PButler

I don't beleive that everyone should be branded the same way. My sick time is mine and if I need it, I would like to use it without being treated like some misbehaved adolescent. Sure, people abuse it, which really sucks when it's the rest of the team that suffers because of it. The answer lies in getting rid of the people who show patterns of abuse and hiring enough staff to cover when the need arises. Our hospital separates sick time, vacation etc.. I think this encourages people to use their sick time because what you don't use, you lose. I think combined PTO is much better sinced most people would rather save their time for vacation and not use it (or waste it) unless they really were sick. Another idea is to offer end-of-the-year buy-out of unused sick time....personally, I would love to see that fat check at the end of a year!

Tegaderm by itself should work just fine as long as the rest of the IV tubing is well secured with tape. In our ICU we use veniguard (the foam donut with clear tegaderm center). They provide excellent infection control and stick better than anything else I've ever used. Our IV's usually don't come out until they need to. As for the comment about anethesia and paramedic IV's....We D/C and replace any line that comes from outside the ICU...even the OR. (Believe it or not, anesthesia can have terrible sterile technique when it comes to line placement) and having worked in the prehospital setting I know that getting the IV is priorty and sterile technique is a joke.

Hi guys, I am a flight nurse for Lifeguard in NM. Each flight program will have it's own requirements. The standard seems to be at least 3 years of critical care or ER experience for RN's. You should also be required to have ACLS, PALS, ENPC, TNCC. It is also helpful to have CCRN or CEN. The more experience and credentials you have the better your chances are of getting a job. However, flight jobs are difficult to come by and it is hard to get a flight job without flight RN experience unless you have a program in the hospital you work in now. Many programs like to hire internal, qualified RN's. The pay is the same as you would get in any other critical care unit with the same years of experience. However, some programs (including mine) give extra money for flight pay while you are flying. (Hazard pay) There are a lot of flight programs out there but not all are equal. Make sure the program has high standards of professionalism and safety. Check out: http://www.flightweb.com Hope this helps. Good luck!

I have worked in both ER and ICU, although I have much more experience in ICU (Trauma/Surgical). It's best to go where you are most interested in working and the area that best suites your personality. To work in ICU you have to have the most in depth knowledge of A&P and pathophysiology, as well as a lot of technical skill and knowledge. Once you have ICUexperience you can work anywhere with ease. The downside of ICU is the less glamorous aspects of providing total care to pts (Code Brown!) ER is great in it's own way but the job is much more task oriented and you don't have time to be as intense about understanding what's going on in every body system. You can always switch areas if you don't like where you are. Good luck:cool:

Hi Matt, I am a flight nurse with Lifeguard Air Transport in ABQ, NM. We use a combined system with Vent, Monitor, O2 and isolette on a sled that slides directly onto our Lifeport bed. It works well but is very heavy. It slides easily from aircraft to ambulance stretcher. We also utilize a similar arrangemet for our helicopter but the stretcher part is modified to load the same way our helicopter stretcher does. We do not have a ground transport program but we use the same Lifeport set-up for ambulance and fixed wing transports. By the way, how is FAHC? My wife and I are moving to Burlington, VT next summer. Any advice?:)