flightnurse216

Ok, Ill be the one to give the real world advice and not the "by the book" BS here. Nursing can be stressful, fun and interesting. It is completely okay to say vague comments regarding pt care ect. Saying, "we have a lot of stroke patients today." is perfectly okay. Here is how a colleague explains it to his students, "Imagine your patients family member sitting nearby; you don't want them to know you are speaking about their son/daughter." Patient identifiers aren't just MRNs, names and DOB....saying things like, my patient is on ecmo and 20 drips after a lung transplant is pretty detailed and could be easily identified by the wrong person. Be discreet, be professional and you will be fine. No one expects you to never say a word about your day at work. If any nurse on this site says they don't go home and rant or vent to their spouse about a patient or family, is LYING!

REVA will hire you now. They are a decent fixed wing company that does a ton of international transports. I fly rotor on the east coast now but miss those fun trips. Pay is decent (90k starting) for nurses but the schedule is kick butt. One week on and one week off. I flew 2 times a week on average. When you are on schedule you can be home or at the beach with a pager! Based out of Ft. Laudy.

Your issue is the 220. We fly an EC135 and our limit is 220. Being that is our limit, we wont hire someone at 220, unless they are just stellar and we cannot find better. The other thing VERY important is how we are weighed. Per CAMTS, you must weigh in fully suited. That includes all your gear, suit and helmet. We weigh in monthly in street clothes and then add 10lbs to that as our flight weight. To be considered for the majority of rotor programs, I think its safe to say you would need to be 199lbs to not raise eyes on paper.

In reply to Ricky, I am not sure what service he works for but many in our area make almost double what a hospital RN makes. Many of our full time nurses make well over 110K with others making 200K being overtime hogs. I would definitely say go with ICU. From your comments regarding telemetry certified and placing IV's I would venture to say there is a lack of critical care in your background. In a flight RN interview alone, you will be handed an EKG and asked to identify it and treat. This could be as simple as an inferior wall MI with posterior involvement or get into axis deviation ect. Almost all flight nurses go above their job to study and get certs under their belt before even applying. I would encourage you to find a very sick ICU and learn as much as you can on hemodynamics ect. ER typically isn't what we look for in a nurse, that's why we fly a nurse/medic crew. Ricky is right about the family life. We work 72h weeks followed by 48hr weeks. It is not for everyone, but for those of us that do it, love it. I couldn't imagine a better, more exciting and rewarding job!

I have read numerous threads here and cannot find my answer. Before the sarcasm and insults start...please direct me to the thread if it is already there. I am looking at online NP programs and most of them say to check with your state to see if they are approved. I am in VA/MD. Neither BON websites list any approved programs. Are we supposed to email them each and every program to see if they are approved? Seems outdated and an archaic way of doing things. Regardless, maybe one of you know from experience. Is Univ. of Southern Alabama, Maryville or Walden accepted in VA or MD? Thanks!