Ernest

Nursing school cannot prepare you to become a nurse in independent practice. You get the information and many of the tools you need to LEARN to become an independent nurse. But the real learning comes when you start working. The type of nurse specialty you will have begins with your first job. If you do not get a job starting out, you will have a hard time convincing someone to give you a fresh start when you lost the stuff you got in nursing school by taking a year off.

I like your question; however, I think it is in the wrong context. Too much of anything is harmful. When women were not able to have access to abortions and therefore took extreme measures leading to mutilation and death, there was a defined need for intervention. But just like my favorite dessert - cheesecake.....too much is too much and detrimental to society. The African American birth rate is and has been flat for years. Why? Because abortion is being used as a birth control measure. Let's put it in a different perspective about environmental toxicology. A study involving an Alabama paper mill town on a major river recently revealed alarming rates of birth defects and miscarriages. 60% of the unborn children within 250 miles of the plant are affected with over 50% of those babies dying due to miscarriage. That announcement would send us protesting the Alabama plant. But we are losing 3000 babies per day due to abortion. When do we as nurses and healthcare providers take a stand and say, enough is enough and our industry cannot be used this way any longer? Or does anyone reading this post think over 1 Million abortions every year at the hands of healthcare providers is really okay? I am sure most would agree that too much of anything is too much. Is a woman's right for healthcare decision-making really the issue when the abortion rate of young black women in several major cities outpaces the birth rate?! This would be an outrage if the babies were lost to anything other than elective abortions. I wonder what the nurses who helped during the Tuskegee syphilis experiments think now. What were they thinking then? Texas is taking a moral stand. Babies with beating hearts whether wanted by the parents or not are still babies with beating hearts that need our love, compassion and care we show everyday according to accepted standards of care for unborn babies in OB units everywhere across this country.

People keep making judgments about the vaccine while leaving out the controversial aspect. I can be perfectly fine with vaccines, but vehemently disagree with either altering the DNA of my cells or my cells' protein production capacity. In case you do not know, the J&J therapy uses an attenuated adenovirus to insert a gene into your own cell's DNA to then have that cell manufacture a foreign protein. The exact same thing a virus does. So to take that therapy, I must now technically become "part" virus. The Pfizer vaccine model uses your cells' ribosomes to produce viral proteins. It bypasses the DNA step, but is still the same. Once your cells begin producing a foreign protein, when does it stop. Regardless of the answer, the work of the cell's DNA is being co-opted to produce the proteins of some other organism that is non-human. Furthermore, in order to convince so many governments, individuals and human institutions to agree to this, the persons in authority have had to leave out many salient details and convince people to "believe" in both the pandemic and the treatment with blind faith in a way we do not "believe" about other similar infections such as the flu. So, one person's belief in the "system" is not superior to another person's belief in not trusting the system or in trusting God or their religious convictions.

SilverBells....Find a way??? There are several things that can't be left til later. All if them should be haneed earlier in the day. What that means is you set your alarm on your phone or watch at an hour before your shift ends. U got into your office at shift end, adjust your daily agenda to account for what didn't get done and new items. Reset your plan for tomorrow. Then Leave. Period. ?

Only advice I haven't seen that I learned in EMS starting IVs in many types of environments: as you learn, be a scientist doing research. Keep everything the same as much as humanly possible. As you work at improving, change one thing at a time. Before you know it, you will have your own proven method of starting IVs on easy and difficult sticks. Also, be confident even when you need to give it to someone else with a different set of eyes.

@Silverbells - you are making the mistake of many new managers or administrators. As an administrator, I have definitely made the mistake. This is aside from any low self-esteem you may have that drives you to be a martyr.....if that is the case, get counseling; but if you found yourself falling into this role out of a sense of responsibility, I can relate. 1) there is always too much work. No matter how long you stay, you will never take care of all of it. It will replenish itself the next day.....the infinite stream of a manager's work has only one stop-cock or valve. It's your decision to walk away from it. This gets out of hand when you take on a persona as being "the MVP" for the team. The one who is always around and always helping. To be sure, no one expects it of you. What they expect is that you will take care of yourself; and when it gets to be too much, you will pull back. Therefore, PULL BACK if it is too much. Is it too much? Yes. You wouldn't have posted about it if it weren't. 2) part of your job as a manager is to learn to be a good one. You cannot do this if you do not learn and master time management. IF you told a prospective future employer about your work hours, they would not hire you. You are a liability to yourself, your team and your organization. Your decision-making suffers and your work-life balance is off. So how on earth can you lead your staff an subordinates if you haven't a clue yourself? 3) make a list of items to do....prioritize.....work on highest priority.....allot time during the the work week to work on routine repetitive tasks, allocate time each day for unannounced issues/concerns. What's left over? Delegate it out. Not enough subordinates? Send some back to your boss. If your boss can't do it, you need more staff. Write a business plan for another position. ......Plan to work 2-5 hours OT per PAY PERIOD just to manage time-sensitive critical items that can't be anticipated or delegated.

The first step to resolving this, and repaying your husband for standing beside your; and representing the profession well is to start being honest with yourself and others. I have been in management for years and I always advise subordinates (and my children) that when things go wrong, those in charge primarily want to ensure the root cause is identified and the person involved has learned the lessons necessary to prevent them in the future. If you keep being reticent in your truthfulness and full disclosure to those who are required to make decisions based on your individual performance, you will never move forward from this because no one will ever trust you or your professional judgment. Most of the time when you are loose with the truth, people know it. Whenever I am tempted to lie, I always tell myself that the person I plan on doing this to can see it coming. I decide 100% of the time that situations are only made worse in the course of a lie. Stop seeking sympathy, and start seeking a way to move your professional life forward by getting good advice based in the truth of your actions or inaction.