sjalv

sjalv

CVICU

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About sjalv

sjalv has 1 years experience and specializes in CVICU.


Latest Activity

  1. What's your favorite thing about working in CVICU?

    We take care of a lot of renal patients, particularly when their hemodynamic system becomes unstable and they require pressors to maintain their blood pressure and therefore cannot tolerate their typical dialysis treatments. We often start CRRT which...
  2. What's your favorite thing about working in CVICU?

    What's your favorite thing about working in CVICU? This is probably applicable to all kinds of nursing, but you never know what you're going to walk into when you get to work. You might be walking into a fresh code where the critical care doctor i...
  3. Nursing wages.

    I started in the CVICU as a new grad at a hospital in Tulsa at $23/hr base, and went up to $25/hr base after a year of being there. I can't speak to OKC hospitals but can't imagine it would be too different. Shift differential for me is $3.75/hr for ...
  4. There are many rural areas within an hour of Tulsa, such as Skiatook, Collinsville, Sperry, and large swaths of land between these towns and the city. I'm not sure about OR jobs specifically but there is no shortage of jobs for nurses in the Tulsa ar...
  5. I'm an ICU nurse and am always enthralled when I get in report that the patient already has a PICC or central line, but I don't expect it. I do expect that the patient have two IV sites though. We have critical care nurse practitioners that work over...
  6. She is not telling her to take the discussion elsewhere, she is giving her additional places to get feedback. The Facebook groups that I am a part of have over 20,000 members. You get at least 5-10 responses within the first hour of posting something...
  7. Nursing Dreams and Nightmares

    I've dreamt before that a patient of mine started coding and I knew they were, but my body couldn't perform compressions. I could yell for help, push the code button, position the bed supine, but my arms were like jelly when I went to do compressions...
  8. How do you get into the ICU?

    CCRN is a certification, nothing to do with any board. 'board certified' tends to refer to physician certifications upon completing a residency and passing their respective boards. I think to say getting your CCRN makes you 'board certified' is misle...
  9. How do you get into the ICU?

    I got hired into an adult CVICU before I even graduated ADN school without any tech experience. It really depends on where you live.
  10. I keep my stethoscope, headphones, a phone charger, some nonperishable food as previously mentioned, and an IV drug reference book, although each med room on my unit has one so I rarely use that.
  11. Quitting my 1st RN job

    I'm not sure if you are asking me or if you were just clarifying that that was the question you were trying to figure out, but in case it's the former, I'm not too sure. On one hand, you have ICU experience, but it's not pediatric ICU experience. The...
  12. Quitting my 1st RN job

    Disclaimer: I'm speaking as a nurse who started in an adult CVICU, and that's still where I am. Obviously our hospitals' orientation programs and environments differ, as we don't even do transplants at my hospital and I'm guessing y'all don't do open...
  13. Missed H.R call

    I know someone has already said this but whenever HR calls you, it's for a reason. Voicemail or not. Keep that in mind for whenever you do work for a hospital.
  14. CABG recovery ratios?

    At my hospital, hearts are 1:1 for the first 6 hours. Hearts are never doubled before this point, and if they have an IABP, they're kept 1:1. Even if the heart technically goes off 1:1 during day shift, they won't typically give you an admit. This is...
  15. I was taught to not inflate and I never do. I also do not know any nurses that do.