What?? Ahh Come On Now!

This post goes "hand-in-glove" (latex free gloves, of course) with Mielikki's post earlier last month titled "More, More, More". (No I don't think she was referring to the disco song.)
Anyhow, I had the joy the other night of being Podunk Memorial's official "Nurse Ping-Pong Ball."( It was Halloween, I should have worn white.)
I normally work in ICU but was assigned to five different units in one 12 hour shift.
(What's my name again?)

So on my final assignment, I ended up back where I started, on the medical/oncology floor. A place where you expect the nurses to be knowledgeable, especially about death and dying,
especially their charge nurse . . .

I received a patient to admit in less than two hours to the end of the shift. She required a mess of stuff to be done for her per MD orders, okay, no big deal. I get to the point where I can go over the orders with the charge nurse who is graciously taking off the orders. She reads the code status and turns to me and says, "She is a chemical code . . . she can't be on this floor. She has to be monitored."
"What??" I say, thinking, hey, I am tired, this is my 5th stop in a whirl-wind tour of our hospital, I misheard her.
"Well, she has to be on a monitor if we need to give her atropine or epinephrine, right?" says the Charge Nurse.
I think quietly to myself, OMG!! Outloud I say, "If someone takes her vital signs and discovers that her HR requires these meds, you should have the cart in position and put her on the Zole." (spelling? sorry)
Charge Nurse continues to shake her head, "I don't think so, she should be monitored."

(IS IT TIME TO GO HOME YET???)

Patiently, (beats me where I got it.) I explain that if the hospital followed her logic (?)
then there would only be complete DNR's on the medical/oncology floor.
I realize that some hospitals may handle this differently, but in Podunk, if the patient is stable
their code status doesn't dictate their unit placement, unless we are talking A-fib or flutter
or some cardiac/syncope aspect, then it's a monitored bed for them. But this patient had no cardiac history.
No reason for a monitored bed.

So I am with Mielikki, I am not sure why the push for transferring to tele,
or better yet ICU or the step down, concentrated care!
Death and dying, or even the possibility, is an inseparable part of nursing
whether in the ICU or the floor.