Asklepios

Funny you mention this, as I even bought a "Spanish For Nurses" book to try and increase my marketability.

Congrats on getting the offer! I also feel like I'm being strung along by some of the HR people I've had to deal with. They take forever to get back to you, if at all. Then they call and tell you the full time position you applied for isn't available and all you can hope for is per diem with no benefits. You really have to be your own advocate in the job search. It takes getting on the phone and calling the HR contact people over and over until they finally work on your application just to get you to stop calling them.

I'd like to vent as well... I graduated in May and started speaking with HR people at a couple different locations right away. But they dragged their feet and when they finally got back to me they only had per diem jobs to offer. I have a chronic condition, so I'd be a fool to give up my current position as a nursing assistant which gives me benefits. But what is really starting to upset me is that some of my classmates have gotten positions at the hospital where I'm an assistant. Its bad enough having to take orders and work like a slave for the nursing staff of each floor I go to (I'm in the float pool so I don't have a steady unit), but it's going to really be bad if those nurses giving the orders are my classmates - some of whom I outperformed in the classroom and clinical setting. I guess the biggest problem is my inital resistance to working on a med-surg floor. I really wanted to go right into Psych or the ER, but jobs in these fields seem limited. People kept telling me "Oh, you're a guy and you want to work in psych? Theyll be begging you to work for them! Well, so far, it hasn't been a buyer's market for me.

I've yet to work as a nurse (will be graduating in less than 2 months!), but I have experienced severe job burnout in my previous career. I hated going to the job every day for years. When they gave us laptops and told us we could work from home, I thought I'd like it again, but I just wound up sleeping late every day and not doing my work until it was due and then putting more pressure on myself to get in done in shorter amounts of time. The stress was eating me up - literally. I started seeing a therapist for help in decreasing stress. I was having mucus in my stools, and then I developed a severe fissure. There were days I couldn't sit normally in a chair. A rectal surgeon told me it was Crohn's Colitis. He said the symptoms probably flared up due to stress (not that stress can cause the disease, but it can definitely exacerbate it). At 37, I decided it was time to do the only thing that would change the situation, and I applied for nursing school. I spent one more year in that job whilst taking a few pre-reqs at night, then left it altogether in Sept of 2007. Nursing school brought an added bonus: I met a girl in school who also has Crohn's, and she encouraged me to start Remicade treatments when my doctor recommended it. The medicine has brought me a great deal of relief (even though it's extremely expensive and who knows what it's doing to me long-term...) So, even though I haven't been a nurse yet, my advice to the OP would be to move on if the job is becoming too much for you to take. There's no shame in coming to terms with the fact that what you are doing may not be right for you, and many good things could happen if you look to explore other opportunities. I'm a firm believer in that things happen for a reason, and you can improve your life if you are open to change and pursue opportunities when they present themselves.

Thanks for your replies. I noticed the facility where I did my clinicals has a posting for an RN, and it says new grads are welcome to apply. Even though I haven't graduated yet, I am thinking of going there to inquire about the position and maybe introduce myself to a nurse manager or someone like that. If they know they have someone interested who already works in the system, maybe they'll keep me in mind in a couple months when I am looking for a job. As a nursing assistant, I've done many 1:1 when psych pts wind up on a med-surg floor. This is usually before they get an open bed at the local facility or the state facility in the region. On several occasions, I've had patients start talking to me, and before I know it, 8 hrs has gone by and we've talked nearly the whole shift. Some of the patients have thanked me and said I was a good listener. One patient who had a lot of bad things going on started telling me about his problems at the beginning of the shift. BY the end of it, he told me he felt like our conversation had helped him figure out what he could do to improve things. When the psych case workers came to the room to talk to him, he asked if I could stay with him while they were there (I was going to anyway because I don't let 1:1s out of my sight when I'm with them, but he didn't realize this). It was a really moving experience for me, and made me realize that my personality may be geared for this type of work. I recently spoke with my hospital's mental health clinician, and she was very encouraging about me going straight into psych nursing after graduating. She said she can often tell which nurses would be good at it after spending a little time with them, and she said she thought that about me right away. I've read some posts elsewhere on this forum about burnout, apathy setting in, safety issues, etc. All of that worries me, but no more so than the concerns about issues med-surg nurses face in their jobs.

I will be graduating in May '09 and I am highly motivated to go right into the field of psych nursing once I pass NCLEX. I have one year experiance as a med-surg PCA. I am a career changer, so I'm a little older than most of my classmates and I don't feel like I can spare the year or two that most of my instructors and some of my coworkers at the hospital are telling me I should spend as a med-surg nurse to "get my feet wet." I was wondering if any psych nurses can give me a little adivce on how I can go about seeking a job once I graduate. I will be speaking with the facility where I did psych clinicals (they are part of the same system as the hospital where I work as a PCA), but I don't know what else to do. There is a state run institute about an hour away from me, but they have had lots of bad press the last few years (though they are said to be cleaning up their act quite nicely lately). Any advice would be greatly appreciated, and hopefully other soon-to-be RNs will also read it and be helped by your generosity!:wink2:

I am a nrsg student and a part time nrsg assistant. There are nights where I walk up to 5 miles in one 8 hr shift (I know because I bought a pedometer). I come home at night, and when I sit down for a little while my body tightens up and I walk like an old man for several hours. Sometimes, it's my back. Other times it's my hips, feet, knees... I've also developed some kind of inflammatory condition in my wrists and fingers. After pullng gloves on and off a few dozen times per shift, I sometimes can't straighten out a couple of my fingers without intense pain. Because of all that, I take care in what I do. I raise the bed when cleaning patients, put heavier pts in trendelenberg position when pulling them up in the bed if they are heavy, etc.

The staff parking at my hospital is about a quarter-mile behind the main part of the facility. It's free and it's gated so vistors can't use it. They used to run a constant shuttle to pick up and drop off staff, but due to budget cuts they've discontinued the shuttle. A lot of the female staff members hate walking in the dark to this lot, so they risk disciplinary action and park in the adjacent administration office buildings' lots. I usually look for people getting off work the same time as me and walk with them so they feel safer (I'm kind of a big guy).

Where I work, the transporters usually all wear black scrubs. I just bought a set, and hope the trasporters don't think I'm infringing on their "colors." (Which wouldn't matter - the kitchen staff all wear navy blue, and when I wear mine and go down to the cafeteria to eat, they think I'm a new guy there to work with them!) BTW - I saw a Halloween scrub top online that was black with little white skeletons all over it. I was considering ordering, but had some reservations about it for the same reasons being discussed here.

I don't know how my school goes about deciding who gets in sooner. All I know is that I waited two semesters from my intial signup to acceptance. This gave me time to finish all but one pre-req (Micro). But, since I already had a Bachelors degree in another field, I was able to take Micro concurrent with Nrsg I. Listening to others in my class tell of being on the list for 2 - 4 yrs before acceptance does make me sometimes feel as though I had someone in the admissions dept looking out for me, but I hope it's because I had a 3.5 GPA from my Bachelors and I got all As on the pre-reqs I had to take while waiting to get accepted, rather than because I am male.

I'm halfway through school, and I work at a hospital where I've told some of the nurses about being in school. Haven't heard one bad thing about it yet. Also, during our psych rotation, I told my clinical instructor I thought it was a field I might be interested in going into after graduation. She was very encouraging,and told me most psych facilities would be thrilled to hire more guys as RNs, and the female staffers would also appreciate having guys on their team as well. As an assistant, I've been questioned by some patients and/or their families about why I'm doing the job, or why I don't want to be a doctor. I tell them the truth - I want to help people and work in healthcare, and nurses do much more with the pts than most doctors. Also, I have no interest in spending all that time in medical school and incurring $100,000+ in debt to pay for it.

Welcome aboard! I left a corporate job last summer to enter nrsg school, and so far it's been great! The tests have been tough, and clinicals were awkward and scary at first (given a pt to do a.m. care on and a 4 pg physical assessment with minimal supervision), but I'm glad I made the switch. I also got a job as a nrsg assistant, which will make clinicals seem like a breeze when class resumes in September, and it's a great experience to see actual nurses doing their jobs on a daily basis.

I think the OP said the pt was unconscious when the foley was inserted. I haven't done a foley yet, but I hope the first few pts I have to put one in are unconscious! Seriously, it's the only thing I've learned in school so far that I dread having to do. I work as a nrsg asst., and a nurse had to put a foley in an elderly man. She asked me to come in with her. The man was retaining a lot of urine and wanted relief, but the cath insertion was awful for him. I grabbed his hand while the nurse inserted it, and I thought he was going to break my fingers, and he howled in pain. BTW - I've answered some call lights where a woman needs to use a bedpan, and when I started putting gloves on and getting the pan, they look at me confused and say stuff like "Aren't you going to tell my nurse?" or "Are you going to do it?" I can tell they are uncomfortable and I explain it's part of my job to do these tasks for the nurses. Sometimes this works, but if I sense they are still uncomfortable, I will find a female aide or nurse. Many nurses will get upset that I am bothering them, but the pt's feelings come before that of the nurse who feels annoyed.

I work 3-11s at a hospital and my favorite time of the evening is when dinner comes. I like to go around and get the patients set up with their meals. They often like to talk about what is for dinner or what their favorite foods are. As far as making any food, I've not done that, but I have heated food that sat out for a while because the pt was off the unit when it was served. I have also made instant chicken broth for some pts.

This question may seem trivial to some of you, but it is important to me. I am halfway done with Nursing School and am interested in pursuing the OR as my specialty upon graduating and passing NCLEX. My concern is with longer surgical procedures. I have IBS and while I am normally fine with minimal breaks during an 8 hr period, there will be the occasional time when I may need to use the bathroom several times in one shift (I'm sure you've all been there - a little too much ice cream the night before, or too much Taco Bell, etc.) How would something like this be dealt with in the OR? Would they assign you to scheduled outpatient procedures they know will likely be shorter than emergency surgeries? I am worried about this because I don't want my stupid digestive condition to be a dealbreaker in pursuing what I think would be a satisfying and fulfilling career for me. Anything you all can share on this issue would be grealy appreciated! If there's one thing I've found working as a nursing assistant, nurses aren't shy when it comes to talking about bowel movements!:chuckle