Tuesday, December 25, 2012

If I can't go to Texas, then I want to move to Alberta!!!!

So my best friend - whom I've known for 30+yrs (ever since she was born) - just broke up with her boyfriend (sad I know but not the point) - and so I called to console her (as any good friend would do!) and was asking details and such and then I asked her about whether she would move to be closer to her mom & brothers (all moved from our hometown to the Alberta oil sands), which she said she would (kinda figured she would).

And then we got to talking about how long and such.... she said til she pays off her debt and can afford a good down payment for a house. Ok, that sounds logical right? I asked her if she was going to work in her own field (social worker) and she told me that she probably would but if she couldn't find work then she would take whatever was available, again logical! Then she told me that the ppl there generally earn approx. $30 PER HOUR, without having a specialization or a bacelors+ degree! Hell, her brother who only has a highschool education makes 70,000 per year! ok WOW!

Then I asked her what RPN's make, if her brother knew anyone..... he said they average 100,000 + per year!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK, now I'm moving to Alberta!!!! I have LOTS of debt and could totally use a down payment!!!! Now if only I could convince hubby to move to somewhere cold for a couple of years!

Saturday, December 1, 2012

"Stop all vital signs"

So last week or so one of the on-call Dr's had to swing by our unit for one reason or another and I commented on an order I had gotten by another doc...

"stop all vital signs".... well I made the comment that it was the first time that I had seen this and I was surprised. Then he told me about a couple of nurses that he had run into that obviously had NO common sense.

When I saw this order I rationalized that it had to do with taking the pt's vital signs and that we no longer had to take them every shift as we have to do with our other pt's. However, when this doc had written a similar order previously, the nurse commented to the doc "ok, how do you propose I stop all this patient's vital signs?"

He also told me about another time when he wrote an order -

doc - give fleet enema standing order daily

stupid nurse THREE days later to ordering doc - ok doc, do I still need to give these enemas standing???? WOW is all I have to say!!!