Info Blockage

A problem I have run across, and recently discovered the other new girls are experiencing as well, is that there is a lack of communication to the newbies.

Depending on who we talk to, we are given 15 different answers to the same question that we didn't have until someone told us we needed to do something different.

I was called in for 2 extra shifts one week, and they were day shifts. So I missed the night/weekend differential that I would normally get, and I worked an extra day that week. Normally, when we get called in for a shift that was not scheduled, we get an extra $250 for that shift because we came in when we weren't expecting to. I didn't know that until I ran in to night shift nurses that told me to ask about it. I asked about it and was denied the money because somebody in HR decided that I was working my "normal" shifts, just switched times. Okay, when you get called to come in at 0630, in order to be there at 0700, that's called GETTING CALLED IN. That is not a normal shift. Then getting texted at 1130 p.m. that night to come in for another day shift, that was not scheduled, is also not normal. Somewhere, there is a disconnect and I suspect it lies with the charge nurse that called me in for both shifts...

A few days ago, I got called in at 1901 (7:01 p.m., and shortly after the start of the night shift) to come in and go to the pediatrics floor. I got an email saying that I got the $250 for that shift, for some reason.

I emailed our DON, but the way it was explained makes little to no sense and I think HR doesn't understand what happened and all of the charge nurses that we keep having during these situation are charge nurses that don't normally act as charge so they aren't used to the strange problems that occur, like random call-in pay.



Besides this, I learned that I wasn't supposed to get floated the other night when I went to be a patient sitter. I learned this from a few other charge nurses that are normally charge nurses. I didn't even know it was a rule that I'm not supposed to get floated for 6 months!!!



One of the other new girls is struggling with the rules too. We have a little paper you can sign, then sign up for an extra shift or two within a pay period. IF you sign this paper, sign up for the shifts, and get to work all of you scheduled and extra shifts, then you get $400 each of the extra shifts (1-2 per pay period). Score! Right? Thing is, you can work all of your scheduled and extra shifts, but if you are given a low census for even one shift that pay period, the extra money is denied and all of the extra shifts you worked count as regular pay. So, it's a bit of a gamble, but the risk is way lower when we are in summer and there are tons of babies on the unit and everyone is working 3-4 extra shifts a week.

The new girl got told she needed to sign up for these extra pay shifts, without being told the stipulation of how to not get the extra money. She was volun-told to stay home one night (after she had already arrived to work), even though there were other girls who had wanted to stay home and she wanted to work. So, she found out that she does not get her extra money and that all of her extra work days were a waste because they called her off.



A similar charge nurse surfaces amidst all of these troubles, but I don't want to go starting troubles where there were none. I'm not going to fight my aunt on the extra pay days, but I might go ask her if all of us new girls could be given information on all of the rules and extra things that we are supposed to do with our jobs because the information that we are not being told is coming back to bite us all in the ass.



Speaking of which, we have these blood tests that get sent to another lab. When sending the tests, we have to fill out some form with a bunch of info about the kid we are testing. Nobody ever told me that it couldn't be done in blue ink, and could only be written in black ink. We got a mass email and signs up ALL OVER THE UNIT specifying that the form must be written in black and yada, yada, yada. I know people probably don't know it was me, but they might. Everyone knows I'm new, so I'm not too concerned about it. Still, I'm irritated for getting shamed for things that we were never taught.

Whatever, I'm pretty much just rolling with it. I certainly don't get nearly as embarrassed as I used to. This is another unfortunate side effect of being constantly humiliated by exfiance, exboyfriend, and several other people who used to be friends and are now confused as to why I don't talk to them anymore. It's a mystery really.*** (*Heavy sarcasm there*)

Annual Flu Shot

I understand the point of vaccines. Many of them save lives and provide some sort of protection from the billions of diseases that plague the earth at this point in time.

HOWEVER...

I am against mandated vaccinations for all people, and I'm against flu vaccines.

Polio is no longer killing all of our children in America each year. They say the polio vaccine got it under control and nearly eradicated it.

Flu, on the other hand, is not going to get wiped out from some dumb ass vaccine that hasn't shown proven efficacy. Getting the flu shot does not mean you are immune from the flu for that year, nor does it guarantee that you will not spread it to someone else when you do get sick.

Plus, the vaccines we get each year are fighting last year's strains and have little to do with protecting against the strains being passed around for this season. Which, makes the vaccine essentially useless. USELESS.

When hospitals mandate the flu vaccine for all of their nurses, they simply offer it to the patients. The patients can refuse with no backlash, but nurses/doctors/employees are either fired or forced to wear a surgical mask. If the flu vaccine so important, shouldn't patients be forced to protect everyone else the way nurses/doctors/employees are forced to? Should they be strong-armed into getting the fucking vaccine as well? If it's so important, that is...

I also understand that it is something that Medicare/Medicaid is forcing on hospitals saying that if they do not have over 90% of their staff receiving the flu vaccine, then the funding will be decreased, though I've heard the decrease is a mere 2%. Hey hospitals, if you take the 2% hit, I'm sure your staff would be willing to bust their assess to go raise money in the community or take a slight paycheck cut of a dollar or two. Or, like you do everything else, just up the price for all of us patients. Isn't that not how it goes when the men in the offices at the top want a raise?

I get the Tdap (redone for nursing school), I got the MMR, I got all of the Hep B and children vaccines when I was a kid, and I hope that those vaccines actually help. I didn't get measles, I didn't get mumps, I didn't die of polio, and I have not yet gotten lock jaw and died from a rusty nail. L-rd willing I don't have Hep B... I'm not turning yellow. However, the flu comes to most of us each year. They don't have a vaccine for colds... Is that next? Why not get vaccines or, better yet, cures for diseases that actually plague and kill people. Put funding into the cure for HIV/AIDS, cure herpes, cure fucking cancer! The flu vaccine is a waste of time and funding. But, that was the point, wasn't it?

It was a vaccine developed to not actually promise to eradicate any disease. It's something they could make sound really important, and make it sound like it would save millions of lives each year, while not actually having to be measured in order to prove it's worth. It's something that makes Big Pharma billions of dollars annually because they got Medicare/Medicaid on board in order to literally force and coerce every hospital into forcing and coercing all of their employees into compliance.

It's like the EpiPen bullshit where that lady jacked up the price for EpiPens from $100 to $600, for an absolutely medically necessary and life saving medicine. Where did the money go? You guessed it, most of it went into the lady's pocket in the form of a huge salary increase.

Exactly what Big Pharma is doing with mandating flu vaccines.

Where are the protests? Where are the fights? Where are the nurses who are willing to stand up and refuse this fucking vaccine? Together we could stop this, but everyone is too lazy and too scared to send in the little piece of paper to refuse the vaccine. If enough of us refused, there's no way they could fire us all. Especially for those of us in small towns, where both hospitals in the town share the same batch of nurses because most nurses have 2 jobs.

Y'all, Ontario did it! One of the nursing unions of Ontario Canada fought the flu vaccines and stated that forcing nurses to wear a mask after refusing the vaccine was a violation of patient privacy because the masks are used for shaming the employees who refuse the vaccine. Masks then lead to patient questions and harassment by other employees and doctors. *All of which I have experienced in my short time I've been a health care worker (starting with being a CNA at the Alzheimer's home)*

So now I stand on the edge of losing my job or pumping solutions into my body that I absolutely do not agree with. Solutions that have been shown to cause early onset Alzheimer's and fertility problems. Solutions that have no proven desired effects. That benefit to risk ratio is pretty abysmal.

Cross-Training

A beautiful perk to working at a small hospital is being able to ask to cross-train into other units without getting hired on with them as a PRN employee. I asked about a week ago to be able to start training on Postpartum or Labor and Delivery. For those of you that work L&D, or many others of you, y'all know how many certifications and training you have to have in order to be able to be an L&D nurse. As such, I was told that it was too difficult to train a nurse as an L&D RN, unless they are willing to work there full time. Seeing as I am absolutely content and excited to be full-time in NICU, I was completely okay with not doing L&D and sticking with postpartum.

Last night, turns out it was the perfect time to ask to cross-train because we had a low census last night! I showed up, scrubbed in, and looked at my assignment sheet only to find that "Hey, you've been floated to Postpartum!" "Hey, alright! I'll see y'all later!" I said cheerily as I walked my butt right back out that door and down the hall to L&D.

Y'all, I was mildly aprehensive about working on PP (postpartum), because my clinical experience in that area absolutely sucked. I was laughed at, to my face, for a few of my rookie mistakes. Now, keep in mind that this was my first night of clinicals on postpartum, that particular night, and I also didn't make a big deal about anything, I was simply asking for an experienced set of eyes.

The thing I wanted them to see? Well, I wanted a nurse to look at a baby I was checking on because the mom asked why the kid was purple. I did a short assessment to make sure the child was warm and not seeming like it was fixin' to go meet Jesus. Then I calmly (it was a fake calm for the mama's sake), walked to the nurses station and said something to the effect of, "So, know that this is my first day on this unit and the child looks fine. However, the mom is wondering why the baby is purple."

Legit, this is damn near exactly what I said.

Apparently the disclaimer that came before the "purple baby" part didn't matter at all because two nurses jumped up and legit ran into the room. I get it, they were concerned. They checked the kid out and decidedly told me, and everyone else on the fucking floor, that the baby's color was simply due to the purple pain on the wall reflecting back onto the baby. So, in order to fix said problem, the baby should be looked at with the room lighting fully on. Okay, makes sense. 

I apologized profusely and they told me it was no big deal and that they would rather run into a room because of a concern or question I had, than for me or anybody else to keep quiet about anything. They said this a mere 5 seconds before recounting the story to my clinical instructor and every single person that made their presence within 25 feet of them. As they told the story (incorrectly, I might add, as they embellished different things with each retelling), and proceeded to point at me and laugh. I shit you not. They seriously pointed at me and laughed.

For nurses who I listened bitch about constantly being short-staffed because they could not retain any of their new-hires, whether new grads or transfers from other hospitals/counties/states, they seriously made fun of a nursing student right in front of her face. And to their coworker who just so happened to be the nursing student's clinical instructor! SERIOUSLY!!! And you ladies wonder why nobody wants to join you on your floor... really? You have no fucking clue? Can I clue you in any???!!!???

Regardless, I survived the day and never had to go back to that stupid floor. It did, however, turn me off to the idea of working in postpartum.

...Until I came here. I met the postpartum nurses and talked to Mema, who was a postpartum nurse when they were short-staffed, and I decided to at least try it. Even if I hated the job, I figure it's something to help me in case I ever have to be floated somewhere, so I can work instead of being sent home, without pay, for a low census of NICU babies.

You know what? I actually ended up loving the night. I had a great nurse who is normally in the Newborn Nursery. So, once we were finished with our first assessment, we went back to the nursery and snuggled babies who were waiting until their feeding times, so their moms could sleep as much as possible during the night. It was beautiful! Plus, I found some gals to come out dancing with me!!! Since the NICU girls don't want to go line-dancing... and they don't actually seem to want to do a whole lot of dancing at all... I found some people to go with me!

Don't get me wrong, I will still do my absolute best to hang out with the NICU girls, doing what it is they want to do. I really do want to be able to spend time with them, get to know them, and bond with them so that we can all have some support on this tough road. However, I still have some desires to go out dancing and go to the country music places, and even have a few drinks every once in awhile! Goodness, I'm not looking to get blacked out drunk, but I want to enjoy a couple drinks with some fun girls, out in a place where I can dance in a line with a whole bunch of other single girls that I don't know from Eve. I can't explain it, but I'm not ready to leave that part of college life just yet. It's a good stress relief for me and I will stick to my rule about not giving my number out at bars.

For goodness sake, I'm in a place with a lot of southern guys and I just want to dance with a few of these great smelling, cutie pie guys. Is that a crime?



Long story short, I am working on getting cross-trained in Postpartum. I thought I would hate it, but it ended up being a lovely surprise, especially if I need to be floated. Plus, maybe they will let me pick up some extra shift PRN!!!

Random Thoughts

It's 0230 and I'm home, but not able to sleep. This, combined with odd life circumstances and a naturally analytical mind, leave me with strange thoughts on a regular basis.

• The extent of which the domestic violence I survived is beginning to hit me from a more logical frame of reference instead of solely from the emotional garbage it laid on me.
• The mice that have taken up residence under my kitchen sink are fixin' to meet the Good L-rd if they don't take the bait in the live traps I set out so that I can transport them to another location still breathing...
• The screen name BedpanAlley doesn't really suit me anymore, seeing as I no longer deal with bedpans... so I need a new name.
• I want to change the way NICU and L&D cares work in the United States, but that's an awful big dream for one tiny little gal. Especially if said gal hopes to someday get married and potentially have children (though that seems improbable and dangerous).
• I need to find a church, but that leads me to try to find a church with a single's group. However, my motives for finding a single's group is less honorable than they should be, because I want a fella. Several problems with this: 1) church should be to learn about G-d, not to find some boy 2) I just tried to "talk" with a boy in hopes of eventually dating and learned I am so far from being ready to date that it's not even funny 3) I still have to wrestle with some shit before dating is even on my radar.
• I need friends to hang out with. While Dog is digging the amount of time I spend at home, she is less thrilled with the fact that I sleep about 18 hours a day. Before you say anything, yes, I know this is unhealthy and I'm working on changing it. She and I went for a "run" today and I made it out of the house before noon!
• My last shift of orientation is tonight. Just let that sink in.
• I wonder how my folks are really doing. I've called them nearly 4 times each this week, but they always make it sound as if they are fine.
• I miss Brother, but he won't talk to me.
• My week is fixin' to become overloaded with extra days they will ask me to work. Knowing me, and how much I would love the overtime pay, I will likely work a bunch of the extra shifts. I'm saving for a car, massage, mani/pedi, trip to a fancy resort in Home State with mom, general savings account, and student loan repayment
• I have mice living in my house. They didn't ask permission and they sure as hell aren't paying rent! Maybe I should get a cat? But Dog tries to eat cats because they look and move like squirrels... Plus I'm allergic to cats and they pee everywhere. *sigh*
• ... Oh, and I think my washing machine broke.