New Grad RN Alone in Rehab at Night??

[LanaEl]

I'm a new grad RN and I was just offered a really great night-shift position in a freestanding rehab facility. The place is 5 minutes from my house, extremely nice (the Four Seasons of rehabs), good pay, good nurse-to-patient ratio, and no weekends.

The only caveat is that sometimes I would be the only RN in the building with about 3 LPNs.

Is this a bad idea for a new grad??

[Dalla]

My first job as a new grad was in SNF rehab/LTC. I got about 5 days orientation with a seasoned LPN and then was a PM nurse for about 8-10 patients with 2 aides. My current job at another SNF rehab facility gave me 3 weeks orientation, which was used mostly to learn the facility/computer/paperwork part. Very little patient care or assessments during that time, but it was the NOC shift, and another nurse tech, LPN, or RN did the medications (mostly pain pills!)

[littlespitfire]

Our night shift new grad hires get 3 weeks on days and 3 weeks on nights after they complete a classroom portion of orientation... we are a mix of both RN and LPN... The only 5 things so far I've not been able to do is 1) insert an IV.. I can draw blood but no IV insertion... so I regularly volunteer to do stat labs and my RNs help with my IV starts. 2) DRAW off a PICC. I can administer meds, flush and do dressing changes, no drawing blood. (in general our docs insert single lumens and we don't typically draw off those unless its the only option anyway, so this is rarely an issue) 3) remove a PICC. not a problem, we have one nurse who LOVES to pull PICC lines. 4) manage a mediport. the ones we get are chemo, so the RNs do the changing of the needles and meds. 5) drain a chest tube. we take long term chest tubes, just started taking them, and our RNs were trained recently. that may trickle down to us too, no word yet on final policy. If your LPN coworkers are experienced and well trained, they can be a wealth of info and help. We work as a team on our unit, we have our primary patients but have no problem helping others when SHTF and jumping in on crashing patients and codes. Ask for more training time if you need it- any place willing to refuse that request probably isn't a great place to be at anyway.