What I Wish Would Change/Be Different

Yes, yes, yes!I hate the patterned tops too, but I will tell you that the providers I work with do wear cutesy scrubs under their lab coats. One in particular wears a rainbow tye-dye lab coat if his patients are not acutely ill. For example:

Very interesting read. I plan to keep all of this, and more, in mind as I go through my schooling. Good job constructing a 'rant' that just might not step on anyone's toes. Especially considering the subject content covered! I'm interested to see how my opinion on these matters change as I go through my program and enter the nursing field. I get the feeling that if I act as best a 'good' person I can, I will have a better time in this profession.I have always disliked politics, I should have known it was in nursing too!Good luck to everyone tackling these matters! I'll join you once I get some experience in.

You have basically summed up all of Allnurses.com except for the homework threads. ;-) There are some important changes that nurses are driving to happen through their collective voices, such as safer nurse- patient ratios. It's happening, very very slowly.I work peds and I do have cheerful scrubs. However they are not extremely cutesy or cheerful. For one, most of our patients on my unit are on isolation precautions, infants, severely neuro affected, or sedated, so the only ones who can enjoy the patterns are our fellow co-workers. Secondly, sometimes I work PICU (cross-trained) and I never know what kind of patient I'll get. It would be a bit inappropriate to wear cheerful dancing Dora scrubs if I get a 15 year old male in a life-threatening condition and am trying to reassure his parents that he's in professional hands. I try to keep it cute but toned down and generic to all patients. Also if I'm having to hold down a toddler to deep suction her nose and happen to be wearing a Hello Kitty top, she'll probably hate Hello Kitty for the rest of her life.Here's what I wish. I wish doctors who call back about a patient when I page them will introduce themselves clearly, first and last name (or at least last name if they are well-known) so I don't have to ask them to say it again. They should be aware that I have to chart who I talk to, and "Jenny" or "Mike" will not work on a chart.

I don't know that I can find any other aspect of nursing that I'd change that you hadn't already addressed. Bravo. I think, however, if I had to choose an additional topic, I'd definitely change doctor-nurse interactions. I'm aware that this is often a facility issue and even more a personality issue, but the way physicians address nurses is often overkill. Nurses are educated professionals with a keen eye for patient changes that should be respected. If a nurse approaches an MD with a concern, it is both unprofessional and inappropriate for a snarky comment, eye-roll, or dismissal to follow.I've been on the receiving end of this many times and had to tactfully (and sometimes not tactfully) tell a physician to calm down.

The ER I currently work in is “Dilaudid free.” So changes are being made and there is increased awareness. Have you noticed this in your workplaces?"NO, good grief, I WISH. But there's a pain management nurse who runs around making sure everyone is getting their fix, and they keep coming back over and over again until we're giving them dilaudid and methadone in the same day and abusive behaviors get worse and worse. I had a patient threaten to physically harm me this weekend over not getting pain meds he felt he was due (that his doctor would not prescribe) and nursing administration/security did nothing but ensure he got more medication. Plain insane.

Right on, but I'm not sure I'm 100% with you on the pain medication. The idea that nurses may be contributing or causing drug seeking behaviors in the ED shouldn't be that great of a concern. Are you really going to be the cause of someone being an addict in 4 hours or less? Pain, as you know, is very subjective and I personally would not hold back on analgesics in an emergent situation. I've worked in the ED and know that there are a lot of drug seekers coming through the door. The frequent fliers were obvious and known to pretty much everyone in the department and I had no problem being more conservative if they did not have any obvious signs of pain.

@pitt2philly I used to work on a surgical unit. We got a lot of the "abdominal pain" patients. Dilaudid left and right. (That's the place that started with the diluted dilaudid run over 1 hour). I'm not saying to not give pain medication, but how many times have you had a patient asked you to "push it fast"? No I'm not saying we cause addictions, especially not just for 4 hours in the ED.

Quote from seconddegreebsn NO, good grief, I WISH. But there's a pain management nurse who runs around making sure everyone is getting their fix, and they keep coming back over and over again until we're giving them dilaudid and methadone in the same day and abusive behaviors get worse and worse. I had a patient threaten to physically harm me this weekend over not getting pain meds he felt he was due (that his doctor would not prescribe) and nursing administration/security did nothing but ensure he got more medication. Plain insane.

The ability to tell an able bodied patient "you can do that yourself", without fear of retaliation by management.The expectation by the patient that no request is out of bounds.Promoting health instead of helplessness.Discharging patients who are noncompliant with their care, when they are perfectly capable of making informed decisions.The return of "visiting hours".Return the hospital to a hospital, instead of a hotel.Screaming, yelling, and throwing things, is not rewarded with drugs the patient wanted in the first place.

It's a long road ahead to solve many of these issues....and I am afraid, "Not in my lifetime", is the way I feel about it....at least for a lot of what you mentioned. But what I would want to see is even more of a dream! I'd like to see truly bad nurses somehow attached to a reject button. I'd even give them 2 or so chances...and then 3 strikes your out. In all seriousness, as a patient last year, I actually had a nurse finger my medication. Not good, IMO. Afterward, I realized I was *more susceptible to infection...and remembered her fingering my med.

I think another issue that needs to be addressed (hear me out, nurses!) is the nurse-doctor wars largely propagated by nurses. I haven't actually seen a lot of it here on allnurses, but at my hospital I feel as though there are too many nurses eager to jump on every mistake a MD makes, telling everyone they know about it again and again. I know nurses who still talk about MD mistakes from years ago! There is also so much talk about what idiots new residents are, etc. etc. I mean, of course new residents are idiots, in exactly the same way new nurses are! They (we -- I'm still new) don't know anything. So why the hate? Why do I care? Because I think that it can make nurses sound insecure. It sometimes feels as though nurses want to point out MD mistakes as a way of saying, "Look, everyone thinks they are so awesome but they don't know this! They did this wrong! See? See?! They're not that much more awesome than nurses after all!" Unfortunately, I understand where the desire to do this comes from, because nursing often is not respected as an 'intellectual' profession. I personally think that it is one, and that all nurses should be incredibly proud of the knowledge and skill they need to do their job. However, I grant that society tends to be blind to said knowledge and skill, and I think we have all heard, "I want to speak to the MD!" from a patient who won't listen to your opinion just because you don't have a white coat. However, I think that we nurses shoot ourselves in the foot when we try to elevate perceptions of our profession by tearing down MDs. Let's just be secure in how amazing we are, know that we are smart, and acknowledge that MDs make terrible mistakes (just like nurses), while remembering that at the end of the day we are all doing jobs with immense amounts of responsibility and stress. Nursing is an amazing profession and I am grateful everyday that I was somehow wise enough to choose to live my life as a nurse; let's help more of society to realize what a great profession it is by showing them that we feel no need to compare ourselves to doctors. We are nurses. We are different. And we are proud to be.

I admit it... Patterned scrubs in a rainbow of pretty colors are my guilty pleasure! However, since I am in my late 30's, I draw the line at Hello Kitty, Disney Princesses, Strawberry Shortcake, etc. I work in psych and I have found that many adult patients like attractive colors and patterns. It made my day recently to have a severely depressed female patient say, "I always look forward to seeing your pretty scrubs. Keep treating us!" OP, this is a great post, and I always enjoy your posts & comments. You seem to be an exceptional nurse.