clc19k30

Army Nurse, 20 years of service 8 as a nurse. Was prior service Armor Crewmember and found out that there were no jobs in that field as a civilian. GO FIGURE!! I have been down range in Desert Storm, Iraqi Freedom, and Enduring Freedom. The last two as the ER/OR/ICU nurse for a Forward Surgical Team. I am a critical care nurse. Currently on branch detail as a medical recruiter. This Job Bites!!!! but we need nurses and docs. You would not believe what some people think our nurses and docs do. Anyways glad to be of any service.

Hey all, Army Nurse here, I did not know there was a seperate forum for us GREEN Nurses. I have been an Army Nurse for 8 years now and I have been to Iraq and Afghanistan with a Forward Surgical Team. Typically the nurses do not do scoop and scoots. We will fly with critical patients during transfers between hospitals. There is a Flight nurse course for rotary wing that you are eligible to ask for 12 months prior to deployment. Second. The ANC will send you to Germany and Korea as a baby nurse. You have to put it on your Dream Sheet when you talk to your recruiter. We are trying not to send our new grads on a deployment if we can help it. In my humble opinion, I could not have been happier working anywhere but the Army Nurse Corps.

I was terrified. I started on a Neuro Traum/ Surgical ICU. Open heads were everywhere!!! I told my head nurse my fears, and this is what she said to me: (paraphrased of course) If you weren't scared, that would tell me to watch you very closely. Being nervous in the ICU is very common on a daily basis. Remember this: YOU ARE NOT ALONE. Tag your more experienced nurses for help. LISTEN to them. What they don't say can be as important as what they do say. The machines are just that, machines they don't bite. We will not let you fail. So the bogeyman is out there. Do you face him or do you go back to the comfortable?

By full code am I to understand that the patient was/had been coded and died anyways? 1. At a guess 10 2. Critical Care All 3. 8 years Chris

I have a love hate relation with Codes. I think of them as soft or hard. A Soft Code starts with the change in the rhythm on the EKG. So you have time to get the Docs and everyone alerted. The hard code is when the ambulance pulls up or the chopper sets down and chest compressions are going on. You just go into lifesaving mode even though you know that if the chest is being pushed you are already behind the eight ball and failing fast. I think that now as I look back on all of the Codes, the softs and hards, that it hurts the most with the hards. They are usually young people who have met a violent event.

What about Trauma Nursing? Currently or last posting was Trauma ER and Trauma ICU

Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we haved swerved from the original question. Would you serve or not and Why/ I could expound on the virtues of the Army Nurse Corps, but I have been informed that I would be recruiting. Let me make this one thing unquestionable. You do not enlist, you commission. A commission is a decree from congress granting you powers and responsibilities under Title 10 of the United States Code. You do have a large say in what you do and where you go, You are a TRAINED LICENSED PROFESSIONAL not an 18 year old looking for a job. Thank you and please continue, I am enjoying the banter.

To all of the new nurses who will be taking their NCLEX this prayer is for you. Dear Lord grant me not a superficial knowledge of my choose profession. Grant me the knowledge that leads to the healing of my patients. Grant me the knowledge to ease suffering, calm the confused, mend the broken body. Grant me the knowledge of empathy for the lost. Grant me the knowledge to be a nurse. Amen

The pace Never the same day twice Teaching new nurses and staff Learning from the old battleaxes that walked the halls like nursing Gods Good hot coffee with a little bit of lowfat milk. CODES!!!!!! Remembering how fragile life really is

Oh one more thing. This is being used as a qualifier. One of my Grandfathers was Navy, The other Army, My Father was Air Guard, my stepfather was Air Force, Cousins in the Marines. The recruiting incentives are the same for all the branches. They are determined by the Department of Defense. How training and graduate level education occurs is per branch, minus the Marines their support is the Navy. Oh and there is No BASIC TRAINING for Army Medical Officers.

First and foremost I want to say THANK YOU. I really did not expect anyone to answer the posting. Second. This is not recruiting, it is a think tank operation from subject matter experts, You. Like a focus group. Nurses know what nurses want. I could not ask this question to "The Man On The Street". They would have no idea. Third if you have direct questions about the Army Nurse Corps, I highly suggest that you contact your Army Medical Recruiting Team assigned to your area. If you want to have direct questions concerning anything that is not incentive related, i.e. Patient Ratios, Field Time, Training, Education, Working Condition or general military life as an Army Nurse, I will accept private messages. I get the gist that most who want to join don't know where to turn too and that the current war is scarey. Our pay actually outpaces the civilian market and we are high on education so that is not a deterent. I will use the idea of getting my student nurses together for a forum . I look forward to more replies.

Hey all, Yes If you look at my profile I am a Nurse Recruiter for the Army. I am also an Army Nurse. I joined back in 1987 to get out of my home state and to see the world. I have done that, but I meander. Anyways I am now recruiting nurses and it is hard!!!!! I need a pulse of the feelings of the non-military nurses out there SO The question is this: If I offered would you join the Army Nurse Corps? Why or Why Not?

I had over $30,000.00 for school through the Army College Fund. You can apply for the Army Nurse Candidate Program and get $34,000.00 for school. $10,000.00 sign on bonus in two dispersements of $5,000.00 and you get $1,000.00 a month while you are in school. Or you can take loans, I saw Sallie Mae mentioned, and then have the Army repay them in exchange for service time. Yes I am a recruiter, but I am also a nurse who remembers the "fun" of school.

My Favorite is : A Lack of Planning on your part does not constitue an Emergency on mine!!

1. Mother was a nurse, I have always been the "Helpful" one did not want to be a doc. 2. Helping that poor soul at their hour of need. 3. People thinking that A. I am gay because I am male, B. Patients who have no comprehension on how hard people work to keep them alive. 4. On most days I don't think anyone in the field of public service gets paid enough to put up with the idiots out there. But on those beautiful days when it all clicks I think "All of this AND a paycheck". 5. Yes, I work with Military Docs, the rank is the big equalizer. 6. Nothing can prepare you for the real world. 7. Deployed in Afghanistan with a 10 person shock trauma team when we got an eight year old female Afghan who was burned over 50% of her body. She had been burned for 21 days with absolute minimal care, Father was feeding her very little and they had been told by the Afghan Doc to take her home to die. I could pick her up with one hand and not strain doing it. We tried to get her evaced to a larger Combat Support Hospital but there was no room at the CSH. We took care of her for five days, low on burn supplies, she need a high protien diet ( which was taken care of by the men of the 3 Bn 503rd Airborne Infantry, they donated over $2,000.00 of their own Protien shakes for her), pain control was rough because we did not want to vent her, no sterile environment for wound care, you can see the picture. Anyways we got her a bed at Khandahar and flew her out. Worst five days of my nursing career. 8. Watching a person who should have died walk, roll, get transported out of your unit, knowing that they are going to live because of your staff and you. 9. NO NO NO NO. Not on any intense ward. 10. No, nope, no way, uh-uh.

My usual was 5 patients. That was on a 29 bed Med Surg Unit with two other RNs and 2 LPNs, No CNAs. When I got to ICU it was 1 to 1.5 patients per Nurse. RN and LPN, no CNA. But you could count on an admission at 1600 whenever I was charge!!

Shoot...sorry...I am signed in under my husband's ID. He has his BSN...lol. I am DCONNORS....woopsy. Thank you for wishing me wisdom. I need it!

:uhoh21: LPN school starts in 2 weeks, give or take a few days. I applied in March, and spent the next couple months getting in 3 Reference Letters, an Essay, completing the NET (Nursing School Test) and entrance exams, had 2 interviews, immunizations, etc. Needless to say, when I received my acceptance letter, I was really excited. Orientation is scheduled for October 3rd. That's all fine and dandy, but now I am getting cold feet. I really like being a stay at home mom...it's a dream come true. Yet somehow, I feel unfulfilled. I know nursing would be a great profession because you can almost always find a job (at least once you acheive your RN (registered nurse) degree...but that is years down the road. LPN's primarily work for Home Health Agencies and Long Term Care Facilities, and they make pretty much what I could make now with my experience and Associates Degree in Business. (either in Accounting or as an Exec. Assistant, etc) I will have to get at least 20,000 in student loans to cover the cost of the program...and I have applied for another $6,000 in loans to cover part of the daycare costs (Trust me, @ $166 a week, for one child, the cost really adds up...when I add Jonathan in for before/after school care once I start my clinicals, the price will go up another $75 per week.) That is $26,000 in student loans for a job that can pay me what I could make now if I were to work outside the home, and I personally have no student loans for the time being. This is a HUGE investment. I am terrified at owing all this money and then having to work to pay off student loans and losing my chance to be a Stay at Home Mom forever. Part of me says, if I feel unfulfilled, just take a few classes at night or get a part time job on the weekends, etc. Still, getting accepted into the program wasn't a piece of cake, and I am afraid if I give up this opportunity, another chance might not come around for a long time, as the RN schools have waiting lists a couple years long and the LPN schools aren't much better. If I didn't begin LPN school in Oct...I think I would just get on the RN school waiting lists, and take my pre-requisite Anatomy and Physiology courses, another Chemistry, etc...and become a CNA to see how I like working with patients. Then I am only out a little money, and I am at least working towards my end goal of being an RN. (With LPN school, my plan was to work as an LPN for a couple years, and wait for an opening in the LPN to RN bridge program either now, or when we move again.) I'm so torn right now, and I admit I am having cold feet. My sister says "Jump right on in, and hope I swim instead of sink" and that "Nothing ventured, nothing gained". My mom basically says "Are you crazy!! That's alot of money to make $13-14 bucks an hour and if you have an opportunity to be a SAHM, you should enjoy it...if you feel unfulfilled, get a job for Pete's sake!" Any words of wisdom would be greatly appreciated.

((((LORI))))) Thinking of you. Please keep us updated. I'm sorry you are going through this.

Woo hoo!! That's great!! Congratulations.

Army Active Duty Experience- MED Surg to ICU. Deployments- Operation Desert Storm ( Tanker) Operation Iraqi Freedom III Forward Surgical Team ICU Nurse Operation Enduring Freedom V Forward Surgical Team ER ICU OR nurse. Currently a Army Medical Recruiter, I am the Nurse, CRNA, and Optometrist recruiter for my station. Married with Four boys (monsters) and a cocker spaniel attack dog (GRRR) Total time in service - 19 years.

Hey all, My DW found this forum and lo and behold I have been a member since I was in Nursing school. I am a Army Nurse. I have been enlisted (12 years in Armor), Active Duty and Reserve. After being commissioned as a New LT I have worked in small hospitals to major Medical Centers. Medical Surgical Nursing to NeuroTrauma ICU. If you want experience the Army is where you will get it. I also moonlight on the civilian side of the house and I perfer the Military side. Patient to nurse ratio is lower, the facilities have always been better, I could perform patient care without worrying about cost or time being spent. Am I biased? Maybe. I know that when I go to work in the Army I don't dread the day. I feel like I make a difference.

There is no freeze. There will not be a freeze until the nursing shortage is over. In fact I am looking for many good men and women to be Army Nurses. So if you know any.................