[april&em]

I was really excited to learn recently that all the big hospitals in my area hire LPN's. I had thought I would be limited to LTC. A friend who's just graduated from LPN school got hired at the local children's hospital, which was really exciting to me because I want to be a NICU nurse eventually, and just love working with kids.
So, if you do work in a hospital setting, what kinds of jobs can LPN's have. I know you can't work NICU and some other areas, but are there a broad range of options?
Sorry to be so ignorant but I only decided to get my LPN about 6mo ago, so I'm still learning about it

[LiViN_my_DrEam]

I have been an LPN for 2 years and I currently work at a hospital, on a med-surg floor, I have been there for around 18 months... we recently received MAGNET status so they are no longer hiring LPN's and are now moving toward continuing edu. for the current nurses, with the hopes that more Associate Degree nurses will move on to get their BSN's. I'm not sure where we are and are not "allowed" to work but I do know that most of the LPN's work on the Med-Surg unit as well as ortho and telemetry, usually nights, same with a lot of new RN grads, probably because the turn over rate in the unit is higher than that of the other units. At my facility there are not any LPN's in Peds, or surgery or ICU and the LPN's in maternity fill the role of a nurse tech, for the most part. I am currently in school and will be finishing my RN in November, my clinical instructor is the Nurse Mg. of the cardiac unit where I work and he won't hire any nurse, without 2-3 yrs experience, I'm guessing it is because it is a specialty unit and for an LPN it is really more of a hassle to work on a floor where your hands are tied. I live in Ohio, we are not allowed to do many of the skills that the LPN's in KY and WV are allowed to do on a daily basis so it limits us to where we can work. I'm not sure if this helps, but if you have any more questions feel free to ask.

[kat7ap]

I live in WA state and we have a fairly wide scope of practice for LPNs. I work at a hospital in the Mother-Baby unit. LPNs in my unit work as nurses - we take our own pts and are able to do close everything the RNs we work next to do. The hospital I work at also hires LPNs in Med/Surg, Oncology, Telemetry, Neuro, Ortho, and ER.

[BestSweetGal]

I'm from Charleston, SC and work at a Veterans Affairs Medical center, working on MedSurg floor for about 6 mos. I believe most V.A. centers hire LPNs. The V.A. is a good system to get into b/c once you're in you can transfer to any V.A. in the US w/o having to do the whole hiring process over again. Plus benefits are good and they pay back loans and help pay for school, should you decide to go back.