jo272wv

Would not have hurt my feelings, I consider myself temp until the hospital or floor can get fully staffed with in house nurses. I kind of look at all experiences as part of the fun and learning of travel nursing, most will be extremely good and a few will be bad. Keeps things interesting. good luck

I know this will sound like a broken record but here it goes anyways. Don't worry. I am on my first assignment and have found out that all the worry was not needed. I love the hospital I am in, I love the staff, I love the gals at my agency. I even just agreed to an extention. You will learn by reading this board and from other travel nurses you physically meet at work anything that need corrected on your next contract. I just figure that I can get thru almost anything for 13 weeks. Congrats on joining the traveler team and good luck.

I am a travel nurse, first assignment, a situation arose last night and I want your comments. hx: the floor I work on, is a 6 bed med/surg unit recently opened and 75 % staffed with travel nurses, but still understaffed via hospital standards. situation: I went in last night and was the only nurse scheduled for the 6 bed unit, no tech either just me. The pts are not bad mainly observation and pain control. lucky a nurse did call and say she would come in at 11p and a nurse from the fast track came over to help me 7p to 11p. This has happened to several nurses in the past with no help offering to come in. My question: Even with the easy pts and only 6 beds, is this safe? what if a code were needed and you were the only person on the floor? The hospital does not seem to be worried about situations like this but will try hard to at least give the one RN a tech most of the time. As a travel nurse, if you walked into this situation, what would you do? Can you as a travel nurse refuse the situation? Would my license be on the line should something go wrong and the hospital knew the situation? Not complaining, I like the hospital and staff and actually just extended my contract. Just want advise.

:up:Hi, I am currently at MUSC for my first travel assignment, It took about a week for a interview but it is a med/surg unit. This hospital is great to work as a traveler in. They use a lot of travelers and we are treated very well. The orientation consist of a lot of computer time (catts) but once thru that it is excellent. Good Luck and hope you get here.

I am on my first assignment and since the state of WV is not a compact state and that is where my original license is from I will need to get a new license for every state I work in. My question is, What do you do with them after the assignment is over but may need them again? certainly you can not possibly aford to keep the renewals up on all of them.

It seems this message board is very diverse in its members experiences, for me I am half way thru my first assignment in Charleston South Carolina. It seems there are a lot of newbies as well as seasoned travelers and hopefully will share their experiences. That being said and to help us so called newbies make better choices of assignments, 1. Where was your best assignment and why? Thanks

Hi all, I am currently on my first travel assignment in Charleston South Carolina and loving every minute of it. I hope to extend my contract for another 3 months and waiting for them to ask. When I tire of here I would like to do Alaska next. Has anyone travel nursed in Alaska and if so which are the better hospitals up there, How is the housing situation, and did you enjoy the venture? Thanks

I dont know if that is to much because I do not know your financial needs. But I will give you my situation and you may be able to compare. I started in a 4yr BSN program when I was 43, I made 24,000 a yr prior to school. I had to quit work and take a part time 48 hr a month extern job. I received about 9,000 dollars a yr in grants and loans to live on. I graduated last May with debt at 42,000 which once consolidated is 250.00 a month for the next 25yrs.. even at this amount I struggled some but made it through. I am now 48, and thought about paying extra on the loans to get them paid off but one nurse at work told me not to worry that I would probably die before I paid it off so spend the money now.. lol.. he was joking. That was 4 yrs, yours is one... only you can know the amount you need to get through that yr.

The hospital were I work will not give out or will not permit nurses to give out any information over the phone unless the paitent put that said person on a give information to list that is placed in the chart. We generally give each person a code name or number. This is mainly do to JACO. If any other member of the family calls we are permited to give them the name of the contact person in which they can call, this is usually the MPOA or whomever the pt had chosen. Most of the time it works great unless you get a family member that wont accept this policy, then we transfer them to the charge nurse.

reminds me of a few nights ago, I was to administer soap suds enema till clear to a pt. The first one did not produce anything but brown liquid return, I was giving the second and and the charge nurse for some unknown reason came into the room, looked at me and said in front of the pt and wife, " you are not inserting it far enough in", I was in awe that she would do this in front of the pt. I was inserting it at least six inches which is protocal, she proceeded to go out and complain of my technique to the other nurses in which they responded to her, " what do you want him to do, rupture the bowel?" I finished the procedure my way, which produced a massive explosion which I was glad to help clean up because the pt stated "wow that feels so much better....."

This is not uncommon, the lpn may have not been at the hospital when the Dr. spoke with the pt. You handled this correctly, the only thing different I may have done was to call the education dept and have them send up a pamplet on coumadin and valve replacement. I would have given one to the pt and another to the Lpn family member. Some people have to see it in writeing before they comprehend it. Keep up the good work....

since I did not go back to college until I was 40, I did a year of remedial classes. I then applied to nursing school the following January. I received a letter of rejection in April but was told to send a card in to be put on a waiting list. I sent it in and in three weeks received an letter stating I would be able to attend in the fall. I worked also on pre recs the first year before I applied also which may have helped.

We had a code blue in progress and the pt in the next bed over ask us to move the code pt to another room because he could not get to sleep. Later he called billing and told them he should have one night deducted from his bill for the inconvienence. BTW the coded pt went to icu and returned a week later and discharged two days after that.. Happy ending.:smiletea:

The surgincal dept at my hospital has already done away with IV phenergan and switched to zofran. Family practice and internal medicine are a little slower at changing. Zofran seems to achieve the same results without the sedative effect and the burning when given. I think this was a good move and cuts down on the aggrivation when the drug seeking pt asks for their pain and nausea medications together. I still do not give both zofran and pain meds at the same time though, even with zofran.

I may be wrong but I thought the federal gov. banned mandatory overtime for nurses. I know that it is not a practice in my hospital or any other hospital in my area. Of course when the hospital calls and ask me to pull an extra shift I usually do because I know first hand how difficult it is on my fellow workers and the paitents when we have to work short. Plus time and 1/2 looks good on the pay check.