MsNurse1997

Hi! My husband, son and I just recently relocated to the central Florida area and I'm having a terrible time finding a job. I've been a RN almost 5 years and most of my experience is either in home health or school nursing. I also have some corrections nursing experience. I've applied to over 75+ jobs and only had 3 interviews with no luck. My husband is a police officer and has to do rotating days/nights and weekends so I'm limited on what I can take. I have to do something M-F really with no nights. I've applied to so many doctors offices, rehab centers, home health agencies and have had no luck. Any Florida nurses that could give me some advice?! Thank you!

Hi all! I am a RN with step down ICU experience looking to move to the central Florida area at the end of this year, Leesburg, FL to be exact. I was wondering if any of you have worked at or knew other nurses that have working at the UF Central Health hospital in Leesburg or the Orlando Health South Lake hospital in Clermont and what your experience was like. These are the 2 hospitals I am between right now. Or if you have any other suggestions for hospitals within 30 minutes of Leesburg. Thank you!

Yes I agree. I moved the note to the alerts section so it pops up on her profile when opened and I also removed all meds from her permitted list. The teacher messaged the parent about it yesterday actually and she was fine with it. Turns out the reason why that note was put in was because the student was coming to the nurse all the time to get cough drops and mom was tired of her missing class and wasting the nurses cough drops. LOL. But I still made the changes to the profile so it won’t happen again in the future.

I’m a full time float nurse for my school district, 22 schools total. I do a lot of long term sub positions for nurses on maternity leave, sick leave or for schools whose nurses have quit and waiting to hire a new one. I’ve been at this current elementary school for 2 weeks now. Today I saw a little kindergarten girl for a headache and sore throat/cough. No fever, throat had some post nasal drip and was a little red. Suspect it was all allergy related as we live in the allergy capital of the country I feel like. I have her some cough drops and a small dose of Tylenol and sent her back to class. Later on in the day I was checking my charting and noticed a little note in her caredox chart saying something along the lines of “Must call mom for permission for any OTC med including cough drops every time. Mom does not want student having meds.” Mind you this was not a flag or alert on her profile. Just a little extras note. He’s drop down OTC permitted tab had permitted Tylenol, Cough Drops, Tums and Bacitracin Ointment. All of this was permitted back in October of 2021. The note entry I mentioned earlier was from February of this year. I obviously did not notice the note earlier as it was not flagged so I just looked at her permitted meds and gave it. The nurse that wrote this note should have removed all the meds off permitted list so this would not occur. We are all trained that if it’s not selected on the permitted list, call, if it is selected, you can go ahead a give it as it has been okayed in the past. Hopefully I don’t get a call getting cussed out tomorrow for this. I was not relayed much information at all on the kids at this school with how the prior nurse left unfortunately. I feel like this is a med error but at the same time her permitted list was still active so I’m not sure what to do. My boss did not seem to be concerned about it.

The older kids (3rd-5th grade) have literally told me they miss being virtual and want to go back to that. Their reasoning? They could get all their work done in a hour and goof off and do whatever they want the rest of the day. And that’s all fine and dandy if they are actually learning but they aren’t! Most of the kids are one or two grade levels behind right now and it’s a direct correlation to the instruction time that was missed the past 2 years during virtual learning. Our school has the data posted in the teacher work room. They update it every month. The point is kids would much rather be at home than be at school being told what to do. I’ve talked to several other school nurses and they all say the amount of students they see and the amount of “fakers” has drastically went up over the past year or two.

You have to think most of the elementary school children the past 2 years have been used to virtual learning where they were not closely supervised and made to do their work. And most of the kindergarten kids have probably never be in a structured setting, that they can remember, since Covid happened. Covid has ruined learning in schools.

One of the second grade teachers came to me today and she has a class full of frequent flyers. Today she had enough of it and told them if you are hurting or feeling that bad to go to the nurse, you need to sit out and rest and recess. I haven’t seen one of them since. This may work for elementary kids but not sure what to do for middle and high school.

Everyone seems to be getting offended about this. You don’t know how many kids I deal with daily that are repeat offenders. I have some kids that come 2 or 3 times a day everyday. If a kid comes that I rarely ever see and says they threw up I’ll more than likely send them home. My whole point is kids need to stop abusing the nurse visits. So many kids at this school are already having attendance issues. And for my repeat offenders, I can tell when they are they really sick or hurting cause I know their personalities so well. It’s mostly my repeaters that are trying to go home. And I’ll usually observe them for about 20-30 minutes in the clinic after drinking a juice or crackers and see how they feel. So it’s not like I’m this evil person that is going to make a student stay at school if they are vomiting their guts out. If I sent every kid home that says they threw up in the bathroom, half the school would be at home.

That’s for all the advice! The teacher actually came and apologized to me yesterday for it. She said the secretary actually confronted her about it cause she saw how the kid was acting in my office and it made her mad as well. Our school policy for vomiting is very vague unfortunately. All it says is episodes of vomiting with contagious symptoms need to be sent home otherwise it’s up to the nurses discretion. Same thing with Covid symptoms now unfortunately. And I live in an area that is notorious for seasonal allergies so it’s so hard to tell. Half of the school would be home if we were following the old Covid protocol.

Hi! I’m a new school nurse. I’m currently in a long term substitute position for a K-5 school. I've been at this school for 3 weeks now so I've gotten the feel for everything and have my routine down. I have noticed a large problem with students coming to my clinic faking illnesses, especially vomiting. I have at least 5 students a day come and say they threw up in the bathroom. I try my best to follow the “if you didn’t see it happen it probably didn't” rule. 90% of the time this works out for me. Give them some tums and crackers and they are fine and don’t return. This past Friday I was slammed busy, like every Friday. A teacher sent a student in at lunch saying he vomited in the bathroom. Well this students sister I actually sent home at the very beginning of the school day for strep throat symptoms and fever. He heard wind of his sister being sent home and I’m 99% sure he was faking just trying to go home. The kid was acting completely fine, talking other kids ears off in the clinic and playing around with another student. So I gave him some tums and sent him back to class. No fever or anything. Not even 10 minutes later he comes back and says he doesn’t feel any better and wants to go home. So I decide to call mom, not to send him home but just to talk to her about the situation. No answer but left a voicemail so I sent the student back to class again waiting for a call back. I got a call back about 20 minutes later and I told her the whole situation and she agreed that he is just trying to go home early as he overheard her talking to his sister that morning saying that if she felt worse during the day to go to the nurse. I was about to pick up the phone and call the students teacher and tell her what was said when she walks into the clinic with the student and demands that I send him home. I told her what the mother said and asked if anyone actually witnessed the student vomiting and she said no. I then explained that if it wasn’t witnessed, no fever and he’s acting completely fine there is no reason to send him home. She then goes over my head and asks the principal about it and she said to send him home so I eventually ended up doing so. Mind you it was one hour until school was over. I was so furious. This is why I have so many students coming to the clinic. They see one get away with it and the teacher enables it so they all do it. I want to confront the teacher about it but I’m unsure what to say.

Hello all! I’ve been a home health case manager for about 4 months now at a small hospital based agency. When I was hired in my schedule requirements were M-F 8-4:30 for my scheduled visits and taking call Friday from 4:30PM to Monday 8AM once every 8 weeks. I know that sounds too good to be true…which it definitely was. 2 weeks ago they changed our on call requirements out of the blue with no warning to taking call 1-2 weeknights on top of our weekend every 8 weeks and we have to pick a day to work a 12 hour shift. I’m a single mother with not much family support and I chose this job due to having the ability to take my son to school and pick him up and be home with him in the evenings and night time. Now I’m forced to get a baby sitter 1-3 nights a week. My manager knew this when I was hired and does not want to work with me on this due to short staffing. What do I do? Should I quit?

I made my first semi-big mistake in home health yesterday and didn’t realize it till today. I saw another case managers patient who has a foley that is irrigated each week with a vinegar acetic solution. I was looking to see when her next cath change was due and I counted it out to be next week. Well today I realized I miss counted and it should have actually been changed yesterday. I’m planning on calling the doc in the morning when the office opens and letting them know about it. This patient has had a foley for years and has a chronic UTI so I’m not too overly concerned about that part but I just feel bad cause I missed something that obvious. Has something similar ever happened to you? I know my preceptor said when she was new she missed orders for lab work all the time and she would have to do them the next visit or go back and do it.

It’s through a hospital! I interviewed there and with a private company and going with the hospital affiliated home health was a much better choice. The private company would only give me one month of orientation and I’d also have to work 12 hour shifts and be on call at least once a week.

We can see up to 7 patients a day but our typical amount is 5. And if we see 7 they are simple visits, like someone who just needs labs drawn or their PICC dressing changed. And we cover a zip code so most of our patients are within a 15-20 mile radius so that doesn’t make for very long travel time. All of our RNs are labeled as case managers. Except for our on call nurses that take call during the week nights. Our LPNs kinda function like a RN that isn’t a case manager by doing some routine visits for us. So there wasn’t really an opportunity for me to just do visits and not case manage as well. But I get a 3 month long orientation so I feel like I’ll be prepared well.

Hey! I’ve been a nurse for 1 year now but, have worked in healthcare for 5 years, and just accepted a job in HH as a Case Manager! I’m super exited but also very nervous about it. I was wondering if any of you had some good advice for me and any skills I may need to brush up on. My background as a RN is med-Surg/stepdown, I was there for 9 months, and I also did a few months in L&D and absolutely hated it. LOL. I also worked as a tech in the ED for 4 years. My schedule is M-F 8-4:30. I am paid hourly and they provide a fleet car for us as well as a work phone. I am also on call every 8th weekend from Friday at 4:30pm to Monday at 8am. I have a caseload of around 25-30 patients and typically see 5 patients a day. My team consists of a CNA, PT/OT, speech therapy and a social worker. I also have a LPN that can help me out with visits if I get behind. With knowing all that, what do you all recommend? How to plan my day out, supplies I need to carry, charting tips, etc. Thanks! ?