RNKitty

He means the cervix is posterior, or way back by her tailbone. Hard to reach if you have short fingers like me!

I can't fit my feet into Dansko's, and Crocs just don't cut it. Brooks tennis shoes with my custum orthotics for me!

It depends. To be a doula, you can take a few certification courses. To obtain my RN, I went through 4 years of college. To be a doula, you support the family and woman and help her clarify her choices but do not make/impose medical decisions upon her. As an RN, you do this and more, by giving pain relieving or lifesaving medication if necessary, documenting the process, keeping the woman and baby SAFE. To be a doula, you are there for the whole birth, 2 hours or 48 hours. As an RN, I show up for my assigned 8 hour shift, do my work, and go home. (For my family with kids, this works better as it is predictable. Do you need a steady income with benefits? Can you leave your family at a moments notice for 2 days to support a birth. It is very rewarding but not a great income or predictable life. Good luck.

Ours offers 6:30-6:15. Since most of our units are 12 hour shifts, this doesn't help the nurses, aides, or housekeepers. It sure helps the administration, though, since they work conveniently within those time frames. Grr. Just one more reason to have a rift between Them and Us.

Which were put in place by the Reagan administration.....

I work L&D, and so deal with the rare maternal death and the more frequent but always emotional fetal demise. Go ahead and pm me if this is the experience you want to hear about.

So far as "making your money back", I would just consider it an extension of your education. Doula training is infinitely valuable to a labor nurse or CNM. It also shows your hiring manager that you are willing to invest in education toward your chosen field, outside of the BSN.

You have to realize that often we only see students for one day. There is not much time to develop a relationship with them, nor assess and build upon their skills. We trained as nurses, not nursing instructors. Also, when you are working under us, our license and the license of your instructor is covering everything you do. That means I have total responsibility for any mistakes you make when you are caring for my patient. For new employees at our hospital, only nurses who are trained as preceptors will orient newbies, and with that comes a small pay increase ($1/hr). However, we are given neither choice nor compensation when nursing students are following our patients. Don't be so judgemental about a nurse's attitude.

I generally find that having a student adds one "patient" to my load, since I have to spend more time explaining or precepting them to practice skills. It would be nice if I was given a lighter patient load when I have a student, but that is not the case. In L&D, I tell the students to put on their running shoes and keep up! I do enjoy the fact that having to explain my thought processes to a student makes me "review" for myself why I do what I do, but some days it is mentally exhausting. The students who learn the most while with me are very proactive in their learning and express eagerness and willingness to seek out learning opportunities.

Our hospital has included a question in our admission assessment to find out if the patient objects to blood transfusions. I work in L&D so this is a very real possibility for every admission, although rarely given in reality. If the patient objects, we have specific paperwork we go to in order to flag the chart and education the patient. There is a form to sign agreeing to some blood part, or none at all. They get to check what is acceptable. It is very clear to the patient that we are acknowledging their beliefs, and very clear to the staff what is accepted by the patient. The patient even gets a wristband to flag the fact that the patient has a specific request in regards to blood products.

If they are going to immediately induce you after the version, request the epidural first. You will can use it for a c/s if you have to. Plus, your abdominal muscles will be more relaxed if you are not in excrutiating pain. Sounds like your OB's have a plan for you - do you trust your OB's?

I work on a unit that does about 200 deliveries a month. I usually only care for a demise twice year. In my 8 hour shift, I have managed not to actually be at the delivery for about 4 years now. I usually manage to get through the shift okay, but end up crying on the way home. Sometimes after a delivery I even have nightmares. However, I'm still able to care for my patients. There is grief support to offer the woman, and I find the nurses who have had a demise or miscarriage themselves give extremely compassionate care. You can always offer to take the hardest assignment or most complicated patient instead of the demise. I, however, do not do terminations. I have signed a form every place I work stating that I will not be involved in the care of a woman having a termination. Thankfully, I now work at a Catholic hospital, and terminations are not performed. There are so many wonderful moments in OB. Don't give it up without trying it if you are interested. Good luck.

Usually, after you are licensed in one state, it is just a matter of paperwork and money to get licensed in another state. Some states will require a few special courses, ie in WA you need an 8 hour HIV course. Find out the requirements for each state by calling their Board of Nursing or looking at their web sites. Start soon, sometimes the process can take a few months. Usually there are verification letters from your school of nursing, your original state of licensure, etc.

I always dressed up professionally and went to visit the nurse manager I wanted to work for on the unit. It always netted me a job! Anytime you go to HR, dress professionally, of course, but have a clear goal in mind and talk with the managers. They will always say to put in an application, but they have at least seen your face. Sometimes I would just walk up to check out the unit and ask if I could schedule time with the NM. Othertimes I would call and request 5 minutes of her time and set up my own interview. Remember, you are interviewing them as much as they are interviewing you. I would always come with a current resume and letters of reference/ reference list in case they asked. I also had all my credentials to show them in case they asked. Then, even if it was only a 5 minute chat, I would sent a thank-you note for the courtesy of her time.

It sounds like you have found the PERFECT place to get your experience - very well-rounded in care. I've worked the gambit from birth center to Level III, and everywhere in between. I'm grateful for all the experience as it brings a different perspective to my care. I'm still not in a life situation to do midwifery, as my kids still need my care for about 14 more years, but I would like to do a seminar at The Farm with Ms. Gaskin and re-energize for my labor support. Someday....

As a nurse who has been on the side deciding to transfer a patient from a level I to a level III, or deliver and then transfer, my concept of a "stable" patient is one who has a chance of making it to the receiving facility before delivery. I actually do realize that patients are transferred because they are high risk. I have also been in the ambulance praying for the patient not to deliver until we get there. Now I work "there" in a level III, and the only patient that gets transferred out is the baby who needs ECMO. Of COURSE we transport interfacility. However, some patients are coming from the field. Sheesh.

Okay, the administration at our hospital really have their heads stuck uta, because every floor uses Meditech (bought two years ago! It is DOS, and we actually live in the same state as Bill Gates. It is definitely not Windows friendly). Then, we have to print out all sorts of graphic for the paper charts which are now thicker than they were before the computor system. We also print out our nursing admission assessments and delivery summaries for the paper chart. For a paperless system, there is a heck of a lot of trees being killed. We use Medpoint for scanning and administering medications, but of course Medpoint will not read to Meditech. We then have to print out our MARs for the paper chart. Also, in L&D, we add WatchChild, which of course will not read to Meditech. You wouldn't believe the number of passwords we have to access the charts and pyxis. We have to print out the annotations, labor flow, and FHR tracing from WatchChild. Even with all this paper around, they have taken away our labor flow and forbidden us to use it - even though we can chart quicker and the information is condensed and easier for the providers to read in a glance. Our director came up with the brilliant idea that we only need to chart our fetal assessment q2H since it is all "recorded" on WatchChild (She wants us taking care of 2-3 patients and thinks this will save us time). We are speaking to a wall when we try to explain that no matter what she thinks, we still have to conform to national and community standards of care regarding fetal assessment, not to mention cya for legal issues. Besides, not all patients are on continuous monitoring. Some get up and walk around, jacoussi, sit on the ball and get doppler or intermittent monitoring per standard. The doctors get to write their H&P, progress notes, and orders on paper. The orders have to be "scanned" down to pharmacy or input in the computor for labs, etc, by the HUC or nurse. I would run from Meditech. Hospitals buy it because it is a cheaper system, but cheap junk is what it is.

Not hardly. To even become a CRNA, most nurses have @5-10 years of CC/ICU experience, then 2 years of INTENSE school. I have heard there is a tremendous divorce rate among CRNA students. Then, when you are on the job you are dealing with very serious, lethal medications in critical situations. IMO, the best job is the one that fires your heart.

Cool idea! Do they ever get to hot and burn the patient?

Hmm. Never really though of it, but yes - you could maintain sterile technique if the blades of the speculum are never touched by the gloves. My left hand always separates the labia, so it becomes contaminated. I just want to introduce the fewest microbes possible into the lady partsl canal. It would be cheaper for the doctors and the hospitals to use clean gloves instead of sterile. Hmmm. Oh wait, I do try to warm the speculum up in my sterile gloved hands so it isn't so dang cold for the patient. Skip that idea.

Working as an RN in a school. In this district, you would be responsible for about 900 students. There are other nurses responsible for the rest.

Due to COBRA laws, you can't transport unstable patients BETWEEN facilities. However, flight nurses often will transport from the field, and that is where I've seen the most complications enroute.

I only work for the money. I chose my field of work because I love L&D. I like what I do, but if I didn't need the money........ the world is an exciting place. So far, nursing has been great for the family. I've gotten a job within 1-2 weeks of walking into a hospital and talking with the nurse manager of the OB unit (on my 7th hospital thanks to dh moving us around with the military and school). I've always gotten the schedule and amount of hours I need for the family schedule. Someday, when it is all about me, I'll get a day job with no weekends or holidays....

As a substitute school nurse this year for a local public school, I was informed I would get the wages of a substitute teacher, namely $80/day. I was shocked, since I've never as an RN - even as a new grad - worked for $10/hr. No wonder they can't keep subs. They never called, and I never worked it. The hospital pays me 3 times as much, and I told them so. They did say that salaried School Nurse positions pay more but I'm not sure how much more.

The hospital will require you to have NRP, so they will pay for you to be trained if they hire you. However, knowledge is power! Before I got my first L&D paid position I spent $2000 in continuing education classes related to OB, Lactation, Mother-Baby, etc. I also volunteered 4 months full-time in L&D at the local military hospital (the American Red Cross will sponsor you to volunteer as an RN if you have your license). I considered it an extension of my education since internships and preceptorships in L&D were unavailable while I was in school, and when I graduated the hospitals had been laying off nurses for 2-3 years so they had no residencies for new grads. Showing initiative looks great to an employer.