travelling w/ 2-3 yrs under your belt??

JBizzleRN - What state do you work in? (oops, I see it's Mississippi?) Wow - 8 to 9 patients are to many to care for. You must be awfully tired at the end of your day - physically and mentally. I hope you have good CNAs - maybe LPNs to help????? OMG!! That's one of the things I've learned to be careful of when I think I want to travel "anywhere."

As far as the IV phobia, I've gotten better. I ask during my interview if they have an IV team, but I don't dwell on it when talking with the nurse manager, or whoever is doing the interviewing. I'm honest about my ability when I fill out the skills test to sign with an agency, and I read up on it before an assignment to jog my memory. When others are putting in IVs, I try to watch, if time allows and get any pointers I can. If it comes to the point that one of my patients needs one and there is no IV team I have, so far, been able to get someone to do it for me - sometimes helping with someone else's patient while they do this for me. At the last hospital I worked in, they actually had a few charge RNs who preferred to start IVs because they were good and it caused less stress for the patient. All in all, it hasn't (so far) been a problem for me and I find the best thing to do is be honest about your ability. I also find there are a lot of people out there with little or no experience themselves. I know the day will come when I'll have to attempt a start on my own and I'll approach the patient as if I know what I'm doing and, hopefully, will be successful. One thing I won't do is keep sticking the patient until I'm successful - one try will probably be it - I'm not gonna make a pin cushion out of my patient. I think starting IVs is a lot like many other things in nursing - very intimidating until you learn and start doing it, and then it's not such a big deal.

Yes, Mississippi...LPNs? I WISH....CNA'S we are lucky to have one for all 33 patients on the floor.

OMG again! Honestly, Mississippi is not some place I have the desire to go (nothing personal) but for sure I won't go now if that's what the nurse to patient ratio is for the state. That makes it pretty hard for you to do your job and, I would think, makes you not to excited about going to work. Good luck. I think you should try travel nursing - if you can handle that many patients, you can handle anything.

Oh it's not like that in every hospital I wouldn't think, just ours They don't use travel nurses because that's what they have the "float pool" for. But when you only have 6 nurses in the float pool trying to cover the hospital's staffing shortage...it leaves a lot to be desired.

Bummer! Hang in there.