flyakite80

Before becoming a nurse, I was an Administrative Secretary for 15 years - 6 years in a nursing home and 9 years in a hospital. While I was in nursing school, I worked as a Unit Secretary at a hospital part time. I am now in my 6th year of nursing and I am really struggling to write a resume. I don't know how much information to include on my past life as a secretary - or if I should include it all. I am 44 years old so I feel like just including my 6 years of nursing experience and nothing else would seem incomplete. I also feel like since my secretarial experience was in the medical field that it would even be further justified to include it. What do you think? Any advice is appreciated, thanks!

You do NOT have to take that kind of abuse from a patient. Just because you're the nurse doesn't mean you are someone's personal doormat. If someone were treating you that way in any other situation, would you tolerate it? You have rights too. There are ways of communicating to a patient (without being nasty) that you won't tolerate that type of treatment. You simply tell them you are sorry they are unhappy with the care you are giving them, that you are doing the best you can but you will not tolerate being spoken to in that way. If they continue to do so then you get the supervisor/manager involved. I don't think accepting verbal abuse is part of your job description.

I work nights 7p-7a and sometimes I don't sit down to chart until 4 AM. It all depends on what's going on with your patients. I have many more hard nights than I do easy ones. And it's just like any other job that is 24 hours - of course there are going to be certain things that you only do on nights vs. days, it doesn't mean you're better or worse than another shift. That's silly.

I'm glad to see you have an offer, good luck!!

I am also about to hit the 6-month mark and things are only going to get more complicated, since after 6 months you can be pulled and you have to take charge. Talk about adding more chaos... I'd like to do something else but I wouldn't leave unless I had another position lined up. And this is one of the many reasons I chose nursing, for the flexibility and the wide variety of positions you can have as a nurse. I am thinking I'll stick it out until the one-year mark (after all, the first 6 months did fly by) and then look at my options.

Congratulations! It's nice to see at least some people are finding positions. I am not really crazy about my job but I don't take it for granted for one second... I know I'm lucky to even have one. Good luck!

That is totally irresponsible of your facility to put you on your own after just 15 days of orienting!! I'm sorry but if I were you, I'd be getting out of there ASAP. It's not safe for you or your patients. They are jeapordizing your new license!!

I have to laugh seeing what I posted back in September. I am in my 3rd month of doing nights and it's really not so bad after all. At first I felt nauseous when waking up in the afternoon, but I learned what I could and couldn't eat at 3 a.m. and now it's much better. For example - don't eat spicy pasta or pizza in the middle of the night! Also, I never schedule myself for 3 nights in a row, that would be insane for me. I do 1 on, 1 off, then 2 on and 3 off. Or vice versa - 2 on, 1 off, 1 on, 3 off. The 2 in a row is rough for me, so I couldn't fathom doing 3 in a row, I'd feel horrible. I know people that do it, though. Long story short, I have adjusted really well, these past few weeks have been good. It's hard in the beginning, but don't give up to quickly, it takes time.

I can't stress enough to my friends who are still in school to get in somewhere NOW, doing something, anything, just get your foot in the door! I worked as a secretary for 3 years (while going to school) at the hospital where I now work as a nurse, and the fact that I already worked there and knew the managers was a huge advantage for me. Our whole health system just experienced a rash of lay-offs, now a hiring freeze and OT is being cut out. I know some new nurses who got laid off, I am lucky to still have a job. As rough as it is there sometimes, I can't complain with things being the way they are.

If I am contagious or sick enough that I simply cannot function, I will call out. I don't get sick that much. However, I've only been on my own a few months and had to call out on New Year's Eve. I had an acute case of laryngitis and sinusitis, it came on overnight the night before while I was working. By the A.M. I had no voice and I was fading fast. When I opened my mouth to give report to the dayshift nurses, they all jumped back and said WHAT is wrong with you?? :chuckle. So by the time my next shift to work came around, I was twice as bad and had been to the doctor. I knew if I went in, my patients would be wondering what the hell I was doing sounding and looking like death warmed over, coming in to take care of them. So yes, I stayed home. It was for the best.

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I would imagine it would, most of the patients on our telemetry floor would be med/surg patients if they didn't have some type of cardiac history or new cardiac issue. We also get med/surg overflow patients. And I agree that you don't necessarily have to get med/surg experience. I started out on the telemetry floor fresh out of school, even as a graduate nurse before I got my license. I've been told by some of my co-workers that it's a good thing to start out in cardiac because alot of people that start out on med/surg get very comfortable and are intimidated by cardiac units. So if you are already working on a cardiac unit, I don't see the reason for going backwards...?

I graduated in May and have been working on a telemetry unit since July 08. Originally I wanted to work on med-surg because that's the area I was most familiar with. But there was nothing available that would fit my life at the time, so I went for the tele position. At first I was scared...we have to watch our own monitors (what I wouldn't give for a monitor tech!!!) and I was so intimidated by that. But after doing it for a while I actually came to appreciate the monitors for the simple fact that they alert you immediately to changes. Yes, there are a lot of false alarms but as long as you always check your patient, you can't go wrong. We also carry beepers that alarm with certain rhythm changes and my god they can be SO annoying but there have been times where they have been helpful. They are just more annoying than helpful and you have to make sure you don't become immune to the beeping and buzzing and just silence it without looking. I've seen people do that and that's not a habit I want to get into. Good luck!

I used the Saunders book and also took the Kaplan review course which included a weekly 3 hour long review session, a book and online access to review videos. I passed my boards the first time, and I really feel the review course was the key to passing. They showed us what the questions were really going to be like and taught us strategies in answering them. It was worth every cent, especially since my job reimbursed me for the course when I passed the boards, lol.

I feel your pain... my own sister wasn't interested in coming to my pinning ceremony or my graduation and I was heartbroken. I just couldn't believe she wouldn't want to be there to share such a huge accomplishment in my life. But then again, nursing school is something that is understood best by those in it and hardly understood at all by those on the outside, lol. I knew I would miss my classmates terribly too. But now, 8 months later, a bunch of them all work at the same hospital with me and 4 of them work on the same unit as me and the same shift! Maybe you will run into some of your classmates along the way too. It's comforting seeing familiar faces and knowing we are all still in the same boat.