RNnewgrad

On more than one occasion, a patient has come into our hosptial after receiving poor care at Kaiser. One man was found to have a C3 fracture t Kaiser after a CT scan. They gave him an Aspen collar and SENT HIM HOME!!!! The next day, he was complaining of numbness and tingling in his extremities and called Kaiser. They told him it was NORMAL for his injury! He finally came into our hospital after a Kaiser nurse drove to his house, picked him up, and brought him to our ER. We took him to surgery that day to stabilze the injury before he severed his cord!!!! I'm not sure how they are as an employer, but as a healthcare provider, they continue to amaze me in a negative way!

I had 1 year of med-surg experience and came on as an ICU intern. Started making $29/hr and a year and a half later make $34/hr. At my hospital, there are frequent raises to accomodate inflation and to stay competitive with union hospitals. What's truly great about nursing in CA is the ratio laws. In the ICU, no more than 2:1 and there must be an actual nurse to relieve for lunches--no one can "just keep an eye out", and on the floor no more than 4:1.

We have started using the Vigileo Machine and obtaining the same info as a swan (except for a wedge pressure). It works via a TLC on the distal port and/or A-Line and only if the pt is intubated. Pretty cool!

I've got serious jitters about leaving my hospital. While it is not terrible, what is wrong with it I have learned to live with. After reading a lot of the posts, I'm scared that all hospitals nurses travel to are evil and that I'm doomed to be miserable! Everyone posts their horror stories, but if travel were so awful, nurses wouldn't do it, right??? Please share some positive travel experiences with a green traveler!

Check out CareerBuilder.com for salaries. Adding to those salaries is all the doubletime/overtime offered by many hospitals. RN's who choose to take on extra days during a pay period(a normal pay period is only 6 days of work in two weeks) can make six figures. AND, you don't have to carry a pager when your not at work!

I had the same question not to long ago on this site. The advice I got was that a nurse is ready to travel when their coworkers ask them for help with a tough patient, they can run a code in their sleep, and are basically excellent at the basics. Best of luck!

what is BICU? Burn unit? I'm thinking SICU or MICU. Whichever has an opening. I just want to be happy with the way the ICU is run and find happy employees!

I can tell you where NOT to work, Scripps Memorial La Jolla. Management is a nightmare, they are constantly renovating, but more importantly, the nurses are miserable (for the most part) and therefore rude and backstabbing to each other. They have a New Grad ICU intern program that put out about 50 interns this year, so there are lots of inexperienced nurses. It's fine if you are the intern, but it has caused experienced nurses to quit for fear of their license. Something like 80% of the ICU nurses there have less than 2 years of experience. They have "mentors" which are there to help the inexperienced nurses--good idea, exept when we are so short staffed, the mentors are pulled to the bedside--or responsible for too many units and nowhere in site if you need them! They lock you in with a bonus upon hire. If you leave before a year is out, you have to pay it back. So the turn-around is about a year. I've got 2 months left until I can leave!!

What dept do you work in?? I'm thinking about applying to the ICU. Have you heard what it's like?? What is management like?

What dept?? I'm thinking about applying to their ICU. Do you know what it's like? and more importantly, what is management like?

Good advice! To add to that, if you take the NCLEX in the state in which you went to school and get your RN, there are no problems in transferring your license to CA.

You're a RN for goodness sake!! You and your friend should have no problem finding another job...and you would get to start with a clean slate. Get out of there!

I went to help another nurse drop an NG after her failed attempts. The pt was on Propofol and snoring loudly....but she was unable to get the salem sump past the nasal cavity. Started to put it up his nose as she held his chin and couldn't get it through. Kept trying, which forced him to sneeze....into my mouth. Good thing I was wearing glasses.

With the incredible shortage in the state (and country) I don't see how this could be plausible!

I started as an ICU intern with Scripps with one year of floor experience for 29.00 plus $4 diff for nights