Everyday People

Alright. So I gots a license. I gots my ACLS. Now all I need is a fucking job.

Gave my heart and soul to the county. Did two internships. Licked the festering bung of the endless stream of managers, assistant managers, nurse educators for the SICU at the the hospital I wanted to get hired in as a new grad. Hard to do but I'm psychotic. Had 3 fucking interviews that were like totally Japanese. It consisted of the unit managers screaming at me: "You are shit! You think you know so much but you know nothing! You pissant. It will be a year before anyone will trust you by yourself for ten minutes. Tell us how you are similar to poop. Tell us! List, starting from the most similar way, to the least similar way, the ten ways your very existence as a nurse is similar to a meaty turd. Begin!"
So I get hired. After I tell them what a piece of shit I am and how I will become maybe, a squirt of piss if I follow their SICU tutelage. The following Monday the head manager quits, a new interim manager is named. I calls the new manager, I think she said, "County wide hiring freeze and besides you are 4th in line. Get another job." Click. Fucking click. Or should I say fucking clique. Not a word of thanks, apology, let alone acknowledgement for the internships and multitude of interviews. Anyway I think that's what she said but my Tagalog kind of sucks. I'm sure she has like six cousins and a husband who want the sweet position. So I calls downtown.
"Oh no baby, it's not a hiring freeze. It's a hiring hold. Just wait until October and then we can process your paperwork."Just a typical LA County, "I hate my job I'm just here to retire before we find this bitch floating dead, tits up. Go fuck yourself, na-ah, don't you talk to me like a human being, na-ah" attitude. They don't even say "please go fuck yourself."
Oh, okay! Great! I'll sit on my duff for 3 months while Schwarzabastard and the stooges from the now totally defunct "Killer King" fuck around. Why pay rent when you can get evicted?
Fuck me? Fuck you.


So you know what I says friends? Fuck county. 7 days later I got hired at a Catholic private. Even before the interview I knew I was home. Just like county, patient wise. I loved the lobby: Dead bloody Jesus statues on every wall, at eye level. Dude, they nailed that fucker through his hands AND his feet, crazy. Maybe that crazy bastard really did die for me cuz it looked like that shit hurt- and crackheads everywhere. It was like a mid 80's Cure video. I immediately thought to myself while I waited in the lobby for the ICU manager to come down, "Yes. Just like county. These are my people. Broke, dangerous, desperate, grateful, entitled, high, low, furious."
They check you out but they don't judge because they are in no place to judge. and neither am I.
I immediately accepted a position as a new grad in their completely dilapidated, fully understaffed ICU (no Na's, clerks, RT's, or EKG techs). One commode in the whole unit. ICU designed by Stevie wonder. The manager was like, "I gotta tell you, the nurses up here are a little tired of new grads right now. But do what you're told and lay low and hopefully you'll make it." Fair warning. I appreciate that. Bathing in toxicity. Wouldn't expect anything less nor do I want it.
I accepted the position with a non-contract 5K sign on bonus for working nights for a year, and then, the next day, a recruiter for the most prestigious LA private (Hint:they give the babies of celebrities shitloads of heparin) called. When I told him I had accepted a position at St. Mother of Dead Holy Jesus Mountains of the Tired Goat Naked Guadalupe in the Rivers of Nacho Bel Grande he started foaming at the mouth and wanted to talk money right then. Jews. My people. So I hustled him back and tomorrow I gots me an interview with the much coveted hereby named: "Your Jew Masters of Beverly Hills Hospital, yeah That's Right We Are Shitting Money" SICU manager tomorrow. *
La' Chiem!

The HR building I'm going to tomorrow is named after a very famous director. He's made movies about a sex addict archaeologist, an extra terrestrial that likes little boys, dinosaurs that eat Jeff Goldblume. It's literally called the Steven S------- Human Resource building. Gimme some of that private health care baby, let me see what you taste like.

Poor people, my people. Scandalous people, my people. The other clique, on the west side, my people (I guess). I'm not looking for the perfect place. I'm looking for the place where the waterfall beats down evenly with its harsh cold stomp onto the nape of my neck and I cease to exist.

Bring it!!!
* As a Jew, and a poor working class one at that, I reserve to mock the gaudiness of my own culture

Good Vibes

Cheers to this shit, neh?

Thanks Kelly! Awesome resource!
Sincerely,
The R.N. formerly known as "Angry Male Nurse"

(I'm in a transitional phase)

---

Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 09:43:10 +0530
From: kelly.sonora.83@gmail.com
To: licensedtoill1@hotmail.com
Subject: Licensed 2 ILL

Hi,

We just posted an article, "100 Networks and Resources for Male Nurses" (http://www.nursingschoolsearch.com/blog/2008/07/100-networks-and-resources-for-male-nurses/). I thought I'd bring it to your attention in case you think your readers would find it interesting.

I am happy to let you know that your site has been included in this list.

Either way, thanks for your time!

Kelly Sonora

Songs For the Deaf

And he hath been given license to breathe songs of lost rage and furor to the ears of the closed. For it was true- Their ear pussies would never be rocked with his Gospel of Nursing Blasphemy.

I am licensed friends. The Nusring School Graduate possesses a License to Ill.
It feels good. This joy is pure, genuine. And the relief is like the sweet warm clouded breath of my baby boy when we snuggle. And when my wife joins we snuggle like Champions.

Right away my resolve to not respond to every little thing in the nursing world with anger was put to the test.
I was able to schedule an interview with the management of the unit I want to work for the day I got my license number. So arrived, hair freshly shorn, faced shaved to a crisp, my balls smelling finely of expensive ode de cologne, oh babies I was prepared.
The interview consisted of Unit Manager, Unit educator, Assistant Manager.

The unit manager started the assault kindly: "First off, you are a very attractive candidate. You are the most enthusiastic student we've ever met."
Nice. But from there, they voiced their concerns. Concerns strangely identical to my instructors blast of me right after the award and scholarship debacle.
"Cocky" "Loose Cannon" "You started here way too overconfident" "We don't think you can handle the criticism required to work in this unit" "You mean you aren't ACLS certified?" "Do you think you know more than a med-surge nurse?" (I got my license THAT FUCKING DAY. AT WHAT POINT BETWEEN 0600 AND 1130 WAS I TO ACCOMPLISH THE TWO DAY ACLS COURSE?)

Then I went really nutty and told them of my contemplation of being a CRNA. And the shit subsequently really hit the fan. I know how dumb it is to tell a SICU manager you want to be a CRNA. I know the risks, but I took it. I told her, (I totally stole a line from "HEAT") "I give you my word that I will be here for 2 to 3 years. I know you don't know me personally but my word means something. My word is good."
The manager said, "I've been burned many, many times". But I won't burn her. My word is good. I hope it shone through. Then she said, "I already knew." And I said, "Yeah, but I told you." I know who told her, too. This CRNA who works at the hospital who promised me he wouldn't tell her and promptly told her.
They said a lot of shit to me, most of it not nice, not innapropriate but not nice. The only unit in the hospital that isn't begging me to come work for them and these managers treat me like I'm some nursing failure. I've never been called a "loose cannon" before. That was pretty cool.
Then the education manager went onto the floor and asked a friend mine what he thought about me (he's a RN). My friend said, "People think he's arrogant but he's not. He's just really enthusiastic." I owe him one. At least she asked. It shows intent right?

So, FINAL THOUGHT:
How arrogant am I? How cocky do I come across? More than your average nursing student that's for sure. Your average new grad won't take her eyes off the floor. In a perfect world, in a world where capitalism led to happiness and fairness and real live ethics I would have been a salesman. That's what I do. I sell things, anything. In nursing, I sell safe health care, I sell the idea that you should change your diet at home. I sell the idea that talking rumors about me the second you think I'm out of ear shot is off limits to you. I sell the idea that the patient needs stronger pain meds. I sell the idea that I can outwardly feel as good about myself, I can answer questions and address situations with as much confidence, arrogance, sarcasm as that strapping young socialite MD over there. Basically put: The Nursing school Graduate possesses a License to ILL doesn't know his place. I see the ridiculousness of treating a human being a certain way just because of their job title, educational resources, or race. It deeply alarms people because I threaten their consistency. Because maybe consistency in what to expect, good or bad, is better than uncertainty. That's the problem with growing up in chaos. It often makes more sense than violent social organization.

That's my problem. I don't buy into the hospital hegemony because I'm too immature and vane to accept the fact that the force of my determination and sheer will does not give you status or credibility. Let them talk shit, let them challenge me and let me learn my place.

And in time, I will put pictures to my liking on the wall.

The Day I Tried To Live

Angry Male Nurse is dead.

I've been wanting to kill him for a while and I really wanted to do it after I got my R.N.
To give his assassination a little more Umph.

But really, waiting to kill him until I get my license defies the purpose of ending this facet of myself.

Finishing nursing school, studying for the NCLEX, taking the NCLEX, waiting A GODDAMN MONTH FOR RESULTS has been wonderfully cathartic (and thanks to nursing school I can't ever use the word in any context without thinking of a juicy enema) and has really given me an attitude adjustment that I've been needing for awhile.

I'm going to keep this entry relatively short because readers don't read insanely long posts and I feel like what I'm going to be writing about for the next few posts is important, that these entries will pertain to you and your practice and your outlook on the medical biz and why you are in it.

I don't know if I passed the NCLEX. I know everybody says that they feel like they failed, some people KNOW they failed the exam- I categorize myself in the KNOW group. Maybe I am wrong. Hopefully I passed. But what I struggled with during the exam were like the ridiculously basic questions. Priority of nursing interventions for non-critical situations, mundane situations , situations so basic I've never seen a nurse intervene in them. Like a muscle cramp at 3 am while the patient is at home or brain freeze after drinking too much cold beverage. Given 4 choices, all of them right, one of them really right. The exam was testing my ability for analytic thinking. I'm not an analytic thinker. I'm a mechanical thinker, a creative thinker, a process thinker, but not an analytical thinker. But I don't blame the NCLEX or anything. It is a right of passage, weeding out the poor test takers from the truly dense and unsafe, from the ones who struggle with English, from the ones who just think too much (me!). Don't read into a question-well I do. I love to. That's why I like nursing. I love the puzzle.

So right now I am a nursing school graduate, with an I.P. permit, but not an R.N. And I have no blogger name because the blogger I was was really starting to disgust me and hinder my learning about nursing. And ultimately I'm a baby in the nursing game and newborns shouldn't be cynical. Part of the real me was AMN, part of me wasn't. But that is not so much important. What is important are the lessons I have learned from 7+ years in the medical field, starting when I was 20, ending where I am now in my early 30's (took a few years to work in media and sales) with a wife and a baby and a fuckload of ambition, tired outrage, exhausted disbelief at human behavior, annoyed with my own human behavior. 7+ years of lessons that could have changed me into a different person in so many different directions. I'm sad because sometimes those lessons stuck but most times they did not and I have repeated the same self destructive behavior over and over again. I have mastered the root cause of all nasty behavior in a hospital, I have the impetus for the worst behavior thoroughly mapped out under the guise of protecting myself from it but all I've really done is draw a route on the map to direct myself from point A: Unlicensed asshole who has been observing everybody and the constantly changing work dynamic to point B: Licensed asshole who thinks he knows everything but doesn't really listen to anything anyone has to say because their role as "fucked up person" has a direct route leading straight to and from my wacked and exhausted mind.
There is something to be said for acknowledging political play, to knowing what manager is trying to get what from what supervisor but it is an endless movement of gossip and really has no bearing on the job I need to accomplish on a daily basis.

I have been in a bizarre survival mode from really old shit, the kind of shit that makes you are what you are from the way you were raised, the kind of shit your therapist loves to dissect, the kind of behavior that I observed in others that disgusted me but when I got down to it, when I really looked at myself, shamefaced I realized it was in me.

I finally had to "stop, collaborate, and listen". (That's right, I just utilized Vanilla Ice as a major reference point for great personal change and goddammit it felt good).



I am going lay down some hardcore Mea Culpa, some ultimate my bad's in the next few blog entries and try to recenter myself.

1) I don't like what I've become, I don't like my response to the stress of being a nurse, to the stress of life and I don't need an R.N. to add credibility to the gravitas and sincerity of my will to change.

2) I will not be tightly wrapped anymore, the possibility of really bad things happening are ever present and it is a terrible life to live in fear. As Saint Al Pacino said in one of the finest films made,"Heat":
Tone Loc: Man, I could get killed for telling you this.
Pacino: Yeah, well, you could get killed walking your doggie!


3) I will not talk shit about my coworkers anymore as a useless attempt to gain alliance with other coworkers I hope will protect me from my own bad behavior.

4) I will not talk shit about anyone regardless of how much shit they talk about me. And if they are speaking ill of me because I have done something out of protocol I will wise up and get back in protocol.

5) When a patient, another nurse, a doctor, a respiratory therapist, family member makes a negative comment about my personality that is true I will not take it to heart and I will not hate myself for the imperfection of my personality, or for the exposure of being human. I will not hold a grudge against said co-worker for pointing out a human flaw and attempting to exploit it for their momentary gain. I.E. co-worker saying "I think he over reacts when he gets a patient with PVC's-pretty goofy" I do get alarmed easily. When alarms are going off in the C.T.U. It's because I don't want my patient to go into v-tach and code while I'm staring at the monitor with my hands warming my balls. What matters is the quality of your job performance and the condition of your patients before and after your shift was over. Am I in protocol? Yes? Keep on.

To be an Angry Male Nurse is the saddest possible fate in the world for me. Because while adults often demonstrate less than adult behavior in any job, in any situation I do believe there is a disproportional amount of BS in our field compared to others. The possibility of perpetual exasperation looms over me. And I do believe some nurses do behave unprofessionally too much of the time, either for their lack of knowledge of what appropriate behavior is or because they are simply overwhelmed by the endless barrage of shit they are expected to assess, plan to handle, implement, and evaluate the outcome of their handling. This job is doable, it does not require bitterness and contempt to do it right.

In nursing school, I used to bug out so hard, completely trip that the bad nurses were a reflection of me, of what I was destined to become. I felt real humiliation at their behavior as if it reflected on me because I chose the same profession. But it does not. A bad nurse does not mean I am a bad nurse. A great nurse does not mean I am a great nurse. It's like going to the gym and thinking that your body is as lean and toned or in poor shape as the people at the gym around you. I let my own identity crisis smolder on my own anger. Control, for the most part, was taken away from the nursing students at my school which was at a teaching hospital. My nursing school was an experience that is outdated and incredibly useful at the same time. It was militaristic, brutal, and like the purpose of all nursing schools weaknesses were exposed in the hope that they would be removed from the individuals performance and personal and professional growth would occur.
I obsessed over the pleasure some instructors derived from the process. I got pissed and stewed about the instructors who didn't care about the process and just laid your fuck up on you passively, completely taking away your ability to be an individual and ended every criticism with "maybe you shouldn't be here." But they didn't just say it to me, they said it to everybody. I took it so fucking personally, I started a war with the school because I thought it was wrong but also because I handled this style of educational process so badly.

Stress. Anxiety. If you can grow and learn when the pressure is on then you can learn and grow happily for the rest of your life.

I grew up with some serious stressors. But who didn't? But fuck, stress does not have to be stressful. How do I explain it? I do not have to respond to every insult, impropriety, every failure of the bureaucracy with rage and anxiety and more stress. Guess what everybody? I'm pooped. And I should be after nursing school but not this pooped. But not this soul tired. Truthfully, I started nursing school moderately burnt out. Being an E.M.T. can suck really hard.
I owe it to myself to not start out as an R.N. burnt out. I need to change and I am happy and excited to do so.

Final thought for this post:
Every single person who has left a comment on my blog has reminded me, or should I say informed me that the reality of working as a nurse with all the bullshit and back stabbing and nuttiness is like nursing school but only worse. There is more at stake. Thanks to everybody who helped me understand that because you are right. And if I go into my career serving a dish made up of my previous mindset of fighting fuckedupness with more fuckedupness garnished with some rage and paranoia sprinkled on top I would not only be the poster child for burnout but I quite possibly might hurt a patient when my mind is sailing the seas of outrage.

I feel like I am giving something up here everybody. I feel like I am giving up the fight, that I am letting poorly behaving, burn to a crisp burnt out nurses, status quo win- BUT I AM NOT. I believe that quiet professionalism with politely firm boundaries is akin to nirvana. Well, at least in the safety of my home and at my desk it does.

Angry Male Nurse is no more. Good riddance.

Love My Way II

Hey medical professionals-

I graduated. Without honors. As two year class president. Raised more money for my school than any class president before me. Fund raised like a phoenix, out of the ashes and into a nice prepaid banquet for everyone and half of their partner at a decent venue in the moist Armenian hills of lovely Burbank. Fucking paid by me. 75 grads. 42 a plate. I spent $175 of class money on presents for our advisors. I set aside $300 for a class legacy. I bought the class and faculty lunch, twice. I wrote a grant for re-imbursement of PDA's for all union affiliated students, which was approved. Champion. I formed a yearbook committee intentionally made up of the most jealous haters in my class. The turds who talked shit about me the WHOLE FUCKING TWO YEARS BECAUSE I DIDN'T HAVE THE ENERGY TO PRETEND TO THINK THAT THEY WERE DECENT ADULTS, WITH POTENTIAL NURSING CONSCIENCES SO I IGNORED THEM PERSONALLY. I ENGAGED A CLIQUE LIKE MAVERICK AND GOOSE ENGAGED A BUNCH OF COMMIE MIG-28'S. (Wow, that's a delightfully psychotic paranoid rant! With an 80's reference. Awesome.)
I alienated myself because this group of students, I’ve worked with many nurses that they will become. It was too obvious. Lazy, egotistical, vengeful, punitive, dishonest. Always interupting lecture to tell a story about how they went out of their way to help a patient, like "I'm gonna hold up everyone's time so I can kiss some ass with a story about something that Ididn't even do!" Or gasping dramatically whenever one of the instructors would use an example of a situation with a negative outcome. And always, always, laughing haughtily whenever an example of what-not-to-do was given, "Pshhh! I would never do that. How stupid!"
All of them instructors favorites. All of them full of utter shit. Basically stated: this was the clique of students that I found most unappealing as one of the many cliques swirling around 75 students. Just not good peoples. But I still wanted to put them to work and I did. Ironically, these were the same students that got all the awards that I did not. Very Tao. Just goes to show, Haters don't change. You can find them in their embryonic state even at nursing schools. Perhaps the old addage is true: Don't hate the player, Hate the game. I hates the way the game is played and I hates the the haters. Fuck you both. At least Players negotiate, compromise, collect rewards for everyone involved.
Whatever.
Informed by my faculty advisor that I was not given scholarships and awards because "Most of our clinical instructors feel that you are arrogant, don't take criticism well and are paranoid. And just so you know, the class awards are a popularity contest anyway and you are not popular with faculty."
To which I said, "I don't disagree. But do you think I would have been able to accomplish half of the things that I did if I wasn't arrogant, oblivious to criticism and paraniod?"

"No. Probably not. You will be a leader in nursing." My instructor smiled. I smiled. A little bit of candor, a little bit of real conversation goes a long way. And what did I do to receive this tid bit of discretion free conversation? Let me share...

I had brought my wife and baby to the awards ceremony only to have us sitting there with our thumbs up our keisters while some of the most relentless ass kissers and thinker-in-the-boxers received scholarships and awards. My name-definitively not called. But I was told by faculty advisor that i was a shoe-in? A fucking coup? What gived?
As fate would have it, after the ceremony I somehow managed to get my sweet little family into the elevator with the same cadre, the same junta of 4 instructors who shot me down. It was me an all of my old clinical instructors, and I was pissed. Fucking nursing games.
I said to my faculty advisor as the elevator unsteadily creaked up to the lobby, "So what happened with those awards?" The hens abruptly shut up.
She replied in the most possibly fake "I give a shit" patronizing voice ever uttered from a nurse, "Oh, honey, those were just nominations." She must have liked my wife's shoes because she wouldn't look at me in the face. My last clinical instructor, Ms. Perpetual Cell phone Coffee Break was standing next to her. She briefly glanced up and smiled at me, a hateful smile, a subtle sneer so snide that only a very hurt, vindictive person could make it. Then she looked away moments before eye contact. Steam came out of my wife’s ears. Well at least the wife saw firsthand some of the bullshit. At least she knows.
But I actually liked my faculty advisor, despite her insincerity at that moment. And I really do appreciate that a week later she told me what the real deal was with the awards. They no like me. Oh well. I no care.

I was told these realities one week after not getting said awards, one week before I gave the commencement address at graduation, in front of all the faculty instructors of the school, in front of the CEO of one of the largest healthcare organizations in the world. In front of the director of the SEIU for this healthcare system. Maybe I'm paranoid but how fucking stupid are they?

But I gave a nice speech. I sent a copy of it to one of the authors of "From Silence to Voice- What Nurses Know and Must Communicate to the Public", Bernise Buresh. She wrote me back.

ˆDear AMN,

Thank you so much for contacting us and for your kind words about our work. I read your commencement address with great interest and especially liked: There is a fine line between “taking stress home with you” and letting your family know that your intervention saved a patient’s life that day.

I am saddened, though, by your description of the attitude of your nursing instructors. It made me want to go right out there and do a workshop with the faculty. I’m pleased to tell you that I come in contact regularly with instructors and working nurses who are quite different from those you describe.

Whatever specific path you choose, I hope that you will have a fulfilling career in nursing.

With respect and best wishes,
Bernice Bureshˆ

That's nice. I could of used some more of that kind of attitude during school. Pretty cool that she wrote back, though.

I take the NCLEX on JUNE 24. Fuck me. I'll pass. I 've been asking other nursing students what their schools were like. "Easy"
"Sooo much fun", "Okay".

I have two of my classmates with me at the Kaplan review course. Rachel, a 25 year old virgin Pilipino Catholic smoker who manages to say "fuck" more often then me, and my class treasurer, gulf war II veteran Geraldo Rivera. (Yeah I changed their fuckin' names). I asked them how they felt about our school yesterday during break. They just stared at me. Then Geraldo looked away. Rachel went for a smoke and probably to go talk to hurt little baby jesus. Just my luck, I went to the gnarliest nursing school in Los Angeles County. We are the county. So I ate my yogurt and fantasized being home by 1300 so I could take a shit and possibly avoid Hep A, lice, and fresh fresh one minute old herpes for one more day from the insane public bathrooms next to the downtown LA kaplan offices.

Here's my speech: (It's surprisingly cuddly) (grab another brew, glass of vino, or some more pills cuz this here is a 5 minute speech) AND BY THE WAY-IF ANYONE ELSE NEEDS TO GIVE A COMMENCEMENT SPEECH YOU HAVE MY PERMISSION TO RIP THIS LITTLE FUCKER OFF!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Commencement Speech Class of 2008-I
some school of nursing somewhere in LA County,
by
Angry Male Nurse

I would like to thank my wife for her partnership and understanding, as well as giving me a baby boy one year ago.


What an outstanding day this is! What an outstanding class! To all my classmates, my fellow new nurses, I want to say that you are by far the most intelligent, motivated, and dedicated group of individuals I have ever had the honor of studying and working with.

To all friends and family members in attendance- I hope I can convey to you in the next few minutes the tenacity and scholastic intensity that your loved one has demonstrated over the last four semesters of education, AS IF YOU DON’T ALREADY KNOW! No doubt, you have observed your loved one study long, long hours, memorize seemingly incomprehensible charts and specific functions of the Human body.

During first semester we learned physical assessments which is the cornerstone for all nursing skills and the most important. Around first semester you may have noticed your loved one suddenly take an interest in all the sounds from deep inside your lungs and chest every time you took a breath. We tested to see how well your limbs functioned, we wanted to know what your regular diet was, we wanted to listen to the sounds inside your gut and we asked you about the sounds coming out of it as well. We wanted to know how you felt about your body and we probably gave you some information on how to make it work more to your liking.
We have been studying an intricate human body ballet, a multilayered framework of physiology coupled with responses to the hundreds upon hundreds of situations a nurse may find himself/herself in. So thank you for being the guinea pigs while we learned the fundamentals of the art of physical and psychosocial assessment.

I’m not sure what working as a registered nurse will actually be like. I’ve never done it before. We’ve observed and assisted nurses thousands of times throughout our clinical training in this hospital system )Omission!(. We have been able to assume responsibility for the care of as many as five patients at once and learned that our responsibilities as nurse are so numerous that delegation to nursing attendants becomes a necessity. As graduating nurses we have a pretty good understanding of what nursing will be like on a day to day basis. The nuances and details we will learn as we progress throughout our careers.

So I want to talk about what I know and what your families don’t. I want to make sure that you, family and friends fully appreciate the challenge of becoming a nurse and what clinical expectations are expected of all nurses, including students. Because there are a lot of misconceptions about what nurses actually do. Some people think nurses just give out pills. Others think nurses just change sheets. Some people think nurses are the physical embodiment of angels. Some people think nurses are grumpy. Did you know that according to a study completed by the Institute of Medicine in 1999 86% of medication errors were caught by nurses, not by physician staff?


To me, nurses are extremely well trained, tested for our capabilities in a tough situation, we are taught to think in terms of action and rationale. What we call a priority intervention, such as re-positioning a patient a certain way as a response to a specific medical situation like choking or fainting, others might call quick thinking. Nursing graduates: If your patient suddenly develops chest pain, what is the first thing that you do after assessment? We have been taught that the priority nursing intervention is to oxygenate. And again, what the untrained eye may call quick thinking, to nurses, it is a reasoned response.

So what does priority intervention mean?
Simply stated: I slip an oxygen mask over your head and tell you to take some deep breaths and try to get oxygen to those deprived cardiac muscles. The simplest of actions requires reasoning and training. If the pain persists then I will move to the next intervention which is to medicate you for your chest pain and to further relax your heart and the demands placed on it.


I would like all family members to take what you have seen and heard on TV or movies about registered nurses and replace it with these words: Nurses are leaders in hospitals. Nurses make critical decisions in hospitals. Nurses perform crucial assessments of patients in hospitals. Essentially, nurses collaborate with every discipline the medical field has to offer, from physical therapy to gastroenterology to social work.

NURSES ARE THE LIFE BLOOD OF THE HOSPITAL AND MEDICAL CARE along with administration, doctors, respiratory therapists, dieticians..

You can ask a registered nurse for medical advice. They are licensed to give it. When you are a patient seeking medical attention you can expect a registered nurse to advocate for you, along with every other member of the medical team.You can expect a RN to collaborate with physicians to obtain the best possible outcome, which is the return to optimal wellness.
We anticipate negative effects of hospitalization and counteract its forces by simply walking with you down the hall way to ensure that a clot doesn’t form in your leg, or that you skin stays free of signs of breakdown from being in bed.

We facilitate positive outcomes while healing and do it in a manner that is sensitive to your culture and beliefs.

I would like to ask all friends and family members to inquire of their graduate loved ones what they do on a daily basis once they become registered and begin working. There is a fine line between “taking stress home with you” and letting your family know that your intervention saved a patient’s life that day. Or because of your thorough daily assessment of your patient, your detailed review of their chart and labs you discovered a finding that prevented a serious, life altering event from occurring.

Classmates, we have so much to be proud of, what we have accomplished here at school and what we will accomplish as medical professionals. Please, Classmates, remember to share your experiences
Instructors, family members, administrators, you can rest assured and feel confident that through your guidance and support that this first graduating class of 2008, school name serioulsy deleted here, is ready, willing and able to accept the challenges of the healthcare system now.

Search and Destroy

Thought I'd drop a line.

Finished classes. Whatever. Advanced Med surge was groovy but Nursing Professional Role was like sitting in cold diarrhea 3 hours a week.
The highlight of Role was when one of the instructors, who happens to be a shop steward for SEIU decided to give the collective bargaining lecture. She pointed out the good and bad of the union, relatively objective in an unobjective way. She talked about her political work, her constant advocating for more pay, better treatment. I asked her why the newly negotiated contract took specialty pay away from the critical care nurses to give regular floor nurses a raise. And why was she telling the class that she helped negotiate a raise for everyone. She stared at me for like a minute. And then she said, "We read the contract wrong. We're working on it." Oh. That's cool. I guess it's okay then.
And then she went on with her political missionary-martyrdom position for all nurses. (I just totally made a sex joke) But all anyone heard was that she received free trips to D.C. for meetings. So then the class started jumping all over her shit for taking free trips to D.C. The obligatory and perpetually righteously indignant African American chick said, "Maybe the specialty units wouldn't have lost their pay if you hadn't been taking free trips all over the country!" And then she looked around at the class and said, "You know?" Comedy.

I can safely say nobody made a point that stuck in the ensuing argument. It made me happy. A little piss to warm the diarrhea, as it were. Cuz the bottom line is the SEIU is gonna do whatever the fuck the SEIU wants to do. Negotiate. Right.

So all I got left is an 8 hour clinical competency scenarios exam. It should be called "really fucked up sick people and their incredibly depressing life stories case studies" but the test is compromised of 22 fucking case studies of ridiculously sick patients.
Here's an example:
Patient #1: NAME: Mr. RandyDickhead
AGE: Can't tell
RACE: Annoying
Wt: Fat. Really fuckin' fat.

C/C: RUQ pain, 10/10 radiates to R. flank and chest. N/V x 3 days, dysuria, fever, HA, blurred vision.
DX: Adrenal Paraganglioma
Urine: bili:0, Ket:0, Blood=neg pH=6.5, urobili=1.0, nitrate=0, glu=0, color=red, clarity=clear, S.G.=1.016, epithelial cells=>30 Bact=none
Then I get a bunch of the most incredibly fucked up labs of all time, and a bunch of intentionally contradictory and poorly written med orders, you know, like how it really is at cccccounty. Then onto priority nursing dx, nursing interventions.
But the whole thing seems far fetched. Like, I get it, pheochromocytoma but blood in the pee-pee? That's a bit of a stretch isn't it? Bloody piss because of an adrenal tumor? Do I have to change my diagnoses to Decreased renal tissue perfusion? Anybody out there? Can you guys enlighten me?
Why do I need to think about this shit?
So is the life of a nursing student.

I've pre-emptively changed the name of my blog as you can see. It's sort of like, you know, to psyche myself up for the NCLEX and subsequent employment. And it should solicit more hate from the haters.

Licensed 2 ill.

Hope you guys are doing well out there. Cheers.

Beat that tin drum

Gotta focus on graduating.

See everybody at end of May.

To all the people who told me to join Narcolovers Anonymous, get a life. It's called creative writing Mo'Fo's. I made it up.

Cheers. Beat your tin drum.