be afraid to properly assess people, patients who like to scream will get moved ahead of people who are really dying (idiot, Ms. Rodriguez was the exception, most people are dying quietly in the waiting room because they are too sick to scream and carry on). When nurses become the flavor of the month for stalled out DA's, any shot of recovering the American healthcare system will be permanently destroyed. You think doctors are afraid of getting sued? Imagine a nurses fear of being sent to jail, for having the strength to do her job, to not crumble under the mountain of LA's worst stories. If a nurse is afraid to do his or her job you won't even get in the door.
That's right chump, people are dying in the waiting room everyday because there aren't enough beds, hallways, tables, to put the bodies on. If someone has the energy to scream at me, I tend to think they aren't dying. Ethical Journalism Reject, you have enabled LA county DHS supervisors to shirk off some glaring reminders of their managerial incompetence, yet again. A morbidly obese Latino woman (Hypertension + Diabetes endemic) sadly crashes after a life time of giving her shoes to people and basically being kindest, sweetest greatest person on earth, well aside from those warrants, and you want to hang the nurse whose job is to categorize and put the patient in line and attend to any life threatening situations that might arise.
I wonder why the whole night shift ignored her, lying there, screaming in pain, and no doubt in real agony. Why would they do that, I wonder...

"I am completely dumbfounded," said county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky. Ya think?

Good job.

Positive Role Model Found!

A breakthrough! My OB instructor is great! Honest, sense of humor, argues with doctors during C-sections, is open about the problems with the hospital she works at, lets us make mistakes without humiliating us, and seems to take a genuine interest in my performance. Best of all, she believes in the absolute competence of the nursing profession, and pointing out the bad habits of uninvolved nurses.

I feel like Michael Banks in "Mary Poppins" when the two kids write a letter requesting a new nanny, and FUCKING MARY POPPINS SHOWS UP. Before you know it she starts giving them hard core drugs laced with spoonfulls of sugar and making rooms fucking clean themselves. What a relief! I just needed someone to give me some guiding light: a nursing instructor that acts like a normal person!

I'd like to write more but I've got a serious PEDS/OB test manana.

Cheers

Go ahead and squeeze a little harder why don't ya?

Sorry, it’s been awhile. Super busy. Super fucking busy. Got through the competencies pretty good, I got the “easy” instructors, i.e. the ones that are remotely normal and secure enough with themselves that they don’t feel the need to torture a student.
As of right now, the majority of my class is on academic warning. The 2nd semester faculty is a lot like the Bush administration: No matter how bad the classes grades get, no matter how many inappropriate acts the instructors carry out, it’s the same shtick. “We’re just trying to figure out why you guys aren’t getting it.” Never a mea culpa, no responsibility whatsoever for the fact that a group of extraordinarily driven and intelligent ADULTS are failing everything thrown at them.
No, my dear instructor, you saintly middle-aged woman in your 40’s with no kids, no husband and 20 cats. YOU’RE not getting it. You’re fucked up! And when your sole purpose for teaching is to humiliate, bully, and fail students well, you get what you pay for. A class of 72 students with the majority on academic probation.
Fuck off!
I make no apologies. The observation has been made, I shall pontificate here but lord help me if I say this in class.
If you are middle-aged, not in a relationship, don’t like young people in general, and have a freakishly large assortment of pets put a red flag on your scrubs because you’ve got some serious fucking issues and shouldn’t be anywhere near the next generation of nurses.
I’ve come to this conclusion as I have come to realize that the violently nutty nurses, the happy-sad, maybe I’ll get weepy during a lecture and then scream at a student for not wearing the right color socks (black shoes=black socks, white shoe=white socks. I’m totally serious the hard asses will send you home if your socks don’t match.), the ones who tell the students they don’t like that they should maybe think about quitting school, these are the ones who aren’t married. At my school a couple of the foul tempered instructors have been married but are now divorced, but in general they have been single for a considerable amount of time. Like, I can’t believe the huge assorment of spinsters that are instructing at my school. Somehow, they all found each other, united in disdain and contempt.
Nothing wrong with being middle-aged and single, middle-aged and divorced, fuck half the country is past 38 and divorced. But are you still in the game? Are you trying? Have you given up on the opposite sex entirely and have resigned yourselves to your sister’s kids, pretending they are your own? Do you still believe right before the increasingly shitty and bizarre blind dates you’ve been finding yourself on that this might be love?

Don’t give up. The opposite sex hates you as much as you hate them. So just fucking bite the bullet and let it go, accept someone for who they are and go make some love. As long as they respect you, treat you right. And ladies, don’t tell me you’ve tried and good men are hard to find. Because they are not. There are roughly 75 million single men in America. They may not come in the form you fantasize about, they may not treat you like shit just the way you like to be abused but goddamnit they are out there. And for the divorced middle-aged guys: PAY ATTENTION TO YOUR WOMAN. WOMEN USE SINCERE ATTENTION LIKE FUEL. JUST A FEW MOMENTS OF YOUR TIME AND THEY ARE ABSOLUTELY FUCKING STOKED. LAYOFF THE SPORTS TALK AS YOU PRIMARY METHOD OF COMMUNICATION. AND TRY AND STAY AWAKE 10 SECONDS AFTER THE NUT YOU CHEEKY BASTARDS.
Excuse while I step off this soap box.
I mean, if it’s this obvious what the bad nursing instructors’ problem is, that they have been dicked over by some of the worst taste in men this burned out society has to offer (see: firefighter, paramedic, cops, used car salesmen) they have no one to blame but themselves. I didn’t fuck up your dude radar! You should have gotten it fixed!
They act on their own bizarre experiences so often I can see their bitchy wheels turn, “Should I be supportive of this student in their time of need, should I encourage them, let them know that its okay to make mistakes when you are learning how to do something that requires immense technical finesse, great emotional intelligence, and serious attention to detail? No. Now its time to lay down some serious institutionalized abuse and sting this student good.”
How fucked up are they? You know they must have hated their patients. Probably despised them. Did fucked up shit like withheld pain medication when in a foul mood to “punish” their patients for being needy or irritating them.

Hey! You nurses out there who play the withholding pain meds till absolutely as late as possible game: you make me fucking sick. Who are you to judge and punish? Don’t do it. Don’t abuse like you’ve been abused. Cause you’re playing with fire and baby you will get burned. It’s like scratching the mosquito bite of hate: you only hate more.

Some nurses hate black people.

Some nurses hate men who remind them of their father.

Some nurses are uncompassionate to women that remind them of their mothers.

Some nurses don’t feel what a patient is going through because they have a higher tolerance for distress because of what THEY have gone through.

Some nurses are traumatized from their line of work and suddenly snap at people or patients they may care about.

Some nurses have drug problems.

Some nurses are jealous of American nurses.

Some nurses hate men.

Some nurses hate women.

Some nurses loathe white people.

Some nurses do what they are told to do too much to please the powers that be.

Some nurses like to be part of a machine that crushes people, that keeps down the dusts of change.

Some nurses are just looking for a spouse.

Some nurses are absolutely incredible fucking people who have great technical knowledge and are still emotionally capable of making someone that they wouldn’t otherwise relate to or interact with feel safe, clean, and capable of healing.

Some nurses have heart.

Some nurses know what the fuck is going on and aren’t afraid to act on it.

Some nurses could really give a shit what arrogant, pissant residents think is a “quick” procedure.

Some nurses walk the line between insubordination and always advocating for their patients as a method of humility, integrity, and keeping it really fucking real.

Some nurses think for themselves.

Some nurses are so fantastic and inspiring to me that I personally want to equip myself with the “identity” of a nurse.

Keep doin what you’re doing.

Mazeltov. Happy Passover,

And to all the haters and status quo addicts, the trick ass marks, mark ass marks, punk asses, ho's, heffers and hulahoops, skeezers, skanks, skig-scags, scallwhomps, I want you to ponder exodus from slavery you dickheads, you disgruntled bitches.

I’m coming to gitcha.
(Thanks D.C. for that rant)

How many nurses are victims of domestic violence?

I posted this on allnurses.com:

Re: intimidation by nurse manager?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Cat Nurse
"I have a male nurse manager. I have worked with him for many years. I am not agreeable to some of his hired staff. I think his hormones get in the way of his judgement. But many people feel intimidated by him. Many have quit and say it is because they don't feel comfortable around him. Most, probably would not have been confortable any place or with most people!"



Is this really a gender issue? People have quit because they don't feel comfortable around him? Like, he'll hide behind around a corner and attack you? There are so few male nurse managers, please don't take the most obvious route and imply that he is a pervert. Its hard enough being a male nurse as it is. Same goes for male school teachers. Not all men are pervs. Some are, yes. But it sounds like this dude is just being a manager, which means to say he is trying to control you because most managers are too insecure to work with their staff, instead they work against them. BTW, I work in one of the largest ERs in California and the head nurse and nurse manager are both female. More of the nurses here have breast implants than don't. No joke.
Don't blame your male manager for unprofessional nurses, please. If your manager wants to act like a child let him. If patients get turned away, its his rear end.
END POST

Cat Nurse (red flag right there), feels that she's not allowed to go fulltime PRN because her nurse manager is a hormone driven scumbag. Thanks Cat Nurse! That must be it. What a bother.

Nursing school is seriously kicking my ass. Mid term tomorrow. I think I'm prepared. You never know...

I've been looking at all the first year residents, second year residents, all the residents. They seem so happy. They're so loud on the floor, joking with each other, high fiving each other. Then I look at the nursing students: Scared, painfully quiet, expressionless. The second me or one of my fellow nursing students does ANYTHING there is another nurse and our nursing instructor immediately in our face threatening us with expulsion. Seriously, I asked my instructor how many clinical days we were allowed to miss, and she fired back at me, "If you miss more than two on your first rotation you are out of here. You will be dropped from the program." What the fuck lady? I haven't missed any days, I just wanted to know.
WHY ARE NURSING STUDENTS ALWAYS BEING THREATENED AND BULLIED?
You know what I just found out? That one of the other 2nd semester instructors, a passionately pro-American ex-army nurse, I call her Chris Farley, (I wrote about her about three posts back) she makes faces at you, tsks her tongue, shakes her head, while you do the clinical competency. Not like goofy faces, but furious faces, disgusted faces. She might as well call us "maggots" That's fucked up. And don't tell me that as a nurse you have to be tough and do it right under pressure, blah, blah,blah. We're fucking students for Christ’s sake! Most students haven't even seen an NG on the floor, what the fuck do they know? This is not the military. We're not in WWII. We're college level nursing students getting a degree and planning to join (what I hope is) a professional work force. All this constant threatening, the persistent mood swings of ALL the instructors, "today I like you but tomorrow I won't" It all dehumanizes us, sucks up what little self confidence my fellow nursing students have, makes them more timid. Afraid to confront asshole doctors, afraid to tell the manager the shift they got is bullshit, afraid to switch to a better department where their co-workers at least attempt civility, afraid to say "this pay is shit and I'm going to quit and work at a hospital that treats me how I deserve to be treated!" How about instilling professionalism in the new nurses of today, which is to say, support them and treat them respectfully. CAN WE AT LEAST ATTEMPT TO BREAK A CYCLE OF OPPRESSION?
Chris Farley fails at least ten students on NG competency every semester. For stupid shit lie forgetting to tape the tube to the cheek, even if its already taped to the nares. That's great for the confidence building!
I cannot believe how hard my school works to keep us from thinking for ourselves. Every instructor loves to shout "critical thinking" about 30 fucking times a lecture but all they're really doing is enforcing protocols. I have no problem following the rules, but do you have to tell me I'm stupid while I do it? Why is this old school, oppressed female nurse shit allowed to perpetuate? Why not make everybody where the fucking white hats while you're at it?
Long shoreman makes 100K a year, to start. They don't do shit half the time. So don't tell me about the gravitas, the noble responsibility of nursing. OLDER NURSES! Most of you have failed in your careers! Your lack of respect for yourself has cost you the safety of the patients and left a smoldering hole where you once held an acorn of self confidence.

I do not mean to be crude, but I ask this question in all sincerity: How many female nurses suffer spousal abuse, be it intense physical of emotional. I'm totally serious. You think about this question, then we have the root of our problem.