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My BSN came after 6 semesters, preceded by a year of pre-reqs; 1 + 3 = 4 year degree. My SO is finishing her BSN next week; she completed an 11 month "2nd degree program" after graduating Summa cum Laude with her BS in Bio. Both of our starting salaries are/were exactly the same salary as a community college graduate with an ADN. I don't know of a single institution that actually pays a GN more for having a BSN; that said, the BSN does tend to open some doors in community health and clinics. I'd give anyone the same advice I just gave my sis-in-law: go to whatever school will offer you the earliest completion/graduation date for reasonable costs, and worry about BSN/ADN/NP/whatever after you're already making $55k for working 3 days per week. Also, get a job as a butt-wiper; the job experience is invaluable, and fills in many gaps that you wouldn't even know existed if your entire healthcare experience was clinicals alone. In my experience, colleges of nursing tend to be separate feifdoms within the kingdoms of university, and have pretty strict rules on auditing, repeating and pre-reqs & co-reqs. Only the US Department of State has bureaucracy to rival nursing school. Ohthehugemanatee posted:The job of the MDs in the hospital setting is to devise a plan. They diagnose and establish a list of meds to use regularly and a list of meds to use if the situation arises. My job is to get the patient through my shift. If the plan is good, my job is easy. If something comes up and the plan is no longer good, it's my job to recognize that and act accordingly. That may mean bending the rules a little bit, or it may mean going the direct route and paging some poor guy at 3am and telling him I now need a central line and an order for pressors. Well put.
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Nov 27, 2008 05:33
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Lasek posted:If your sister won't even look up the educational path on the internet, and if you need to "get her into" an educational path and do her research for her, I think she should look into something else. I hear Wal Mart has openings....? Despite the unkind attitude, this is right on. If your sister isn't capable of finding the simplest of information for herself, she has an extremely high likelihood of failing to get in to nursing school, let alone graduating. Summer internships exist, but are far fewer in number than part-time positions in acute care hospitals. FWIW, mine was called an Externship, was 10 weeks, 36 hrs/wk, paid $16.48, and was nearly identical to the precepted orientation that any newly hired GN/RN gets at their first hospital job. There were 15 externs hired out of ~300 applicants, in an 1100 bed hospital. I stayed on at that hospital for the next 9 months while I finished school, as a Nurse Tech; wiping butts, changing bed linens, starting IVs, drawing labs, inserting/removing foleys and rectal tubes, changing dressings, performing admission assessments and shift assessments, wrapping corpses, and sitting for the mentally damaged. Both positions were great experiences to have prior to graduation, each for different reasons.
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Nov 29, 2008 01:02
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side_burned posted:I guess I just thought if someone where to work as nurse for a while that they should be able to substitute that experience for portions of med school. Sorta like giving nurses the option to go into some kind of pseudo apprenticeship to get their MD. To help illustrate this a bit further, let me tell you about a PA I know. He is in his early 60s, rode through undergrad and PA school on affirmative action, and settled in with a group of cardiac intensivists in an extraordinarily successful/profitable practice in a very well known hospital (WBRO). In 1975, he took a part-time teaching position at a nearby medical school (Wayne State) and has remained there, primarily teaching cardiac Fellows. FYI, a Fellow is a Doc who super-specializes, sort of like supersizing a residency. Let me say this again: for more than 3 decades he has been teaching the MDs how to be cardiac specialists. What does this get him, should he choose to pursue an MD? Absolutely nothing. He will have to go to Medical School, and will end up calling phatmonkey his senior. The integrity of the process of educating physicians is sacrosanct. In this regard, nursing is not so different. I worked with an NP last night who chooses to work as an RN because of the pay and the hours. According to her, as an RN with 22 years, she makes 97% of the salary as an NP with 1 year (at our hospital) and being an NP would require her to work 5 days/week, versus the 3 she works as an RN. Something about a 76 mile commute one-way between work and home. /shrug The only benefit for RNs choosing to pursue education appears to be the hours and the lack of patient contact. Every once in a while I see an internal job posting that reads something like "RN, weekdays only, no call lights, no poop" which ends up being for the legal dept or some similar office-ish job. A career in education could offer something similar.
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Dec 9, 2008 14:50
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Christoff posted:Is it school dependent? Yes, every institution sets their own limits, and the nursing school may further limit. You'll have to contact a counselor in your chosen school's nursing administration.
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Jan 23, 2009 16:29
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Many universities in my area (SE Michigan) that have nursing schools will offer this. It is an accelerated program for people who already have a Baccalaureate degree and have fulfilled the pre-reqs. It is often a much shorter period of training (from pre-req completion to graduation) than the traditional route. My "traditional" BSN came from 6 semesters of nursing school (3 years). My SO's BSN took 11 months (with fulltime classes and clinicals during summer). U of M, Wayne State, and Oakland University all have similar accelerated programs; I'm sure there are others nearby.
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Jan 24, 2009 14:14
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krazynuts posted:This might sound silly, but I am interested in becoming a nurse. I am in college now going for my BS in biology and I already have a nursing school in mind. I worked contingent as a glorified buttwiper in a very large hospital. Working contingent gave me the freedom to assign my own schedule. I usually worked 32-40 hours per week, but had the freedom to give myself less work when I anticipated the need. I was occasionally assigned as a patient sitter (one on one with a patient who was at risk for harming themself or interfering with their care) which occasionally enabled me to read a textbook or work on my laptop. I had some money reserved from a legal settlement, the GI Bill paid me between $750 and $1100 per month while I was enrolled, I was at a smaller state school where Pell Grants, small scholarships and federal loans covered tuition and nearly all other costs, and I lived in a cheap townhouse in a semi-ghetto; probably a fairly average story for adults starting school in their 20s.
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Jan 28, 2009 03:43
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If you already have a degree, the credits earned can't exactly be taken away from you. That said, every nursing school has their own admissions policies, and if an individual grade in one of your classes does not meet their standards, you'll have to retake it and do better. You'll have to contact and speak with nursing schools in your area, and weigh their individual policies and offerings against your finances and timeframe. If a 2nd degree BSN is unavailable, consider an ADN from a community college. Footwork; and, at the risk of sounding like an rear end, you'll need to do better than 2.79.
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Feb 16, 2009 07:32
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Subliminal Squirrel posted:And to all male nurses: do you find you deal with a lot of "you're a guy, so you are doing task X"? I know this in particular would annoy me greatly, as I dealt with it at my last job and the management did nothing about it. I work on a medical telemetry floor, so we see lots of non-surgical patients with heart problems and/or clotting issues. Basically, it's what you'd call "med/surg tele" with very little surgical. Males are 10-13% of the RN staff. Having a penis make me excellent at lifting. That is, "boosting" up in beds, "helping" fluid overloaded 80-year-olds get from bed to commode and back, and log rolling for linen changes and wound care. To be fair, I'm larger/stronger than 95% of my coworkers, so it's not like I'm a bad choice when "extra lift help" is needed. Also to be fair, the techs on my floor do 20x the lifting I do for 1/2 the pay, so I try not to bitch much. In 5 years I've actually been soiled one time (exploding illeostomy). Come to think of it, I've been punched in the face 3 times during that same period.
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Feb 18, 2009 13:42
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Hughmoris posted:Thanks for the information on getting jobs in different states. I would like to move to the Wyoming or Colorado area and start working there. gently caress hot Florida. Already having a license (NCLEX passed) is a good thing, as it removes a potentially crushing pitfall for the employer: the competent, likeable Grad Nurse who must be terminated (or demoted to buttwiper) after repeated NCLEX failures. Of course grades and clinical performance will matter, as that would indicate your overall performance and your ease of orientation. Positive letters from past employers are immensely helpful, as it can demonstrate that you're already a disciplined, mature person. "I can teach you to insert an IV or read a 12-lead ECG; I cannot teach you to show up on time, rested and ready for work," was said to a classmate of mine at her 90-day review; she was terminated weeks later. As always, YMMV. The manager I ended up hiring in with glanced at my CV, chatted for 45 minutes and offered me a job, told me to take a few days to consider it. She did not review my transcripts or LoR until after offering me the job. I'm sure she could have shitcanned the background check to give herself a backdoor. Another job I applied for required CV, transcripts, 3+ LoR, an essay, and other poo poo to be submitted by the middle of January, for a series of interviews in late Feb and March. Most other GN interviews fell in between those. From where I sit, nursing school accomplished a few things: -Instilled a body of knowledge -Offered basic exposure to patients and patient care environments -Preparation for passing the licensing exam So if you, in your interview and your submissions, can convey that you have the underlying knowledge, have the ability to interact comfortably with sick people, have already or will pass the NCLEX, and will show up and work, then you've made yourself a high-quality candidate.
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May 17, 2009 20:14
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Forever Zero posted:This seems interesting. I wish someone could start a Doctor thread, or maybe an Astronaut thread. That would be interesting. But anyway, is it true that if the nurse just does all the doctor's work he would get in trouble, like that one episode of Scrubs? Since you can't seem to get your head far enough out of your rear end to find the physicians here, I'll give you a hand: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2777787 Medical school thread http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2895161 Residency thread Regarding employment as a butt-scrubber: I worked as nurse aid/PCT at 2 hospitals before getting licensed as an RN, and the experience at each was invaluable; however, it was not experience that could have substituted in any meaningful way for nursing school. Butt-scrubbing is a lovely job; having a strong dislike for butt-scrubbing is not necessarily an indication that you will dislike nursing as a profession. It did give me a wholly new perspective on how acute care units work, the interactions and relationships between docs, nurses and others, and the differences between low-end and high-end hospitals (one job was at a loving dump in the ghetto, and one was at one of the premier hospitals in the US). However, I didn't start working in health care until after I was in nursing school, so I know nothing about PCT training. I'd caution you against assuming so much about why someone would/wouldn't hire you; your ability to stitch together a resume and handle an interview should be far more meaningful to en employer than the curry-smlel on your certificate.
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Jun 1, 2009 04:33
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Jiriam posted:I'm in nursing school in Europe (Norway) and I was wondering if someone could clarify what you'd have to go through to work as a nurse in the US? I imagine the whole imperial measurements thing would be a bitch, but what are the legal and practical hoops? Solaron posted:Great to know, heh. I'm contemplating the move from IT to Nursing, and I'm on a 1-yr waiting list. I'm looking forward to doing something that I think will actually be somewhat rewarding, but I've also heard there's a lot of poo poo (and not just in the literal sense) to deal with. Banana Factory posted:...but from what i know, getting your RN is a really good idea, and so is staying out of the narcotics cabinet.
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Jun 13, 2009 13:39
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Consider a pendant watch, like http://www.allheart.com/nm9138.html I find a wristwatch gets annoying with the frequency of handwashing. Of course, every room on my unit has a 12 in wall clock with a second hand, making a watch obsolete. The following paragraph is completely anecdotal: A 2009 U of Michigan Nurse Graduate looking for employment in the Detroit Metro area went to an RN job fair at Henry Ford. She was told there were 12 openings to be filled; looking around, she estimated the number of applicants to be 300. She was given a sheet of paper with a brief description of every type of unit in the hospital system, and was asked to make a mark next to the units she wanted to work on. She ticked six of approximately 50, and handed her sheet back to the HR rep who thanked her for coming and told her she would not be considered for any position. Stunned, she mumbled something incoherent, and the HR rep told her that they would not be considering any candidate who was not specifically interested in a job that was open. Which jobs were open? No one outside of HR knew that. /anecdote On it's face it seems pretty cold, but I guess they have to turn 300 into 40 somehow, eh? My unit is currently hosting an RN retread program, for RNs who have been out of work and allowed their licenses to lapse. We've had 9 so far, and every one of them had a husband who was either sick or unemployed as their primary reason for returning to work. While any RN can still get a decent job, the days of getting the job in the desired market seem to be behind us. Of course, my state's unemployment is 15% and rising, so ymmv.
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Jul 16, 2009 12:45
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What degree do you have? AA, BSN, MSN? BSN Why did you go into nursing? At the time it came across as a field with decent pay and hours, stability, transportability, and a decent mix of biological sciences, human interaction and minimal math. Was it your first career? Marine Corps, then machinist/machine builder, then health care What area do you work in? It is a Cardiology Stepdown, which translates to MedSurg with telemetry. In January, it is being split and the unit I will end up on will be purely MedSurg Telemetry. I continue to fantasize about going to SICU. On a scale of 1 to 10, how happy are you with your job on a daily basis? An average of 7 or so; this includes a rough mix of days that rate 9 through 2. So I work on a 64-bed telemetry dump, in a well-known and very well regarded hospital. The nurses here are unionized, ergo nearly impossible to fire. RNs tend to be female, tend to be adults age 22 to 50, making pregnancy and nursing (the milking kind) a common occurrence. Not unusual to hear a whirring type of sound coming the employee bathroom. One coworker filed a union grievance because she felt entitled to have a one hour break for every 4 hours she was at work, to go to the adjacent children's hospital to pump. She stated that pumping without taking the time for a stress-relieving walk over the children's hospital would result in milk that was bad for her baby, due to stress hormones. One nurse was recently "counseled" for leaving her incontinent patient in a pool of her own excrement. When asked to explain her 45 minutes of inaction (the time the call-light was blinking "urgent," a status that begins after it has gone unanswered for 5 minutes) she replied that she was harvesting. In Farmtown. Battered Cankles fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Nov 17, 2009 |
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Nov 17, 2009 21:41
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ADN to RN, then job and THEN BSN is what I recommend to most people, as it gets them to the $50k salary in the fastest possible way; if you're already making that (or more) and changing careers for other reasons, the fastest entry into practice (which may or may not be an ADN) is likely still your best bet. Depending on the graduate program or the university hosting it, not every single RN->BSN degree may be judged equal (or adequate). If you're having doubts about a particular plan, consider talking to the graduate recruiter at nursing schools in your area. Regarding age, I see more new RNs over 30 than under 30, from many backgrounds (housewives and engineers in particular). If I were to state an age that is (debateably) too old to start a nursing career, it might be 60. Not sure why the footwear question was asked, but I'll follow the trend; I buy running/cross-trainers from a few brands I like (New balance, Mizuno, Saucony) on clearance and try to replace them every 6 months. My feet/knees almost never hurt after work. To be fair, I have very nice patient ratios (12 RNs for 32 patients), lots of help (4 aides for 32 patients) a lift team on call with cranes and hoists, and lots of lift/slide/pull-up devices. Why do I have such a nice work environment? I have a union.
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Apr 25, 2010 17:30
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N. Ratched posted:Mason like onions - what kind of unit do you work with those ratios?! I'm dumb, i should have included that. That's day and evening shift on medical telemetry. For comparison, night shift is 10 RNs and 2 to 3 aides for 32 patients. In both cases, the charge is not counted and does not take patients.
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Apr 25, 2010 22:30
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Try to balance the end dates of the available programs, and the ensuing salary, against the costs. Is it worth spending $10k more to start working a year earlier? Generally, I'd recommend the earliest graduation date that doesn't cost you your house.
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May 6, 2010 03:41
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One of my coworkers was told that she was fortunate to have gotten her ADN because the BSN would become the entry-level degree soon, and all community college nursing programs would become obsolete; that was 32 years ago. It isn't a new idea, and it isn't any closer to happening today than it was in 1985. There's no point in doing the CC thing, unless it's all you can afford, or you're confident that you won't pursue advanced practice, or it gets you graduated faster, or you have other problems like child-care, class scheduling... MSN entry into practice has been a subject of debate since it first came into existence. I (my opinion) do not believe (and I'd really like an RN or even a MD/DO to disagree with me) that any education alone prepares a person for the bedside. This is why most advanced practice programs require at least 2 years of acute or ICU employment; it is also why some very good students struggle with the NCLEX and/or employment. The education imparts a body of knowledge, offers basic clinical exposure, and prepares a graduate for the licensing exam. There are countless things which are essential to the job which must be learned on the job. This is why every RN job requires a period of orientation, even for moves within the same hospital, and why most critical units consider a new RN to be on a sort of probation (help me out here ICU guys) for months; I know at my hospital it's a year in the ICU before ICU RNs will be considered for training in advanced equipment like intercoolers, balloon pumps, LVADs or apheresis. Now, some direct-entry MSN programs are intended to be accelerated FNP (family nurse practitioner) programs; in my experience, these programs offer zero benefit (no more pay or security than an ADN) to the RN seeking a job as an RN, but can offer a shorter path for a person seeking FNP (if said person is starting from an unrelated BS/BA).
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May 7, 2010 20:38
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You're struggle is naming alone, but you thoroughly understand the structure and function? When will you take pathophysiology? This does have substiantial potential to gently caress you, though nothing is certain. Depending on your exact struggles, it may be a larger problem in nursing school than in nursing employment. In any case, my [gentle] suggestion would be to study more/better.
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May 22, 2010 17:28
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Like most things, you tend to get what you pay for. I have a Littman Cardiology III, and I've never had a complaint with it. If I had to replace it today, I'd most likely buy a http://www.grxmedical.com/grxmedicalcd-29cardiologystethoscope.aspx Whatever you get, put your name [and phone number] on it. Lots of people pay for engraving; mine wears a wristband with my name and pager number, and has always found its way back to me.
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Jun 3, 2010 21:02
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Bum the Sad posted:Which kind? Fall risk, Allergy, DNR, Limb Alert? Fall risk, since we don't use them anymore and have boxes of them lying around, they tend to find creative new applications.
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Jun 5, 2010 15:58
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There's over 100 open positions at the hospital where I work. For external candidates, they currently (this week) have 44 positions for which a GN/unexperienced RN would be considered, and 3 LPN positions that require no experience. Looking at the website for the hospital down the street, there are ~25 positions that would consider a GN, including a couple in ICU. There's also a VA hospital in town, which lists at least 5 current external positions that would consider a GN. The state prison nearby has 9 unfilled positions for RNs. I work on a 32 bed unit (58.6 FTEs), and we've hired 9 new grad RNs in the last 4 months. So, putting very little effort in, I found lots of opportunities for new grads, just within 10 miles of me. I know 12 to 18 months ago we had a de facto hiring freeze here (Michigan), but things seem markedly better now. SE Michigan if it matters to you.
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Jul 24, 2010 01:42
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qentiox posted:Also, when I was in labor I was chatting with my nurse, and she said that after her first semester of nursing school she was given a job as a nurse assistant on a PRN basis, and that they later offered her a position in that unit when she graduated. Has anyone done this? It sounds awesome, and she's working in L&D, which is (I think) where I ultimately want to end up. This happens all the time (in my experience). Several classmates of mine ended up externing on units where they'd had clinicals. It's commonplace on my unit for an RN to have directed a certain extern or student to the supervisor after telling the super to consider them for a temp position; and we've done the opposite for certain people.
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Jul 26, 2010 17:15
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quote:Sands study finds that majority of nursing drug errors occur when a nurse is interrupted while withdrawing meds from the OMNICELL. Has anyone else seen this? My employer has immediately put this into practice. I wonder how well this will work, considering 1/3 of our PRNs and 1/2 of our dailies do not come from the omnicell.
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Jul 27, 2010 05:29
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mason likes onions posted:Like most things, you tend to get what you pay for. I have a Littman Cardiology III, and I've never had a complaint with it. If I had to replace it today, I'd most likely buy a http://www.grxmedical.com/grxmedicalcd-29cardiologystethoscope.aspx Quoted from the top of the previous page. Edit VVVV It will. If you own one, there's no point buying a new/better just for school. However, for anyone about to spend ~$70 on a Littmann, the GRx is a better product for the same(ish) price. Battered Cankles fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Aug 5, 2010 |
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Aug 5, 2010 02:15
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It depends on who is calling you a hero, but digital disimpaction can earn you lots of tear-filled thanks.
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Aug 7, 2010 20:02
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Corn Thongs posted:My fiance is in his third semester (out of four) of the nursing program. He's doing fine but seeing how stressed and how little sleep he gets makes me very worried. Also this talk about the job market being tough for ADNs... I had awesome support, from my wife (gf at the time) who was also in school. We set aside time to do things we both enjoyed, like sex, long islands and pastrami sandwiches. Not to suggest that either of us ignored work or school tasks to hit the bar, but we managed to limit the studying time and spend at least 1/2 of Saturday nights together pretending we didn't have anything more important to do. Regarding IV insertion, keep more or less parallel to the target vein, and "dip" down a bit to meet the skin with the needle point. In my experience, the further from parallel, the more likely to miss. Also, if at all possible, stay 2 inches away from joints. The AC is a perfect IV site, for propofol or thiopental; is is terrible for most infusions. I got to see peristalsis yesterday, through a "tupperware" closure device on a gaping abdominal wound. It's a long story that starts with Crohn's and peaks with a prolapsed colostomy being ignored for 3 days by a nearby hospital (while the patient claims to have been suctioning out her own abdominal cavity with a yankeur). The patient had gotten barium in both ends to visualize the remaining intestinal tissue, so we have constant suction attempting to evacuate. The poor little nursing student that was in the room when I opened the device to clear the crud and change the packing was...well...I didn't know asians could turn that shade of green.  My employer has announced that ALL staff who have any patient contact will be required to wear a mask for all patient contact if they do not get a seasonal flu shot by a chosen date. Our union is, of course, incensed over this. We hear rumors that some facilities (Kaiser Permanente, for example) are giving staff a choice between fluvax [at a date/time of the employer's choosing] or instant termination. Has anyone seen this?
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Sep 30, 2010 19:30
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Iron Squid posted:Fuuuuuck. If you really want to take care (for the experience) of people in worse shape, look for a place that caters to people with worse insurance, and/or has a ward devoted to patients with dementia.
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Oct 5, 2010 02:51
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CadavericSpasm posted:...snip... A BSN and a few years of experience. And 30 to 80 thousand dollars.
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Oct 6, 2010 01:21
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Anonymous Pie posted:I'll be job shadowing a labor and delivery nurse in a couple of days (for a high school project). To begin, the "...stay respectful and try not to be a nuisance" sounds like you are going in with the right attitude. By no means a complete list, but to start: Wash your hands (or use the facility's hand scrub; do not bring your own hand scrub) often; likely 3x as often as you think is necessary. Wear comfortable shoes/clothes. Be prepared to spend hours standing on an unforgiving floor surface. Keep up with the nurse's pace of movement. Stay out of everyone's way. Make certain that none of the staff (even the housekeeper) have to move out of your way, unless you are escorting a patient. Be aware of how much noise you are making; don't be "the loud one." Eat a moderate meal beforehand. Try to rest well the night before. Optional: keep a barf bag in your pocket. You're going into a facility where some people experience their life's pinnacle of joy, and some experience their life's pinnacle of misery. You are likely to encounter sights, smells, and sounds that will challenge your ability to remain upright, let alone remain focused on a task. If you've never held or taken care of an infant, don't try to fake it. Expect to see/smell/wear lots of blood and poop. Enjoy yourself!
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Oct 8, 2010 21:30
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I'm partial to Nurse Jackie; I think it's a fantastic portrayal, often reminding me of the small hospital in the ghetto where my healthcare career began. For your assignment, I'd suggest season 2 episode 2. However, you having not seen the preceding season, you're likely to miss a lot.
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Nov 7, 2010 05:37
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Hughmoris posted:For those with Androids, do you have any favorite work-related applications? For my spanish-only patients Medical Spanish I wish there were similar applications for other languages (Arabic, Urdu, Russian, Japanese). When I had a Palm, I REALLY liked ABG Pro. I've not found a comparable Android offering. We have a PC for every patient bed, so I get a lot of use out of Google Translate. Edit: JAF07 posted:Epocrates is a pretty decent drug reference app that has a Pill ID search. Also has some medical calculators, and it's free. Thanks for this. I had students last week arguing over which $50 medication app was best. Battered Cankles fucked around with this message at 02:48 on Nov 8, 2010 |
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Nov 8, 2010 02:38
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I can't speak to crystals, but I've seen witnessed hundreds of moments of joy when Jim makes the rounds to check on everyone. He's never made a sound, but calmly acknowledges every person who acknowledges him. Every weekday, minus holidays. Jim is a beautiful brown Doberman. We also had carolers in the halls, in Victorian costume, on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Isn't this how your med telemetry unit operates? Regarding "pseudo-science and amorphous 'woo'" think of it as an exercise in memorization. There will be more.
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Jan 20, 2011 03:37
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Hughmoris posted:A couple of questions for those who are currently a RN: My first interview was in January; I had accepted a position by March 1st. I graduated about April 28, left my nurse aid job on May 5 started working as a GN on May 12, and my license is dated June 10. IIRC, 80% of my graduating class had jobs secured prior to graduation. CNS posted:When administering oral medication with the suffix of gtts, which is equivalent to drops, make sure that you do not confuse it with dropper full. Apparently someone gave a patient 10 full droppers, instead of 10 drops, of a specified medication. Edit: I found Epocrates on Android to be pretty frustrating. It won't update (progress bar does not move), and it won't run if it isn't uupdated. I have to delete and re-download once or twice a week. Edit2: That gives me an idea for a sexy app though; like Google Goggles for pills, snapshot and identify. Battered Cankles fucked around with this message at 16:35 on Jan 24, 2011 |
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Jan 24, 2011 16:30
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Regarding volunteers, my hospital (remember, carolers in Victorian garb on Christmas Eve, and weekday dog visits) has volunteers on most weekdays that push picture carts in the morning and snack carts in the afternoon. Every patient gets a ~24x36 framed print to look at, and when the picture cart comes they get to look through them and choose the one they want on their wall. The snack cart is pretty self-explanatory. The volunteers are usually pretty good about checking with staff before giving anything salty or sugary (gently caress me, is this what I do?).Enigmatic Troll posted:Poetry I'm male, a bit larger than average, and a former Marine Corps Infantryman. I am often a favorite for pulls, turns and transfers. To be fair, our techs do way more physical labor than I do (in general), but we also have great techs who bark at patients to pull their weight. I am often sought for the "special" cases. I generally don't mind getting the totals I get assigned, because I can turn them myself. I work with many shapes and sizes, and I've seen an absolutely fearless 5 ft Filipino woman tear into an rear end in a top hat resident, when deserved, and I've seen a 270 lb. power-lifter get his feelings hurt. It takes a village, I guess. leb388 posted:I'm a rather petite female and a lot younger than most of my classmates, and I get nurses who try to just lay into me for no reason. Most of them back off when they see I won't put up with it, but I wish I didn't have to deal with that in the first place.
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Feb 2, 2011 06:45
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annaconda posted:I don't think I can do this any more. I think I am sensing 2 problems. Compassion fatigue also Compassion fatigue Caring too much can hurt. When caregivers focus on others without practicing self-care, destructive behaviors can surface. Apathy, isolation, bottled up emotions and substance abuse head a long list of symptoms associated with the secondary traumatic stress disorder now labeled: Compassion Fatigue Does this sound familiar? My outlet tended towards angry outbursts at work and excessive drinking at home. I was originally led to believe that I was an angry alcoholic; I think my job was in jeopardy, I know my marriage was. My employer (a huge university) makes MSW counseling available at no cost to help manage life problems, and I got pretty lucky with the counselor I was paired with. I now make frequent, deliberate efforts to do things I enjoy and to take better care of myself. Second, it sounds like your employer sucks. Would you consider moving on? I used to work for a profit-driven [non-profit] hospital, and I was pretty well disgusted with a lot of what I saw there. I now work for a major university hospital, and I generally prefer the culture & attitude, especially amongst the attendings. Looking back on my last job, I see that my employer and I had values that were incongruous; it wasn't anyone's fault, we were just a bad fit for each other. Special snowflakes blah blah; is a change of scenery an option? Do you have the ability to shop around for a culture you like better? edit; link added Battered Cankles fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Jul 31, 2011 |
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Jul 31, 2011 15:31
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I'm going go go off topic a bit and try for entertainment (mine and yours). Merely an attempt to lighten the mood. Here goes: About 6 years ago I was working ER in a hospital in the ghetto. I was young [and foolish] and thought ER in the inner city would give me great trauma experience, letting me circumvent the experience requirements to be a flight RN; wrong on all counts. A street-walking prostitute, frequent patient when she got assaulted or infected, came in looking genuinely worried. Let me color the worry for you; she once came in with an eye swollen shut and somehow managed to project an attitude of pure "This don't hurt, now get me a cigarrette!" I see the escort with her looks moderately uncomfortable, but I'm 1:1ing an uncrossmatched transfusion, so this is as close as I'm gonna get to the show. I pick up on the fact that she won't sit down, on a stretcher or a chair, and is getting a little animated over it. Then she lays down prone, and the picture starts coming together for me. She is rolled past the triage bays and right into the hall to the trauma bays. It turns out that the combination of infection and anal trauma had cost her the sigmoid. She got worried when she saw blood on the toilet paper, and like all good citizens, she waited until she was losing control of her bloody diarrhea before seeking help. I heart nursing. Months later she visited again. Heeding the stoma teaching, she came in as soon as the infection and sexual trauma had caused her colostomy to bleed. I believe she lost another few feet of bowel that visit. I'll fast-forward through trying to explain short-gut syndrome to her, and bring us to one glorious day in July. The patient comes in again, repeating "My poo poo bag's full of blood!" and gets fast-tracked to trauma; it's the only place where a mess like that has a chance of being contained. Two techs head in to take care of her, and a 4 day old MD goes chasing after them. There's an expected amount of commotion for a minute, and then things hush; CRACK! A slap breaks the air, followed by a whimper and the a roar of "You bitch! I kiss my Babies with this mouth!" Back on topic; my CNS told me that he avoids hiring fast-track 2nd degree RNs because their lesson plan tends to be short in clincal hours. Also, I'll be picketing next week; it'll be my first time. Anyone been there?
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Aug 2, 2011 06:20
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Relax, get a decent night's sleep and eat breakfast. Studying can help to prepare you for the style of questions, but by the time you've graduated you either have the info in your head, or you don't. I think I read the informative part of a Kaplan book, did a total of 15 practice questions, and finished with minimum Qs in a bit under an hour. Unrelated. quote:The 'Amazing Nurses' Contest: Celebrating America's Caregivers
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Aug 27, 2011 15:03
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Hughmoris posted:Anyone here have any experience with the field of nursing informatics? I have 3 colleagues who are starting informatics degrees this year. I suspect it's a bubble. Mangue posted:I've mostly been focusing on the hospitals right now because that's where I actually want to work. If this job that I've interviewed for doesn't work out, I will start looking elsewhere. But I've sort of been resisting because I don't want to work in a clinic...I want to work in a hospital! But I have come to the realization that beggars can't be choosers. I'm at the point now where I want a job, any job, anywhere. I just want to work. Prisons, nursing homes, vaccination drives, blood drives, construction sites, factories, reservations; the list goes on. My employer has over 50 RN openings this week; no external new grads are being considered, but individual managers are (and have been) permitted to hire internal new grads. A curious position for a university hospital with its own school of nursing within walking distance, no? I am precepting a senior student this fall, 24 hours per week through December. It's my first time having a student for more than 2 days, and I'm finding that it's really sharpening my evaluation of my own skills and behaviors, as I'm trying to teach and still set a great example, give my student room to step up while also trying to engineer a few learning experiences here and there. It is also requiring me to pay much closer attention to my tongue, as I occasionally need to explain to my student "the night RN hosed this up" while ensuring the patient & family hear "we need to make a small adjustment to correct this."
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Sep 13, 2011 13:18
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Hughmoris posted:I'm just about to finish up nursing school, I graduate in 5 weeks. For the past year, I've worked as a Patient Tech. The manager is holding an RN position for me, just have to pass my boards. In my experience and from what I've seen of others, landing your first job is much more about who you know. My advice would be to go to the most convenient, accredited school and pick up a job as a tech at whatever hospital you wish to work at. This is good advice. Even if you aren't offered an RN job on your tech unit, the environmental and cultural familiarity will be invaluable. roboshit posted:I've been elbow deep in poo poo and piss and all sorts of other bodily fluids but the only thing that has actually bothered me was a patient with an anoxic brain injury grinding her teeth. For hours. Loudly. Those loving trumpets, and the crud that flaps in the breeze...
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Apr 12, 2012 13:42
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Koivunen posted:Is it true that day/eve is more desirable on a resume than day/night? This sounds preposterous. Desirable things on a resume: Charge RN, Preceptor, Auditor, CODE Team I doubt you'll see much of that in the pool. I can tell you that I feel a lot better working straight 12-hr days with occasional eves than I ever did working nights; my eve weeks are the weeks when I overeat and sleep poorly. My parts prevent me from having any useful advice for you on procreating. In general, your best move is the one that pays off for the rest of your working life.
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May 18, 2012 02:44
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