mursing

2: government characterized by specialization of functions, adherence to fixed rules, and a hierarchy of authority

3: a system of administration marked by officialism, red tape, and proliferation

A.K.A. stupidity.

I had to write about it. The ‘burden’ placed on our current cost of medical insurance in this country is certainly NOT the medical industry. It is the vast paper pushing bureaucrats in the insurance industry itself that is the cause of these dreaded financial woes.

Cutting out the middle man of TPA’s would create so much less a hassle. Let me build this incredibly exciting scene. Yeah…right. So I recently accepted my new job at General Hospitals Are Us. Your (a)typical County Medical, largest employee in the area etc. HR says, “Well all you need to do is show our TPA your records that you had credible coverage and you will not have to proceed through medical questionnaires proving that you had coverage for you and your spouse while you were in school”.  The onslaught of the paper wave tsunami hit the house. Granted it didn’t help that we had 3 changes of coverage while I was in school but I am sure it is a HIPPA initiated requirement that every time any smidgen of information is changed or requested in your coverage, you are to be notified. So along with the 3 changes, I think we received them all in duplicate. From each provider. As well as from the TPA. Seriously. I have a stack of paper requesting the same information 3 times and getting letters from the TPA that inquiries have been made regarding coverages. So the TPA is sending letters, the previous providers are sending letters. You get the picture?

So I receive a final letter from the TPA indicated that now they have received my (patch worked) proof of coverage over the following year, but yet they need the medical questionnaires anyway. WHAT?! Egg sucking, mother trucking, gosh for saken *&%$#@! You mean to tell me this could have been nipped in the bud 4 weeks ago when I specifically asked the TPA which would be easier, filling out the medical questionnaire or sending in proof of coverage?! We could have saved a couple of trees during the process. I swear it must be a set-up between the insurance industry and the postal service for job security.

Tags: politics, rants by qec
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Tucked away on the back page of the local rag I read is the news that the U.S. government run postal service loses $1 billion dollars in the 3^rd quarter. Combine that with the recent collapse of federally run banks in California, and there are still people (AND the media) that want to elect certain individuals wanting to give yet more power to the federal government to control our lives?! Absolute insanity.

One day to the exit exam and I am almost a free man. Free from the tyranny of nursing school that is, only to be bumped into a higher tax bracket because I will actually get a paycheck now.

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

- Benjamin Franklin

Tags: politics, rants by qec
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First of all let me apologize to those of you that have commented since I have taken my sweet time in replying to your insight. I am humbled that you would take the time to peruse my mental meanderings. Thanks to Kim for the support!

Secondly, the reason I have been so lax in posting is my ever busy school schedule. The profs are really laying in on with only a month left. Haven’t they every considered using the calendars in the online material they are so driven to use for presentations?!

Thirdly, I just love me some practice NCLEX questions:

A client comes to the emergency department while experiencing a panic attack. The nurse can best respond to a client having a panic attack by:

1. staying with the client until the attack subsides.

2. telling the client everything is under control.

3. telling the client to lie down and rest.

4. talking continually to the client by explaining what is happening.

Correct Answer: 1 Your Answer: 1
RATIONALES: The nurse should remain with the client until the attack subsides. If the client is left alone he may become more anxious. Giving false reassurance is inappropriate in this situation. The client should be allowed to move around and pace to help expend energy. The client may be so overwhelmed that he can’t follow lengthy explanations or instructions, so the nurse should use short phrases and slowly give one direction at a time.

As if we really have the time in an over-crowded ER with a waiting list of 3+ hours, a gunshot wound, 2 (or is it 3) suicide attempts, an MVC – Ped, an MCC and collapsed lung from a construction accident. Forgive me for not wanting to listen to you freak out while other people might actually die.

What are some of your favorite Utopian questions?

Tags: humor, nursing school, ramblings, rants by qec
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I am not the sharpest turnip to fall from the truck but I ain’t stupid either. Some of you jaded ER nurses might want to listen up every now and then and take some advice from a ‘student’ nurse. When I tell you the hospital medical directors’ brother is a patient in the hallway, your response should not be, “So you think I should kiss his ass like every other patient or something? He’s in a hallway bed, do you think I f!@#$% care?” Your response should be a polite nod and ‘okay’ whether you know him or not, and regardless of what your opinion is of nursing students. You too may have been that bumbling student in the past. What I am saying (for those of you that are not as sharp as a turnip) is that you should mind your p’s and q’s just like you should with every patient regardless of whom they are. I know this concept is outside anything your pea-sized brain can fathom and I do realize the number of jokers that present in the ER but you never know who your patient is unless they are one of our frequent fliers. I observed a slack-jawed patient in the hallway watch you and your girlfriend complain less than 5 feet from him in a ‘hallway’ bed, about some pathetic social situation that you just had to gripe and moan about. NO ONE, much less a patient, wants to hear how your white trash ex-husband’s cousin’s brother is such a pain in the ass but you still continue to sleep with him. Get a life and PLEASE don’t scream your love life in the hallway. A very simple tenet you should have learned in nursing school. I too would want to forget the nurse that carried on in front of me that way. And you wonder why the medical profession gets such poor “customer service” satisfaction surveys?!

Tags: nursing school, rants by qec
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Am I really that jaded now that I have spent time in and ER as a tech and a majority of what little free time I do have in nursing school surfing nursing and medical blogs? Today, I was allowed to observe for 4 hours in triage in a large, county hospital. I have learned that I will not make a good ER triage nurse or I might run the risk of being fired for telling people to get out. I sat through 4 hours of unmitigated hell. There is living proof that licensing should be required to birth people into this crazy world. One patient out of 47 I think actually had an emergent situation. Arterial blood spurting all over the place tends to draw the attention of the leeches and you want to holler at those sucking on the teet of society, “SEE PEOPLE! THIS IS AN EMERGENCY! The rest of you need to disperse because there is nothing to be seen here. Go to your local, non-emergent clinic and find a PCP!” This community has several, easily accessible clinics that are set up for this purpose. Educating the public is a daunting task. One thing for sure, Momma wouldn’t allow this nonsense occur.

Tags: nursing school, rants by qec
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Man have I ever been busy with school. Saw some blurb on the local news about Ted Kennedy and his hospital stay. I wonder what he thinks of the medical treatment he is getting while lying (ba-dum-dum) in his fancy-schmancy-pantsy hospital suite while indigents struggle to get the care they need?

Tags: rants by qec
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Word for the day…no…the word for the week. My word for the week is…you guessed it. Busy.

3: foolishly or intrusively active : meddling

4: full of distracting detail

I have mentioned said professor previously. She goes and does it again. It’s sad that we are trying to be taught organization, time management and skills which help us plan out care. Those skills could be applied across any facet of life, but when the coordinator cannot seem to maintain a schedule and assigns 2 weeks worth of work into one week in an accelerated program? Why does it seem accepted that students suffer due to the (dis)organization of a professor? I’ll pull on my big boy pants now.

Tags: nursing school, rants by qec
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I have spent the majority of my 7 months (roughly 600+ hours) of nursing school in one clinical setting. I have begun to grasp the ins and outs of the unit where I will hopefully have a job once I graduate and pass the boards. I enjoy the hard work and crazies co-workers that I seem to spend most of the time with on the unit. Have I mentioned that I am completing my clinicals in a teaching hospital? We get all walks of students coming through the unit at various stages in their education, RT, PT, OT, surgery techs, radiology etc. We have other nursing schools in town that also show up since it is a highly specialized unit. Yes, I am blessed (read lucky) to be a part of the unit where I am completing my clinicals. My coach recently told me that I was an exception but not exceptional so as to not let anything go to my pipsqueak head. The point I am trying to make is that recently a couple of nursing students from another school decided to pass a complaint to their director about our unit. You have the where-with-all to complain about whether we are conducting ourselves professionally on our unit?! You spend your measly 4 to 6 hour rotation on our unit looking like a deer caught in headlights, twiddling your thumbs which I find very disturbing considering most of the nursing students that come through our unit are in their last rotations prior to graduation. First and foremost – SHUT YOUR FREAKIN’ PIE HOLE, MORONS!! You would think that they might be a bit more assertive in their want to assist in care. You would think that they might have learned through nursing school that experience outweighs observation. I know our unit can be somewhat intimidating due to the illness, disease and injuries we care for and I understand that first impressions are paramount but you absolutely cannot base your observations of a unit in that amount of time. I have yet to meet any nurse on the unit not willing to teach a student if the show a smidgen of interest. To survive on our unit, or any unit for that matter, you have to have a sense of humor or you might as well place us all in the padded cells with some of our patients. If humor is unprofessional, then I am unfit to be a nurse.

Tags: nursing school, rants by qec
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1: firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility

2: an unimpaired condition : soundness

3: the quality or state of being complete or undivided : completeness

Integrity implies trustworthiness and incorruptibility to a degree that one is incapable of being false to a trust, responsibility, or pledge.

So when a professor continually says one thing and does another, we lose faith in that professor. We could even say we lose faith in the program within which, that professor is instructing?

We have it crammed down our throats in school but when we see the professors portraying a said lack of, the value of the lesson loses the impact needed to convey the importance to be passed to the student.

Tags: rants by qec
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