tracy6fan

What type of nursing job are you looking for?

I live in the far southwestern side of the county so it takes me 40-50 minutes to get to work on a good day. I know that sounds like a long time, but you get used to it living in Atlanta. Plus I don't get on the interstate. I'd rather drive 10 minutes extra on the back roads and be calm than stressed out from those flying fools. All my coworkers that live up in town (Douglasville) can get to work in 30 minutes or less

Prinzess, I just might be able to answer this one... I live in Douglasville and work in the NICU at Cobb. We're level III and transport out all surgeries to Scottish Rite or Eggleston. Don't know that we're hiring today, but that could all change tomorrow. Kennestone in Marietta (a stone's throw from Acworth), is our sister hospital with a level III NICU too. Same docs, same set up as us. Douglas Hospital (in Douglasville, of course) doesn't have a NICU. They have a 6 bed L&D that does all LDRP and send any sick kids to us or Kennestone. Tanner in Carrollton is a 10-30 minute drive from Douglasville, depending on what part of the county you live. I'm pretty sure they have a level II or III nursery. Southern Regional is in Riverdale, not far from Stockbridge or Fayetteville, and South Fulton Medical Center is in East Point near the airport, and about halfway in between Douglasville and Stockbridge/Fayetteville. They both have NICUs. Good luck with your move and I hope you find a place you'll enjoy living and working!

We tended to have the same problem with the "last day teaching" and found it to be extremely overwhelming for the parents. We've been working on it hard and have just added a "To Do" checklist for the parents. We put it on the cribs once the babies transition to a bassinette and the parents love the idea of knowing what they need to work on before discharge. We've also started ordering the home monitors and teaching a week or 2 in advance so the parents can practice with it when they come in. Those 2 things alone are making a big difference in our process. I forgot to add we use the language line when we need to, but it sure helps having several spanish speaking nurses in our unit to assign those patients to.

I don't know how it is in other states, but here in Georgia now, Medicaid/Medicare has added their own set of questions to the PG surveys, and they're basing their reimbursements on the scores.:angryfire My favorite question was rating the quietness of the environment!

BBG, we use the hydrocolloid gold hearts and put a hat on.

Or a 5Fr feeding tube if you have them.

My thoughts exactly Gompers. We use the green tubes too, but change them every 3 days. A product rep for the 30 day tubes showed me something on the green tubes I'd never noticed before. There are holes along the distal side of the tube, but no hole in the end. Which means a small amount of formula/BM can sit in the bottom.

You will surely learn alot in any of those units that could apply to the NICU. I worked in a PedsER for a few years when I became burned out after 9 years in the NICU, and I felt like I had never been a nurse before. I learned so much practical knowledge that you're not exposed to otherwise. It really helped me become better at parent teaching when I returned to the NICU. Any of those child abuse cases are sad. The burns were the worst for me. It seemed like there was nothing you could do to relieve the pain. What bothered me most about the SA cases were the parents. I'd say over 90% of the kids brought in for SA exams had parents in a custody battle, fabricating reasons to win their case. We saw alot because we were the regional referral center, but it's unimaginable why an accusing parent would lie and put their child through that exam. Let us know what you decide and good luck in your new position.

NICU_Nurse, if you're seriously interested in doing a poster on car seats, I can help you out with some great websites. We redid our parent teaching notebook on car seats a couple of months ago and I learned SOOO MUCH. It was one of those things I took for granted all these years since I gravitate toward the itty bitties. Interesting factoid: in traffic stop studies, 4 out of 5 parents had the car seat installed incorrectly. WOW!! After all the hard work we do getting them to the point of discharge, if we don't teach them, who will??

Oh, you're going to love, love, LOVE the Giraffe beds!!! After I said this I remembered there is one drawback...those darn temp probes! They're a little stiffer than the disposable ones we use on Ohmedas and come loose alot. We played around with it and had pretty good luck positioning Giraffe probes axillary or on the ant. fontanel with the ELBW babies.

We use the transilluminator attachment on the bili blankets all the time for IV lines/PICCs or to transilluminate a chest. I will say it kind of ruins you after you get used to using it. One of our product reps gave us a hand held mini-transilluminator a few weeks ago and we love it. It's especially nice for resting a little foot on. If a proctor say it's ok I'll post a link to it.

Jennica, if you're still job hunting, what part of Atlanta do you live in?

A couple more to add Respironics/Children's Medical Ventures: http://chmv.respironics.com/ Specialty Medical Products: http://www.gopreemie.com/shop/customer/home.php

We've seen a marked increase in belly defect babies here, 6 gastros in a 2 or 3 week period during the spring. The genetisists are finding a link between belly defects and meth use, which is also pretty rampant here.