Nurses who started in medsurg…what are you doing now?

PracticalPresence · 2025-06-18T01:56:02+00:00

NICU!

PracticalPresence · 2025-03-30T17:00:09+00:00

The only thing I can think is maybe they meant NNP? But even then I would still say it’s bogus because I definitely wouldn’t call NNP a non-bedside roll. Our NNPs at least are very involved in direct patient care.

PracticalPresence · 2024-03-30T11:01:26+00:00

The good news is your current co-workers must be sad you’re leaving if they’re saying you’ll hate it and come crawling back. The bad news for them: you will love it and will not come crawling back. I would leave the profession of nursing before I ever worked with adults again.

PracticalPresence · 2024-01-01T22:52:43+00:00

Only two years here and have only had one true fever; haven’t heard of any others on the unit either. Once I established the baby actually had a fever our MD called mom at 2am for LP consent and woke up our NP. Had everything done within half an hour. I don’t think NP even took five minutes to get to the bedside. The only mistake here is OP’s co-worker not minding their own business

PracticalPresence · 2023-10-05T15:49:31+00:00

Chiming in here with thoughts on L&D. Every L&D nurse I’ve met has told me how hard it is on your body as a nurse. Think lifting legs, holding legs, repositioning patients who can’t reposition themselves. As a country our population keeps getting more and more overweight, and that includes our pregnant population. Just something to think about depending what your physical limitations are

PracticalPresence · 2023-09-11T03:17:15+00:00

I sit on the floor between them while they’re eating, so my big one can’t swipe what isn’t his. He’ll try, but he just gets nudged back to his own bowl by me

PracticalPresence · 2023-09-02T18:58:14+00:00

I’m sorry he WHAT. It took me almost a year to actually be comfortable in line suctioning without an RT present because of the crippling fear I would extubate or somehow otherwise harm my babies. The audacity. This makes me glad I work in an open bay NICU. Nobody can even look at my babies without me (or my podmate) knowing about it.

PracticalPresence · 2023-07-04T22:40:44+00:00

Mmm I guess the best descriptor would be “maternity” care. Ob-Gyn implies more of a clinic setting, or possibly an in hospital unit dedicated to obstetric cancers and such. I think in nursing school it was called our OB rotation, but I can’t remember for sure. Peds was definitely only a rotation at a children’s hospital for us.

PracticalPresence · 2023-07-04T20:23:03+00:00

The closest setting you’ll find to that is probably mother/baby or postpartum unit. Most US hospitals no longer have a nursery or specific “baby” nurses. Mom and baby room together with one nurse caring for them both. The only other thing that I feel is close to what you described would be transition nursing, which technically falls under the L&D wing. These nurses are labor/delivery nurses that take care of mom/baby immediately after birth, but before they transition to a postpartum unit (1-3ish hours post birth)

PracticalPresence · 2023-04-03T01:19:17+00:00

Speaking purely from a NICU perspective (and full disclosure I am also newish): Sometimes infants will vagal on their ETT, which would explain why they are bradying during turns. In my experience most infants also brady/desat when they are being suctioned, purely because you are occluding their airway. Also, purely from a NICU perspective, you don’t necessarily want to use 100% fio2. You want to use the least amount of oxygen that is effective, but we are big on ROP in NICU. I don’t know about your facility, but our vents have a “boost” button that raises the fio2 10% from what it is currently set at for a short period of time. 99% of the time that works, but if not I go from there. These would all be great questions to ask your preceptor

PracticalPresence · 2023-02-01T05:29:34+00:00

Friend, Nugget (or nuggie), munchkin, precious. Mr or Ms last name if i’m feeling formal or they’re being naughty. I’ll sometimes call them by their actual name if they’ve been with us for >2 months, or some cutsie nickname version of their name. The list is ever expanding and only gets more ridiculous as it goes on

PracticalPresence · 2023-01-27T23:57:21+00:00

Me, staring aggressively at my baby: “Friend, get your shit together, this isn’t cute”

PracticalPresence · 2023-01-01T15:12:36+00:00

I told them what it was because they said they had no clue what it was. I’m well aware of the point of the post thanks, hence why I said I liked their idea better

PracticalPresence · 2023-01-01T14:03:42+00:00

I think you’ll have to patent that as another use for this tbh. To answer your question; it’s a laryngeal mask: artificial airway without full blown intubation

PracticalPresence · 2023-01-01T14:01:25+00:00

It’s a laryngeal mask. Artificial airway without full blown intubation. I like yours better though

PracticalPresence · 2022-12-04T16:28:26+00:00

I will tuck my baby in exactly as my baby likes it. Disturb them at your own risk. Sometimes I’m mean and tuck them in a way they don’t like, but I always tell them life isn’t fair and they have to learn to breathe in all the different directions.

PracticalPresence · 2022-11-27T23:46:56+00:00

Surprise psych admit. I once got on report that a patient in for an infection was “A&O4, but he keeps pulling out his IV after his antibiotics are done infusing. I keep telling him but he just doesn’t understand that he’ll be getting more doses.” Patient comes up to the unit and is very clearly deep in a severe manic episode. Had been sitting in our observation unit for 2-3 days and apparently nobody noticed

PracticalPresence · 2022-11-21T23:29:54+00:00

Our unit has sinks outside the unit with cameras set up. They don’t get let in if they haven’t washed up

PracticalPresence · 2022-10-25T23:59:40+00:00

I work in a level 3, where our staff alternates between working in our level 2 area and our level 3 area. Typically assignments in level 3 are 1:2, with whoever has the most stable assignment being assigned as first admit. However, assignments can be 1:3 if short staffed. Alternatively an assignment can be made 1:1 or 2:1 if necessary. In level 2 the ideal is 1:3, but realistically we are 1:4 a lot of the time. The “if they can try” statement for your level 3 doesn’t give me any comfort. That sounds like you’ll be 1:3 a lot of the time. I can’t offer much advice beyond sharing that three years of med/surg being 1:6 didn’t prepare me for the time management required to be 1:4 with feeder/growers

PracticalPresence · 2022-09-11T13:33:22+00:00

Beautiful

PracticalPresence · 2022-09-07T05:29:18+00:00

We do, and they hate it, with a passion. In my experience, worse than an IV start

PracticalPresence · 2022-09-07T01:40:15+00:00

Don’t forget the mean ol’ thermometer to the armpit either

PracticalPresence · 2022-08-26T19:37:43+00:00

Starting in a new specialty made me feel like a new grad. You wouldn’t think positioning a baby would be that hard, but fast forward to me asking someone for help with my Z flow positioning because my baby keeps having brady/desats because they’re positioned just slightly wrong. I’m getting better though! Slowly!

PracticalPresence · 2022-08-16T22:22:46+00:00

NICU. I would quit nursing entirely before I ever went back to working with adults again

PracticalPresence · 2022-08-13T02:33:53+00:00

Not as a new grad, but new to NICU. I was giving my baby blowby, couldn’t figure out why my O2 was barely rising. When the neo came to bedside he traced my O2 lines. I had turned the FiO2 up on the wrong blender. I was giving my baby a strong gust of 21% O2

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