Mixed messages

We have a fledgling nurse manager on one of the rehab units. He/she's getting his/her feet wet. It's been nearly a year.

He/she has gone on record saying he/she'd really like to develop the people on his/her unit.

We work in a CARF certified rehab facility and someone today actually told me, "I want to get certified." Hooray! (There is an ulterior motive: our facility pays you a bonus to get certified.)

However, the next thing out of this person's mouth was that the "nurse manager says I shouldn't do it, because I don't want to be here forever."

I wanted to plant my head firmly into the desk, but I did not.

Looks like someone may need to attend a seminar on developing your staff soon at the Hotel.

Stay tuned...

FIM-what?

Can you tell I have CARF on the brain? Yes, they are going to be here before we know it, and the Hotel Rehab is abuzz with excitement (more aptly called overstress).

I got the following in my Word of the Day e-mail from my favorite people at www.m-w.com.

fimbriated \FIM-bree-ay-tud\
adjective: :having the edge or extremity bordered by slender processes : fringed

No FIM scores were calculated in the definition, but that's okay. FIM and all sorts of other rehab related measures can be found on the RIC Rehab Outcomes page.

I'm still a 7 today!

Stay tuned for more (bad) rehab puns. I'll be playing the Hotel all week...

Certified, baby!

Yes! We got another nurse certified recently at the Hotel. (Thought he/she would take FOREVER!)

C'mon CARF...we'll be ready!

Stay tuned.

Taming the monsters

Yes, the full moon is coming, so you always know things will get exciting...crabby patients and even the occasional homicidal one. Well, at least the docs will enjoy talking about that this week.

My particular monster is the paperwork monster. Last week, I finally filled out my loan benefit forms, so we'll see if the almighty out-of-state (OOS) office approves of them. I calmed down my own homocidal tendencies re: this, since different person is in charge of submissions for this benefit. New person told me OOS office aware of idiot who caused all the work in the first place, so I will be crossing my fingers.

I'm finishing the rest of the grad paperwork and checking out more financial resources. At least, all my computer time is not in vain if I can get some funding somewhere. One large resource site with a huge chunk of cash will have submissions in August. Hooray!

Besides the paperwork, work has been interesting. The first night we got to send out one of our regulars due to possible MI. My other patients were really pretty easy, even if one or two was slightly demented. You know it will be an interesting evening when your patient rings the call light, then says, "I forgot why I called." Repeat 25 times and you have my shift the other day. Thankfully, I figured a way around that. I made sure I rounded on someone very regularly and got him/her comfy while I was in the room each time. The next shift...hardly any calls.

In my free time, I started looking at the CRRN material again. Happily, this exam is in December, so I have some time to study before it. It's not a requirement for employment at my job, but since I started in rehab nursing, it's been my goal. It also helps that work wants more certified people, particularly to maintain our CARF certification and to eventually get Magnet status for our hospital.

So since I have some free time coming up, I'm going to get some work done around here. More to come...