On 8 Aug 2012
in
The real reason health care is so unaffordable,
tts said:
elliemae says
Physicians write the orders, nurses carry them out. They are with the patients 24/7. Doctors stop in and see them, check labs and read the nurse's notes in the charts. They respond to the nurse's notes and calls - not their own personal observation.
It's a team effort...................Sure, doctors diagnose. Nurses treat. As I said before, it's a team effort.
This is bang on too.
Unless the fecal matter has sprayed all over the fan doctors won't do much of the treatment in a hospital setting. Nurses or techs do nearly all of it. The doc does his spot checks 1 or twice a day per patient and that is about it.elliemae says
There are many types of nursing, and not all of them have a couple of patients to watch.
Yuuuup.
Depending shift and dept. a nurse can end up watching 7 patients or more. Granted, they usually have at least a few "helpers" in the form of PCT's or whatever you call them around too.
Nurses working in dept. with a 1-1 patient ratio though are usually doing the hairy/labor intensive stuff. NICU, ICU, OR, etc.elliemae says
My experience has been that hospital nurses are good, home health nurses are good, mental health (good), nursing home (adequate to good, depending upon the facility), but hospice nurses are great.
Hospice is tough work, the nurses who can do it for years on end are usually saint like.
In the other dept. and settings nurse quality can vary dramatically though. Most of the burnt out/snippy nurses can be found in ER, usually they don't last more than 2 yr there before leaving the dept. or going to another hospital. The "battle ax/seen-some-shit" nurses tend to hang out in the ICU/NICU. In terms of knowledge and quality of care always the best but you don't dare sass them, no sir. Even the docs usually respect them, though they usually won't tell them that to their face.
In other dept. you can get all kinds and types. OR nurses and Circulator/Scrubs tended to be far and away the most stuck up consistently though.
