How Not To Date A Nurse

I was told the other day that I was "a hot little redhead and I might have to come to the ER more often to see you."

**crickets**

Ummmm..........

Please don't. 

I believe that the furrowed brow and look of incredible disgust on my face was an appropriate reaction - or maybe it was the fact that he had just thrown up all over my scrubs and the smell of alcohol drifting off his body put him at a probable .30 on the ETOH scale.  

Seriously people, don't hit on your ER nurse.  Unless you are The Rock and newly single, it just isn't going to go your way.  We know everything about you.  Everything that is important anyway, such as your history of herpes and your habit of frequently using a "few too many" of your monthly supply of oxycodone.  

My nursing career has surprisingly put me in the path of many romantic opportunities (what IS it about you men and the fascination with nurses?).  I've even been proposed to.  The reality is that it is completely unethical to date a patient.  I won't sit here and tell you I have never been tempted, but I can say I have never acted on that temptation.  I may have the wind knocked right out of me when I walk in a room and lay eyes on my patient and stammer like a school girl, but I won't ever hit on that patient.  I may enjoy the view and the interaction but that's it.  I've heard of some nurses who cross that line and it makes me very uncomfortable.  These people are vulnerable while they are under our care.  I feel like those nurses may be taking advantage of that situation.

Now, if you run into them at the grocery store a year later......well.......

Alaska - how I love thee

I miss Alaska.

I want to move back. I want to move back and spend the rest of my life in that gorgeous, beautiful state. I lived in Sitka during my formative years and I still call it home.

Therefore, I've been perusing every hospital website in the great State of Alaska over the last week or so. Choices, choices, choices.

How about suggestions?

SP vs. BSI

I got into an argument today with a medic on an internet board (I know, I know ........ you don't have to say it) regarding the terms SP vs. BSI. She was insistent, and I mean name calling, snarling, spitting, vulgarity insistent that we MUST! MUST! MUST! use the term BSI for Body Substance Isolation and that the term SP (standard precautions) went out with the dinosaurs and RN's are incompetent killers if they continue to use the term SP.

So minus all the emotional rhetoric, what say you guys? I had never been exposed to the term BSI (at least in any way that stuck into my brain as being a requirement for use). We've used SP forevah! Go SP!

I looked up the CDC guidelines (from 2007 admittedly, but the BSI were from 1987 so which is more current?) and they can be found here: CDC Guidelines

1987 - BSI outdated

1996 - standard precautions into favor.

WTF am I missing here? Is this just a medic vs. RN thing? Is it an unstable mental person (her or me? Who knows!) argument on the interwebz?

The term truly doesn't matter, I know it's the idea of providing barrier protection between potential infectious agents for pt/care provider.

But damnit, I wanna know what you all think! So lay it on me.

People Do Amazing Things, Yo

SEE?

You cannot make this shit up............... Man shoots nail into his brain.