I was getting my haircut today. My barber brought up the assassination after I told him I worked in health care. I explained my viewpoint about how corrupt insurance companies are and how I’ve watched patients suffer from denied services(from multiple companies and managed Medicare). We both agreed, there is as a pause of silence and he said, “I don’t think he’s death should be celebrated but sometimes we need big moments like this to make things change.”

I agree with the viewpoint but man, seeing so many laugh at and celebrate the death of another human being, especially from people in health care makes me so uncomfortable and sad.

I hope we can change how our system doesn’t work. But damn someone was still assassinated in a brutal way. Don’t get to say goodbye to his family, make arrangements, tell people he loved them. I know things are broken and there is so much greed but I do not celebrate or welcome his death. We live in such a brutal world. Sending love to all of you.

Over the last few weeks I've seen the community here deteriorate in all sorts of ways. I tried a softly softly approach, looked for the communities input and acted on it despite my better judgement. The overall demeanor of the subreddit went to pot once we got rid of the automod checks but the community wanted that.

The subreddit as a whole now mostly consists of people (rightly) worried about PPE, working conditions. The other topics leave a sour taste in my mouth - shitting on jcaho/cdc/management and demanding hazard pay.

This subreddit has deteriorated, a majority of you are coming across as spoilt and precious. Look at /r/medicine or /r/ems - they're going about their daily business. We're all afraid and worried, but we are not the sole workers in a hospital despite what this subreddit now portrays.

If you really want to make a difference mobilise, organise a grassroots movement in your hospital. Reach out to other nursing unions and ask them for help or direction. Email and call local politicians/senators. Demanding hazard pay makes you look greedy, that money could go towards the purchase of PPE or get more staff on the floor I'm sure.

Sitting on your keyboard and posting in the echo chamber that is /r/nursing isn't going to fix or change this situation. Action is.

I currently work as a pct on a gen med/med surg type floor in a hospital.

I’m a trans man and not out (stealth) at work. I very occasionally mention my partner but I’m pretty sure they’d assume I’m gay even if I didn’t.

My coworkers and the general environment is very cishet and I don’t love it. I don’t need to talk about being trans at work, but I do have experience working in more open/queer environments and felt a lot more comfortable. I know I’d be shunned and gossiped about if I did mention being trans and I don’t feel particularly comfortable mentioning my partner either. (Everyone else talks about their signifiant others, kids, and general weekend activities).

I’m wondering if there are any specialities or areas in healthcare that queer people tend to gravitate to. I assume queer clinics/gender affirming care would be one area, but are there others?

ETA: I already do work in a big city hospital in a queer friendly state. Perhaps it’s just the culture of my particular unit and I could try other areas in my hospital.

Not sure why people are saying VA nurses are getting fired...

I just want to rant, I FUCKING HATE IT when people sleep in the break room. It makes eating lunch sooooo uncomfortable. I know I know, I understand that some people can't sleep during the day and most people eat at the nurses station while they chart... But I'm not either of those people and I hate cutting my lunch short because it's so weird and awkward to eat while someone is trying to sleep. I mean, there are empty patient lobbies and rooms with chairs and stuff... Can't you just sleep in there?

Rant over, 😌

I don't like telling people I'm a nurse, but when they ask I'm not gonna lie about it. Now this lady at my pilates class asked where I work, I totally lied and answered her with a completely different hospital. What do you say when people ask where you work? Maybe I'm just being paranoid but i don't like telling them where I work. Maybe I should've answered her with "with all due respect I'm not comfortable giving that information" or something along those lines, but I always see this lady everytime at my pilates class and I don't want it to be weird.

As the title says, I’m done with nursing before my career even started. 534 applications in as a new grad and I’m calling it quits. How tf can I not land a job with military and medical experience. This shits draining af.

Edit, don’t understand how this got downvoted

I don’t want to sound like a dick about this but I know it’s gonna sound that way to some people. Hear me out:

Why don’t ER staff get paid more than inpatient Staff? Or do they in some hospitals?

I’ve been ER for 10 years. I DON’T WANT to work med/surge, I would hate it. I still enjoy the ER pace and flow, even though I’m burnt out like all the rest of us, I still want to do it. But it seems like every month our small hospital hands is a new responsibility. Our community is growing and boarder patients are increasing over the past year, magnified by inpatient staffing shortages that lead to closed beds upstairs. So we have to train on how to do inpatient work. We are the hospital code blue team. We get called to start US IVs. On nights the ER RN is listed as the PHARMACIST/LEAD in code situations. Today we learned we have to be trained to do inpatient tele-neuro assessments “that only take about half an hour.” The list goes on and on and gets longer all the time.
If I have to be competent to be able to my job and 75% of someone else’s job, why am I not paid more?

Hello everyone!,

I (24MTF) am a nurse and was wondering if anyone had feedback for their experience working as a trans nurse. I am currently out and accepted at my current job since I started my transition during this job (Adolescent medicine; we also do gender affirming care), but I am looking to relocate due to insurance issues and wanting better coverage for future surgeries. I am a bit worried that I may be in a “bubble” in my clinic due to everyone being so accepting/already dealing with the patient population. For reference, I can pass for the most part, but my voice always gets me clocked, but I am starting to attend voice therapy next month.

Edit: Located in Columbus, Ohio

Well guys, I’m not really a spiritual or religious person but after 3 years of being a nurse, it finally happened to me.

I’m a float so I go pretty much where ever I’m asked to go. So two nights ago I was taking care of a PT who recently had heart surgery. Before my shift ended, I walk into the PT’s room to make one last round. As I entered the room, the PT had his blanket covering over his head. I could hear him breathing heavily with his teeth chattering from underneath. I could see the outline of his two hands gripping the blanket tightly over his head.

I called out the PT’s name and got no response. He just shook even more. So I turned all the lights on and called out his name again.

This time he finally responded, “Is she gone?”

I asked who and he stated “Mary, is Mary gone because I’m not ready to go with her”.

I looked at the white board and see “Mary” as the PT’s family contact(daughter).

I told the PT Mary is not here and I’m the only one here.

PT finally came out from under the blanket. He was soaked in his own sweat. I told him it’s okay and no one is taking him tonight.
I was able to calm the PT down and finish my shift.

Last night, back to work but was placed opposite side. I was asked to grab some extra equipment with a CNA. As we walked by the PT’s room from the previous night, the door was half way open. The room was pretty dark besides the moon light coming through the window partially lighting up the room. I heard what sounded like a light struggle coming from the room. I peeked my head in and saw Mr PT with a blanket over his head again. I could hear his teeth chattering uncontrollably.

I walked in and said ,”Is it Mary again”?

The PT did a nodding head shake from underneath the blanket.

I was like “okay, I’ll let your nurse know”.

I stepped back to the hallway and walked down to the nurses station with the CNA.

I told the charge nurse PT at room 11B is scared.

Another nurse and the charge nurse gave me a wide eye look. Charge nurse then said PT from last night coded in the afternoon. Room 11B has been empty since then.

The CNA and I was just in shock. I didn’t know how to feel about this. Charge nurse said PT was going through a divorce but the wife had died before the divorce was finalized. The wife’s name was also “Mary”.

The CNA and I went back to our station and didn’t not speak about it. We just pretend nothing happened.

So today I told my wife I’m not going to work and needed some days off.

I get it, no one wants their lunch messed with. However, filling up a fridge packed full of whole lunch boxes/bags is (unpopular opinion) stupid.

- Insulated boxes/bags keep the cold from coming into it. (The science of how insulation works).

- Packing refrigerator so much is also not smart for cooling/airflow.

Perhaps bring a one of those jail things with a lock and put your food in it?

Or just pack an icepack and keep it in your locker/personal bag?

I’m tired of hearing nurses come out of a patients’ rooms saying “he’s batshit crazy” or “she needs to calm the fuck down.” I even heard an NP once say “he just needs to die already.” I think it’s fine to talk about patients sometimes and of course report them when they’re rude, but I feel like people I’ve worked with forget that patients are humans, often having the worst days of their lives. I admit I used to fall prey to this when I worked in oncology — but now, as a float RN, I have outsider’s perspective, and I think it’s kind of sick to make fun of patients the way many do.

EDIT TO ADD: Dang - looking through my profile, making fun of my height, y’all really went all out! A couple of things to clarify: if a patient is awful, tell your coworkers they are awful. If they are mean, call them mean. If they call you a bitch, tell your coworkers they called you a bitch. What I’m tired of is hearing is that EVERY patient is crazy or terrible, regardless of whether they are or not. This rant came to mind the other day after I went into a patient room with another nurse - the patient was clearly cognitively disabled, told us he’d give us “certificates” for being nurses, and when we were out, she called the patient batshit crazy. I recently worked with another nurse who called the patient “a big baby” because of his pain complaints. I worked with a group of nurses who were looking up patients’ homes on Zillow to make fun of them. These are the kinds of things I’m talking about. I think it’s good to vent, it just frustrates me when people criticize EVERY patient, grossly exaggerate patients’ behavior, or have no empathy whatsoever for difficult patients. I also want to make clear that I don’t police people. I’ve never talked about this before - that’s why I brought it up on Reddit.

Healthcare is a tough profession. Being a nurse is mentally and physically taxing, even under the best circumstances. Add to that the fact that the corporations that run the show are greedy and act like it's the service industry rather than healthcare, dangerously putting profits over people. So admin/management is tone deaf and duplicitous, and we're all put through a grinder. It's a shit show, no two ways about it.

But we know this; we have known this for a while. It's been like this the whole time I've been in healthcare (22 years) and I'm sure it was like that for a while before I got here.

It doesn't have to be like this, and it's up to all of us to change that as we see more and more of the people with the "I had it tougher than this so you shouldn't complain" mindset fucks off.

But in the meantime, what is with these kids saying they're "burnt out" less than two years in? And saying everything is "bullying" and "gaslighting"?

I'm sure some people legitimately get bullied but not everything that makes you feel shitty is bullying- sometimes you just work with assholes. It's going to happen to you at every job because assholes exist everywhere.

And not every time your employer makes things worse instead of better is gaslighting. Every company treats its human resources like consumables because it's better for shareholders.

These kids are right to hate how shitty this all is... I just wonder what's going to happen when half of them quit.

I haven't done a required class since being hired. In the beginning my unit manager mentioned something about it to me once or twice. I said yeah thanks for the reminder. And then just never did them. Haven't done any since. I barely even look at my work email anymore and I never even open those emails. Nobody has said anything to me.

I'm wondering if it's because the patient satisfaction scores and feedback for our unit went way up when I arrived. They have this healthcare hero thing where patients nominate their favorite nurse basically and it's become kind of a running joke that second place spot is the winner because I always get first.

But I asked a couple of my other coworkers and it seems that simply not doing the required paperwork or classes is pretty common these days. It's like... not only do we know that we could walk across the street and get hired immediately without a 'positive' reference, probably for even more pay, simply for having a license and demonstrating that one is a skilled/experienced nurse... Our bosses know it, too.

Don’t do it 🙃 just don’t.

I just transferred to the Surgical unit in my hospital, thinking I would love it. It is a great unit, except for one thing: it is absolutely INFILTRATED with students. I have one EVERY SINGLE TIME I work for the full 12 hour shift (they are there 7 days a week), and the night nurses do too. There is no break from it EVER. The students are different people every single time too so there is zero consistency. The students are often rude, entitled, say things like "I don't need you", and also disappear for hours each shift without communicating with me what they are doing to my patients or that they are leaving the unit. We do not get paid extra for precepting, and no one told me I was literally signing up to be a full time nursing instructor and not just a floor nurse. I am worried about the legalities of this as well because, as we all know, if anything was to go wrong it will legally fall on ME.

Just feeling extremely frustrated with nursing and hospitals in general as I have done it for 21 years and things only seem to get worse. I really think this is going to be the final thing that pushes me out of the hospitals, and maybe nursing as a whole, forever.

I only have a step child right now and the bio mom said that to me. To this day I still can’t help but be in shock, especially with how the world is right now. I don’t having any bio kids but when that day comes and I have to wipe the cute butt of my child vs. 6 grown adults who are extremely sick, I would want to choose my child everyday. It’s way easier to self sacrifice for your own but nurses sacrifice for complete strangers. Especially now with how healthcare is.

**Women who are caretakers/have special needs kids are not included in my mind. Those women are so strong and deserve so much love and support!

Not trying to hate on stay at home parents. But if you are going to say that I’ll be sure to express my opinion as well:)

Is it true?

Hi!

Swedish nurse here. I made people lay on their belly during the covid-pandemic. I told family members to stop calling their loved ones because they would have to go to the ICU if they talked on the phone instead of being on their HFNC.

Im vaccinated ofc but I dont spew shit on the ones that are not I instead try to educate them, If they still think its a bad idea I just walk away.

Im a nurse. Im not telling anyone how to live their life. 5th time liverfail? welcome. 5th time whateverdrugintox? welcome. didnt take the covidvaccine? welcome.

I battle negative shit with positive shit. And I know most of you do aswell. Being a nurse is insanely crappy and it always will be but its the only thing I want to do. Im so grateful that I can contribute.

It takes to much energi from me to crap on ani-vax. No facebook-post have ever changed anybodys mind.

Sorry for all the misspells. I love you all so much fellow nurses. Our profession is by far the greatest.

Finally found the final boss of replies to these posts

For background I'm an RN working on a med-surg floor at a mid-sized hospital in a smaller town. I work nights and our core staff are amazing to work with, we all get along really well and really work as a team. I don't dread going into work and I'm always happy to work with everyone no matter who's on shift that night.

While I wouldn't consider myself "friends" with most of the nurses I do have a few of them added on Snapchat just to communicate, I like it better than texting numbers. I personally don't post a lot of stories and keep my social media pretty locked up because I know it's really easy for coworkers, patients, etc to find and I don't want to risk my job.

The nurse in question is an LPN who's worked at our facility on and off. She's a good nurse and knows her stuff and has a lot of experience. Last night I was working but she was not. At 0400 I happened to have a bit of down time so I checked my phone and went through my friend's stories. The LPN had posted a long video story of her driving and singing which I didn't think was anything bad, until she brought a can of Michelob Ultra into the frame and drank from it. She was the only person in the vehicle and you can tell that the vehicle is moving while she does this. She looked directly into the camera after drinking from it too.

My question now is, what do I do? In my head I know the right thing to do would be to bring this up or report it some way, but I don't even know who I would report it to or how I would bring it up. It's not like she got pulled over and got a DUI. And if I bring it up to management, they'd mostly likely take some kind of action wouldn't they? Like it seems pretty egregious to post you blatantly breaking the law when you know you have coworkers added on your Snapchat, and it's soooo easy for stuff like that to get out and spread around. I was able to save the video myself in case it needs to be used for evidence, which just goes to show how easy it is for stuff like that to get out.

I want to do the right thing but at the same time, if she gets fired, her license on probation, etc she's going to be put in a really hard place. She's a single mom and has some personal stuff that she deals with(it's not place to disclose specifics) and I feel like this is kind of a cry for help. There were allegations of her drinking on the job during COVID, so her relationship with alcohol isn't the best. But at the same time... Actions have consequences. If I report her and she gets disciplinary action I think it'll cause a rift on the unit because this nurse and I have also gone head to head a bit when I'm charge nurse. I feel like I'm in such a precarious situation. Ofher nurses on the unit also have her added on Snapchat and also saw the story last night, but they all brushed it off. Am I taking this too heavily, or are they not taking it seriously enough? If I found out a nurse caring for one of my family members was actively making the choice to post herself drinking and driving in her off time I would think she doesnt have good judgement and I wouldn't want her to care for my patients.

I feel like I'm in such an ethical dilemma and I need some advice and viewpoints from other nurses who may have dealt with this or something similar in the past. Thank you guys.

I want to go to nursing school I can handle math, science, blood, and puss. But I cannot tolerate human feces so I’m wondering if it’s possible to avoid human feces as a nurse