kcalohagirl

When I hired on to Mountainview last year, they didn't do a hair test. Just urine.

I just relocated here from Kansas. My advice would be to stay there and get some experience before relocating. The job market here is tough, especially for new grads.

um, she IS an LPN.

Not all hospitals are paid through property taxes, though UMC definitely is! Maybe try contacting the NMs of some of the corporate hospitals (HCA, Valley Health) in person? Something else that I have heard (but not verified) is that many hospitals (not just in Las Vegas, but nationwide) are trying to avoid hiring full time nurses, but are trying to fill part time and PRN slot so that they can avoid paying benefits. Maybe working a couple PRN jobs at a couple different hospitals (at the higher hourly rate) would be a way to pay your bills and afford paying health insurance on your own. If they don't even call back for PRN or part time positions, PM me, I may be able to come up with a couple of agencies that are hiring. Good luck!

How easily you are able to find jobs may depend a lot on your specialty and experience. My husband and I are relocating to Las Vegas, and we were both lucky enough to have verbal job offers within a few days of submitting our resumes. The "official" offer came a few days after that, when HR and all its ducks in a row. I was completely surprised at how fast everything came together, since I'd read a lot on these boards about how slowly the wheels of HR can grind. I was fully expecting it to take several weeks. Our temporary NV licenses came in within about 2 weeks. We just have to get the fingerprint cards in and done and we should be good to go with our permanent licenses. Good luck!

I swear by sports bras! I have some really good ones by both Nike and Adidas that are fairly high cut at the neck. They completely take care of that annoying gap that you get when your name badge dangles while you bend over. Plus, I don't have to worry about straps slipping. I don't think I could wear anything else!

Good question! Ototoxicity refers to the fact that if lasix is pushed too fast, it can cause tinnitus. We don't have syringe pumps at the hospital where I work, so when the order comes down for 80-160 mg Lasix Iv push, it can be kind of a bugger. We're working on getting syringe pumps for just this sort of occasion.

When I was a student, if we had showed up that late for report, we would have been sent home with a 0 for the day

When I was in nursing school, my instructor monitored our first several med passes. Usually asking a zillion different questions about every med we were administering, and woe to the student who couldn't give a good answer! After we had checked off with our instructor, we were generally deemed competent, but we were always told to NEVER give meds without first checking with the pt's primary nurse. (What if something had to be given early, what if there were a parameter we weren't aware of that would affect administration of a med, blah, blah, blah.) By my second semester, senior year, I was caring for 4-5 patients on a 12 hour shift, and I may have only seen my uni instructor briefly during a clinical period. My uni instructor was NEVER with me that semester to pass meds, but by that point I was working closely with my hospital preceptor (who had been warned FAR in advance that she would be precepting me) and we gradually worked up to a level of trust. Not wearing gloves to administer Heparin? Automatic fail, at least for the clinical day. . . .

They aren't going to hire you as a nursing assistant. Because you now have "RN" after your name means that you are expected to care for your patients as an RN would, no matter what you title. So a hospital isn't going to hire an "RN" to be a "CNA" because if you did something as a "CNA" that you should have been expected to do as an "RN" (which you have the license to be, even if that's not what you are hired to do) the hospital is liable. Just keep trying. A lot of hospitals hire "New grads" at a couple specific times of the year. That is because they can put all the "new grads" together in a couple big orientation classes. Obviously, that cuts down on costs for the hospital and makes their life easier. Even though you aren't technically a "new grad" anymore because of your graduation date, you are because you don't have any experience. Keep applying. Someone is going to want to phase you in with one of their "new grad" classes that pop up every summer. Just don't get discouraged. If you can, learn the names of the nurse managers of the departments in which you would like to work. If you have the guts, call them up personally, explain your situation, and tell them why their floor is the ONLY floor you want to work on. You can make this happen, you just may need to be a little more agressive in marketing yourself.

There is nothing anyone is going to say that is going to give an "easy" solution to the dilemma. You and your husband are very fortunate that he works as a firefighter, and has a schedule that gives 24/48. However, the rest of the world doesn't always operate on "our" schedules. (By "our", I mean any of us who are expected to be at a job 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. You know, cops, nurses, firefighters, that kind of job.) My first advice would be to map out your husband's days on/off. That would give you an idea of the childcare needs that would have to be fulfilled. It may be less than you would have thought. The other thing that needs to happen is that you and your husband need to sit down and look at the schedule and decide what is a reasonable amount of "duties" you each need to fulfill. With your class schedule and clinicals, for example, you may not be able to put a home-cooked meal on the table 5 nights a week, so adjustments need to be made. And in my humble opinion, one of the things that will make a huge difference between success and failure is that your mate be 100% invested in your success. If your husband expects you to succeed and wants you to succeed, I think that your mate is more likely to make the sacrifices that allow you to succeed. I mean, if it is a choice between you flunking a class that cost you $1000 to take, or you and your husband realizing that maybe you need a babysitter ($45 for the night) on the night before your midterm so that you can study that last little bit and pass for sure, sometimes it just means communicating and prioritizing. I'm not gonna say it's gonna be easy or that it is always gonna work, but maybe I can give you a tool or two. Good luck! If you want it badly enough, you will find a way to make it work! There are scholarship advisors, etc, that will help you on your way.

Okay, allnurses hates me and ate my first, very thoughtful reply. A condensed version, since I don't want the full version to be eaten again. I think the previous poster is being an alarmist. Yes, nursing school is probably the hardest thing that you have done to this point, and it MAY be the hardest thing you will ever do. However, only you know what your life has entailed, so only you can answer this question. My husband and I started dating during the last semester of nursing school. We both went to different programs, but having someone to share "the pain" with made some things a lot more tolerable. Even if our experiences weren't exactly the same, we knew we were in the same boat. I know you say you are looking at LPN programs. Although I won't specifically say anything against an LPN program, I will say that (at least in my area) many hospitals are moving away from using LPNs in clinical areas. At my hospital, LPNs are allowed to work as CNAs. Part of this is because many hospitals are moving towards trying to gain Magnet designation. That isn't to say that LPNs don't do a fantastic job and fulfill a much-needed role. I'm just saying that from what I see where I am working, it appears that LPNs are on the verge of being "phased out". Do what you think is going to work for you. Even if local hospitals aren't using LPNs, nursing homes, etc, probably are. And that gives you a way to earn a living while you are seeking a more advanced degree. Go for it!

I agree. It is very common practice where I work to stop the drip, flush the line well, waste the first ten mL, then draw labs. I have never seen anything in evidence based practice that would seem to indicate that this is incorrect.

I've been working for 2 and a half years now. But believe me, I still remember what it felt like to be a "newbie"!! I also came out of a BSN program, tho not an accellerated one. I think you will come out of your program with a whole lot of knowledge, but one of the weaknesses of the accelerated programs (as I have been told by my unit educator) is that a lot of times, the students lack clinical hours, and do not feel as confident in a clinical setting. My advice would be to seek out an internship in an area that interests you. My senior year of NS, I worked on a floor as a tech. Not only did I become more confident at skills (phlebotomy, foleys) but I also became more confident interacting with patients. I understand that picking up a job can be very challenging with the courseload you are carrying in an accellerated program, but it may just help you land that dream job when you graduate. I didn't want to work on the floor I interned on, but my Nurse Manager gave me a very good recommendation to the floor I ended up on. Just keep your head up, your mind open, and don't be afraid to write everything down! When I have a night that I know is going to be busy, with multiple meds for multiple patients at all hours of the night, I write a timeline on the back of my report sheet with what needs to be done at every hour. Occasionally you will get flustered, and things will happen that will get you off your "schedule." But if you start the shift with a good idea of what needs to be done, even when the unexpected occurs, you can adapt, overcome, and make sure that everything either gets done, or if it doesn't, you can hand off to the next shift in a responsible manner.

I would say naproxen and motrin should not be given in conjunction with each other. Not being able to find my drug book after my recent move, I can't tell you the rationale behind this, I just know that on every MAR or order I've seen, Ibuprofen is always discontinued when Naproxen is initiated and vice versa.