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Check out AHSRenalstat. They usually have positions opening up in most states. Have worked for them for several contracts, and they never messed up my paycheck!

If you take the housing stipend in lieu of having the agency find a place for you, what you pay for your living arrangement is your business. For all anyone cares, you could live in a mobile home. Some travelers do. That is how many travel nurses make real money. You don't have to sign a lease at your chosen digs.

You have to work over 50 miles from home to get tax free benefits. Less than that, base hourly pay on what you make now. If you already have 2 jobs, hard to imagine you would find anything but prn. You're taking on too much.

The hours and call usually kill the nurses doing it. More and more patients are needing HD. Production line mentality in out-patient clinics, and docs who are paternalistic instead of collaborative. Working with people who don't play nice (rivalry between techs and nurses) and a boss who won't deal with it. You meet nice patients along with the nasty (few, thankfully) and can make a difference. Not enough professionalism among the nurses, I fear. Very few nurses I've worked with in 10 years of dialysis bother getting certified. But the hours, especially in acutes, are way too long and way too unpredictable. You can't have little kids and do it. And most places won't hire you for part-time. So, burn out. Yeah. I don't think the pay is up there with other specialties, either. In my experience, ICU, ED, and neonatal get all the money.

Our nephrologists always stated to wait at least 4 hours after a treatment, and that was only if it was truly necessary.

I have been working travel contracts, so the pay is different due to tax free pay being part of the package. As a "local", however, I have made or have been offered from $42.50 to $52 per hour in a major urban area. Have 10 years of experience in the field.

Low diastolics are seen in patients who don't have long to live because, like this one, they have crappy hearts. You mentioned the MAP but didn't say what it was. It may be the best parameter to use and should be 60. Maybe you could augment with albumin 25%, or the patient could be on some pressors during treatment. I agree that CRRT would probably benefit the patient, but if you don't do it there, you are stuck. Having a crit line also would be a great tool to document status. Unfortunate that there are still Neanderthal docs in practice.

We use adhesive tape but make sure to change positions every day or two, or when the tape becomes really gross from secretions. If this is done religiously, chances for breakdown are minimized. The only tube holder I've had experience with was one that also had a spot for the NG tube. Unfortunately, it had a tendency to "travel" out so that a tube secured at 21cm may quickly go to 19cm, etc. Wasn't impressed.

Our policy is that IABP patients are 1:1. However, when the patient is a stable postop who had the balloon inserted for chest pain as opposed to failure or shock, and when a nurse who knows what he or she is doing is caring for the patient, we will take a second patient sometimes. I agree with blueboyj about people paying massive salaries to sports figures and celebrities and then whining about paying critical care nurses a good salary. Countless times I have heard from patient's family members who see how hard we work "I could NEVER do what you do!" No one ever says, "Gee, your job looks like fun." I also agree that we need to educate the general population about what really goes on. I don't have it so bad where I work, but I can't be sure it will stay the same, and I worry about the future because the new nurses coming in many times don't have the desire to learn the specialty. Who's going to care for me when I get old and sick? I guess I'll just have to shoot myself!

First off, let me congratulate you for having the nerve to say you are management--but then, you are new and probably don't know better than to admit your status. Or, perhaps you work in one of the few places in the world where staff nurses are actually taken seriously and are seen as valuable members of the health care team--are are treated as such. Having worked in both medical and surgical areas and with both species of physicians, I would agree that there are differences in approach, but you'll be selling yourself short if you categorize nurses as either thinkers or doers. The best nurses you will have are able to do both. For example, you cannot care for a post-operative patient without understanding the recovery process and the implications of your nursing interventions--it's not as simple as doing what the doctor orders. Nor can you care for a patient with severe medical problems without anticipating interventional therapy and preparing for it in a timely fashion. If you will be doing a research paper that will look at defining nursing personalities for some particular purpose, that's fine. It may also come in useful when you are interviewing new staff to know how they think and work. And, please, please, please do not forget that your staff nurses deserve respect and support from you. They are the ones at the frontlines and without nurses who can only do one thing at a time, the patients will suffer.