I have been a nurse for 10 years. Five of those years have now been on 6W. When I walk onto our unit on any given morning, I can truly say I NEVER look down the hall and think…oh man, that nurse I can’t stand is here today…my shift is ruined! From our strongest nurse to our nurse that needs a little extra encouragement, we come together 12 hours at a time, shift by shift, week after week, and stand strong for our patients. Sometimes, I understand that units are judged by numbers (Falls, CAUTIs, CLABSIs, CDIFF) because hospitals are judged by those numbers… I’d like to look at some other numbers. We have so many nurses on our unit willing to precept new nurses. We have a night shift crew that regularly takes on 6 patients each at night, and our aides are rarely available because they are called on to sit with our most vulnerable patients throughout the hospital. We have nurses willing to take on extra shifts to help not only our unit, but units all throughout this hospital. We have stability with our charge nurses who have all been in their roles for several years. We have nurses willing to learn new skills (Zio training) and offer that service to patients on all of the units.  
 
This past February was a challenging month for our unit. We had challenging situations with mental health patients, addicted patients, post-surgical patients, and cardiac patients. In a 48 hour period we called several code violets and on a mental health patient that was having a psychotic break and while managing behaviors that monopolized every member of our units time along with members of the entire hospital staff, our unit was also managing two other critical patients that were both eventually flown to tertiary care centers. When I first started working on 4W in Boardman 10 years ago, RRTs and Codes were fairly rare. Now, in 48-hour periods, we are managing patients who are flown out and sent to inpatient psych units, along with 21 other patients, and our night shift often manages that at 6:1. Those are impressive numbers! Numbers that make you feel mentally and physically exhausted at night or in the morning when you turn things over to the next team, but also satisfied because 6W does an amazing job day after day!