I often hear non-medical people say " You ONLY work three times a week". As I hear this statement, I usually try to put in mind that they would never understand what we are doing because normally, ordinary people only see a fourth of what is really happening in the medical field.
I have been a nurse for years. Recently, I have been assigned in the Burn unit. A unit where we take care of patients who are severely burned or wounded. As soon as a patient enters our floor, pain medications, electrolyte replacement, intravenous fluids and all other medications and care for the patient SHOULD be given ASAP. On top of what is mentioned which other medical services don't do is to medicate, dress a burn or decrease the bleeding of a wound.
These are only the things a nurse will do right? Well, wrong. If imbalances of these things would occur, we should inform the doctor right away and follow his orders to keep the patient alive. And then we chart, we document everything we do to the patient every hour or every 15 mins depending on their condition.
And the journey to our one day shift does not end there, more often than not, we get these difficult family members who ask several questions and test our knowledge regarding patient care which is a bit of annoying but we should smile and explain nicely.
Sometimes, we do get lucky and we get cooperative patients, but most likely, we get patients which are not alert and oriented to the environment, uncooperative ones that we need to give medications to or worse, we get patients that doesn't move at all, which we need to check every time since we might get a code brown ( a term we use for bowel movements) or urine leaking in the bed, which means we have to clean these people's butts. Oh yes! we do... We clean them. If you think this is as easy as 1-2-3, it is not, especially if these patients are huge. I cannot count the number of times I do these things in a single shift.
We are not even talking here about how many patients a nurse may have in one shift. This could be 6 to 7 people who are not alert, who cannot move, who cannot talk, or who are uncooperative that needs constant monitoring. If the odds are in our favor, we may even get LPNs (License practical nurse) or MST (Multi-Skilled Technician) to help us but these days, since understaffing is prevalent, we rarely have this privilege.
On our days off, the first day and sometimes the second is our adjustment period. We sleep those days away, rejuvenating the tired muscles and brains we overused on the days we were working.
For people who believe that we ONLY work 3 times a week, those three days are not ONLY because in those three days, WE ARE SAVING LIVES.
I have been a nurse for years. Recently, I have been assigned in the Burn unit. A unit where we take care of patients who are severely burned or wounded. As soon as a patient enters our floor, pain medications, electrolyte replacement, intravenous fluids and all other medications and care for the patient SHOULD be given ASAP. On top of what is mentioned which other medical services don't do is to medicate, dress a burn or decrease the bleeding of a wound.
These are only the things a nurse will do right? Well, wrong. If imbalances of these things would occur, we should inform the doctor right away and follow his orders to keep the patient alive. And then we chart, we document everything we do to the patient every hour or every 15 mins depending on their condition.
And the journey to our one day shift does not end there, more often than not, we get these difficult family members who ask several questions and test our knowledge regarding patient care which is a bit of annoying but we should smile and explain nicely.
Sometimes, we do get lucky and we get cooperative patients, but most likely, we get patients which are not alert and oriented to the environment, uncooperative ones that we need to give medications to or worse, we get patients that doesn't move at all, which we need to check every time since we might get a code brown ( a term we use for bowel movements) or urine leaking in the bed, which means we have to clean these people's butts. Oh yes! we do... We clean them. If you think this is as easy as 1-2-3, it is not, especially if these patients are huge. I cannot count the number of times I do these things in a single shift.
We are not even talking here about how many patients a nurse may have in one shift. This could be 6 to 7 people who are not alert, who cannot move, who cannot talk, or who are uncooperative that needs constant monitoring. If the odds are in our favor, we may even get LPNs (License practical nurse) or MST (Multi-Skilled Technician) to help us but these days, since understaffing is prevalent, we rarely have this privilege.
On our days off, the first day and sometimes the second is our adjustment period. We sleep those days away, rejuvenating the tired muscles and brains we overused on the days we were working.
For people who believe that we ONLY work 3 times a week, those three days are not ONLY because in those three days, WE ARE SAVING LIVES.
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