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Yarbald posted:I just got hired for an oncology position after only one interview! I don't start until July 15 but I'm beside myself with excitement. I would say absolutely not. If they offer you a position, compare the two and go with what works best. From what I can see, nothing good comes from telling them you have your eyes on another position.
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Jun 19, 2013 23:26
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Hughmoris posted:I would say absolutely not. If they offer you a position, compare the two and go with what works best. From what I can see, nothing good comes from telling them you have your eyes on another position. That's what I figured. I'd prefer this job over the one I just took, I'll just keep my mouth shut and hope for the best.
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Jun 20, 2013 00:07
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Well, yesterday I officially got my BScN degree and couldn't be happier. I managed to get a casual position at the unit I did my consolidation on as well. It's going to be a good summer!
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Jun 20, 2013 21:10
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Lava Lamp posted:let us know how it goes! I know a lot of new nurses say they feel like they know nothing for like the first year or so. I am doing an RNA program with a 2 week in class orientation then since I am critical care I will do a 12 week residency floating between all the CC units THEN when I get final unit placement I will get approximately a 12 week on unit orientation with a preceptor before even THINKING of flying solo. I did an "Orientation" day on one of the units and it was an AWESOME day! It was amazing the difference in how MD's and Nurses treat you when you are RN (or RNA in my case till I take NCLEX on 7/2) versus how I was treated as a tech. The MD's used to not give me the time of day and today I had them coming up introducing themselves, welcoming and congratulating me and just generally shooting the poo poo with me. And I was able to do SOOOOOO much more than I EVER did in school! Fake Edit: Wow that's a long post! Could you tell I was excited about today!
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Jun 21, 2013 03:02
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I feel like a lovely person but after 7 months at the bedside, I'm already planning for the day when I can leave and go to CRNA school. Being an ICU nurse is awesome and I really like the level of control and monitoring I have (like I could never not have my bedside monitors), but it just feels like the docs and PAs on night shift will do everything in their power to put off concerns until the day. Like a few days ago, I had a patient who had a chest tube shoved in him in the ED. The ED doesn't do a lot of them (cardiothoracic generally handles the big ones) so it was jammed in too far and they had to draw it back, but of course the patient developed a huge air leak and his chest literally blew up. He had so much subq air on his R pec that it looked like he had a boob growing. So I call the hospital crosscover PA (who in her words, her job is to "keep the patient alive until the morning so that the day people can fix it") to look at the guy and when she eventually strolls into to check him out, she turns around and says "I don't do chest tubes. I'll put in a cardiothoracic consult for the morning and call me if the subq air starts affecting his airway." She didn't even want me to increase the suction, which is how we normally handle big air leaks.  I know the dude wasn't going to die from the airleak, but poo poo, at least try to intervene before the problem gets worse?? Even worse we're discouraged from calling attendings when they're off unless the patient is seriously circling the tubes. All I want to do is take care of my patient and save them some pain/complications. Maybe I'm just at a lovely hospital. 
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Jun 24, 2013 13:30
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Hellacopter posted:Maybe I'm just at a lovely hospital. Sometimes I'm really glad that I work at a teaching hospital with residents there at all times. The only thing they don't like doing is putting in orders for narcotics.
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Jun 24, 2013 14:25
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Hellacopter posted:Maybe I'm just at a lovely hospital. Have you considered switching to day shifts? Does your hospital have a cardiac cath lab, would you be interested in that? I work day/nights, and sometimes I feel the same way. Our intensivists are on for a week at a time 24/7, so if we have to call them in the middle of the night it better be for a darn good reason. We don't have a cardiologist awake at night either, so again, you'd better have a good reason to call. All of our MD calls are handled with the nocturnists, and while they are all smart, talented, caring people, they're not intensivists.
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Jun 25, 2013 00:36
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Other than Ebay / Craigslist, is there another forum that has classifieds where someone can post nursing gear? I have two pairs of Dansko shoes that I would love to sell.
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Jun 28, 2013 22:32
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Etrips posted:Other than Ebay / Craigslist, is there another forum that has classifieds where someone can post nursing gear? I have two pairs of Dansko shoes that I would love to sell. What size and color? Can you post pics?
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Jun 29, 2013 02:39
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SuzieMcAwesome posted:What size and color? Can you post pics? Have a feeling you won't be interested in them since they are the men's professional model in white (I am assuming you are female). Size EU46 and 47.
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Jun 29, 2013 02:54
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Ha, nope would not work for me! Piggybacking off your first post, I have a lot of women's XL scrubs if anyone would be interested in them I could post pictures. All of them are practically new and current styles
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Jun 29, 2013 03:10
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Koivunen posted:Have you considered switching to day shifts? Does your hospital have a cardiac cath lab, would you be interested in that? I've seriously thought about it and if this CRNA thing doesn't work out I think that's what I'd do. Need to stick it out in the ICU a little longer though, and if I switch to another unit maybe it'll be better? My current one has 4 pcu beds and it's a nightmare trying to staff with all the resource pool members we need to fill gaps in staffing. On the plus(?) side, this means that I'm charging a whole 5 months off orientation. If the admitting team is our folks in cardiothoracic, general surgery, or even cardiology, they have residents and mid levels that generally know the patient. But if the patient is admitted by a hospitalist, which is a good 2/3 of our folks, then good luck trying to get the cross cover PA trying to do anything because they have no idea who this patient is because they're just a name on the list of hundreds they're covering for.
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Jun 30, 2013 09:42
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SuzieMcAwesome posted:Ha, nope would not work for me!
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Jul 1, 2013 18:16
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Well, it's official! I am an RN! I took my test at 0800 on Tuesday and my BON had my licence posted by 0930 on Wednesday!!
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Jul 4, 2013 11:39
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Switching to nights has been an exercise in excruciating boredom. Without docs coming in all day and changing everything, I've got way too much time on my hands. I read wikipedia for three hours last night. Hopefully we get some more patients and things pick up soon or I'm going to fall asleep at the desk.
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Jul 5, 2013 01:18
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djfooboo posted:TEAS V says I am in the 90% percentile of national and 87% of my program! I was recently accepted into nursing school and therefore have lots of questions. Specifically, does my TEAS V score actually indicate my aptitude? Because I happily churned out a 95% score in 45 min without studying and, judging from how much everyone else studied for it, I think maybe I should feel good? I'm still scared I'll loving fail and flunk out, even though I've already successfully completed a BSN in Health Education. Any suggestions for a soon-to-be nursing student beyond reading the book and studying lots? What errors did the people you saw fail seem to make more often? What about the habits of those who succeeded? Miranda posted:I have an interview tomorrow for a PCT job at a big hospital in the city (one of three) where I would love to work at when I graduate in a year. Any tips? JibbaJabberwocky fucked around with this message at 01:38 on Jul 5, 2013 |
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Jul 5, 2013 01:35
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JibbaJabberwocky posted:I was recently accepted into nursing school and therefore have lots of questions. Specifically, does my TEAS V score actually indicate my aptitude? Because I happily churned out a 95% score in 45 min without studying and, judging from how much everyone else studied for it, I think maybe I should feel good? The correlation between TEAS and actual nursing school is non-existent. I think the biggest hurdle people have to over come is the way the exam questions are asked. They usually require some thought and application put into it in order to answer a question. This is an example of an easy question: Assuming that all of the following are realistic, a long-term goal for a client that is a tailor by trade and has been admitted for eye surgery should include: 1. Returning to sewing 2. Preventing ocular infection 3. Administering eye drops on time in the hospital 4. Performing independent hygienic care in the hospital Answer: 1. Not sure about your school, but at my school the instructors left very little to actually teach during lectures since they normally just read off powerpoint slides and usually have no information that pertains to the exam we are studying for. So we have to get our information either from A) clinicals if you happened to get a good instructor or B) self study. Disclaimer: I am very bitter and jaded about my school and regret going there very much.
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Jul 5, 2013 12:18
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Yeah those NCLEX style questions are tricky, especially if you haven't had any critical thinking type of exams before. I'm grateful at my school, several of my pre-requisites started training us on thinking through the exam questions, which requires knowing the material, what the question is asking and how its applied. I start NS in the fall, but I have tried starting to read my NCLEX review book, but a lot of the questions are asking about nursing procedures and drugs and obviously I haven't learned that yet. All I can really answer are pathophysiology type of questions since that's one of our pre-reqs at my school.
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Jul 6, 2013 02:34
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JibbaJabberwocky posted:I'm still scared I'll loving fail and flunk out, even though I've already successfully completed a BSN in Health Education. Any suggestions for a soon-to-be nursing student beyond reading the book and studying lots? What errors did the people you saw fail seem to make more often? What about the habits of those who succeeded? I completed an accelerated BSN in January. I had a part time job while still maintaining a good GPA. I didn't study much outside of class. The one thing I did that almost nobody else did was to actually listen and take notes in class. So many of my classmates would complain about not having any time or killing themselves studying, but they would spend classtime on facebook or playing games. Why not pay attention for the time you are in class and enjoy your time at home? Even if the instructor was just reading slides, they stressed certain points that were important and I'd star those to make sure I went over them before the tests. Understanding blood flow in the body really helped me with many different classes. Don't try to memorize everything. It is impossible. You have to rely on your judgement instead of trying to remember verbatim text. Always, always keep your first answer. e: Probably most importantly, make good connections with the floor you do your clinicals on or your instructors because the way the health care system is going, this is the only thing that will get you a job. On that note, how is everybody else's hospitals handling the transition? Ours has a hiring freeze with a whole bunch of layoffs, mostly in administration, along with trying to trim the amount of work done by clin techs while increasing patient ratios for nurses. Cacafuego fucked around with this message at 04:04 on Jul 8, 2013 |
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Jul 8, 2013 03:57
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You know you work in a public hospital when the local paper has two of your patients as headline news. This has been a crazy week.
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Jul 8, 2013 05:30
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annaconda posted:You know you work in a public hospital when the local paper has two of your patients as headline news. While I'm not a nurse, I went to school at Thomas Jefferson University here in Philadelphia and did some clinicals in the main hospital. A lot of the pro sports teams use Jefferson for medical stuff (or Penn). It's amazing how many people are just clueless and get fired by the busload by looking up players on the charting systems.
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Jul 12, 2013 18:41
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Any ICU nurse goons around? I start in the SICU next week! I'm reviewing common drugs used in the ICU and caring for patients on ventilators, but would love to take any suggestions on areas I can review so I can hopefully start ahead of the game. I've worked on an acute rehab unit for the past two years as a tech, but I'm a brand new RN. I was so determined to get an ICU job but now that I have it, I'm getting kind of nervous!
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Jul 14, 2013 05:42
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mary brooke posted:Any ICU nurse goons around? I start in the SICU next week! I'm reviewing common drugs used in the ICU and caring for patients on ventilators, but would love to take any suggestions on areas I can review so I can hopefully start ahead of the game. I've worked on an acute rehab unit for the past two years as a tech, but I'm a brand new RN. I was so determined to get an ICU job but now that I have it, I'm getting kind of nervous! Make sure you know how to interpret ABG results and know when/what ventilator changes to make based on those results.
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Jul 14, 2013 22:15
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mary brooke posted:Any ICU nurse goons around? I start in the SICU next week! I'm reviewing common drugs used in the ICU and caring for patients on ventilators, but would love to take any suggestions on areas I can review so I can hopefully start ahead of the game. I've worked on an acute rehab unit for the past two years as a tech, but I'm a brand new RN. I was so determined to get an ICU job but now that I have it, I'm getting kind of nervous! Don't be afraid of pain meds and giving lots of fluid.
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Jul 15, 2013 00:43
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otter space posted:Make sure you know how to interpret ABG results and know when/what ventilator changes to make based on those results. Thanks! I've gotten very confident interpreting ABGs but most things concerning vents are foreign to me. I talked to the trainer on my floor today, and I guess that in addition to my 20 weeks with a preceptor, I have actual classes that I will attend about these things so I'm feeling a lot better.
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Jul 15, 2013 06:01
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mary brooke posted:Thanks! I've gotten very confident interpreting ABGs but most things concerning vents are foreign to me. I talked to the trainer on my floor today, and I guess that in addition to my 20 weeks with a preceptor, I have actual classes that I will attend about these things so I'm feeling a lot better. I, along with many other respiratory therapists, will slap the poo poo out of you if you touch my vent. But PM me any questions you have about how it interacts with the patient and so on. It's a simple concept with a complex execution.
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Jul 15, 2013 11:53
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Slore Tactician posted:I, along with many other respiratory therapists, will slap the poo poo out of you if you touch my vent. But PM me any questions you have about how it interacts with the patient and so on. It's a simple concept with a complex execution. Yeah, so that's a bad attitude there buddy.
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Jul 15, 2013 12:02
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Slore Tactician posted:I, along with many other respiratory therapists, will slap the poo poo out of you if you touch my vent. But PM me any questions you have about how it interacts with the patient and so on. It's a simple concept with a complex execution. I spent several years working in a terrible hospital in NYC that had one RT covering 4 ICUs. If I didn't touch your precious vent, patients got sicker.
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Jul 15, 2013 17:50
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In Australia, RTs are not a thing so the nurses control the vents - in my unit, virtually independently. We use nurse-led weaning and often it is the senior nurses who make changes to vent modes, settings etc and inform the doctors after the fact. It seems foolish to suggest that nurses shouldn't have any familiarity with ventilation at all, especially if the ratio is 1 RT to 4 vents in some places.
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Jul 16, 2013 00:07
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mary brooke posted:Thanks! I've gotten very confident interpreting ABGs but most things concerning vents are foreign to me. I talked to the trainer on my floor today, and I guess that in addition to my 20 weeks with a preceptor, I have actual classes that I will attend about these things so I'm feeling a lot better. Twenty weeks!? Holy poo poo, I worked in the general float pool (everywhere except critical care) for two years before I went to our ICU, and I only got eight weeks with a preceptor, plus the ECCO program and some extra certifications (TNCC, ACLS) and classes (neuro and hemodynamics, plus equipment tutorials). My biggest bit of advice is to stick with it. When you first start out you're going to feel really dumb. ICU is a totally different world, but the longer you're there and the more you experience and learn, the more confident you will get. Don't get down on yourself when you feel like an idiot for a while. If you don't know something, ask. Always be thinking of questions. When it comes to vents, you'll learn. Remember that if worse comes to worst, you can just disconnect the vent and ambu bag them until someone can help you. Go into ICU with the mindset that time management is totally different. You're constantly assessing, you're documenting every little detail, you're measuring everything, and you're doing most things hourly. This was the hardest thing for me to adjust to, when you go from having a CNA empty a foley once a shift, it's easy to forget for you to do it every hour for both of your patients, for example. Slore Tactician posted:I, along with many other respiratory therapists, will slap the poo poo out of you if you touch my vent. But PM me any questions you have about how it interacts with the patient and so on. It's a simple concept with a complex execution. We have RTs in our hospital, but this is not an attitude that they share. Nurses know how to operate vents, we know that if you dial this knob it's going to have this outcome for the patient. Sometimes vent stuff can't wait, and if RTs freak out about controlling all "their" vents, that can have a negative impact on the patients. We're not going to wait for RT to show up if something goes wrong or if their ABGs are bad. Nurses have to know all about vents because we have to know about everything else that's going on with our patients and how it all impacts them. You can't provide good care otherwise. Not to mention, RTs with control issues don't bring any cohesiveness to the team of staff, it creates an "us versus them" environment, and you can't have that in ICU. Mary Brooke, I'm not sure how it works in your hospital, but don't let Slore Tactician worry you. As an ICU nurse, you have to be the ultimate control freak, and you can't be scared to operate a vent.
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Jul 16, 2013 02:07
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Any recommendations on Kaplan vs Hurst?
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Jul 18, 2013 02:00
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Etrips posted:Any recommendations on Kaplan vs Hurst? Never heard of Hurst, but we had a Kaplan review class included in our tuition. Out of a class of about 90, only one person has failed the NCLEX so far. I have one more day of training/orientation at my new job, then I finally have my first day on the floor Friday! I'm so excited.
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Jul 18, 2013 02:15
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I did the Hurst review. It was more focused on core content, and the things that you absolutely must know as a nurse. From what I was told of Kaplan it to help with test taking skills. I am not sure of the stats on those that took the review, but they have a 98% first time pass rate. I passed first time with 75 questions.
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Jul 18, 2013 03:18
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SuzieMcAwesome posted:I did the Hurst review. It was more focused on core content, and the things that you absolutely must know as a nurse. From what I was told of Kaplan it to help with test taking skills. I am not sure of the stats on those that took the review, but they have a 98% first time pass rate. I passed first time with 75 questions. Which had a 98%? Hurst or Kaplan?
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Jul 18, 2013 03:38
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I got bit by a psychotic patient today. It's a good thing we have tetanus shots in the medicine room, saved me a trip to the ER. Is it weird that these kind of situations make me love psych nursing?
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Jul 18, 2013 16:33
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nordavind posted:I got bit by a psychotic patient today. It's a good thing we have tetanus shots in the medicine room, saved me a trip to the ER. Is it weird that these kind of situations make me love psych nursing? ZOMBIES!
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Jul 18, 2013 22:00
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nordavind posted:I got bit by a psychotic patient today. It's a good thing we have tetanus shots in the medicine room, saved me a trip to the ER. Is it weird that these kind of situations make me love psych nursing? You're going to catch schizophrenia. 
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Jul 18, 2013 22:05
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Etrips posted:Which had a 98%? Hurst or Kaplan? Hurst has a 98% pass rate (according to the website here) plus if you take it and do not pass they will either do a 45 day intense remediation or will give you a full refund. SuzieMcAwesome fucked around with this message at 13:16 on Jul 19, 2013 |
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Jul 19, 2013 13:14
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BTW the reddit r/nursing is total hellfucker garbage don't ever go there for advice you're welcome in advance.
Roki B fucked around with this message at 14:07 on Jul 23, 2013 |
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Jul 23, 2013 14:01
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SuzieMcAwesome posted:Hurst has a 98% pass rate (according to the website here) I loved the Hurst review, but I know other nurses I graduated with loved Kaplan. It depends on what you feel like you are having trouble with, content or test taking strategy.
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Jul 23, 2013 14:37
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