LadysSolo

Psych NPs are in great demand where I live also. Just an FYI, I live in an at-will state, and was let go from my position (10 years in the NP position) due to my age ("If you accept our severance offer, you cannot sue us for age discrimination.") Get an iron-clad contract!

I will work full-time till Medicare eligible, then 4 days/week till age 70, then per diem. I have pretty good savings, I have (roughly) $3000/month available, and my house will be paid off before I am 70, but my family tends to be long-lived so I will need more than average. No long-term care insurance (depending on the plan I understand it can be a scam,) but I plan to die in my house anyway. When we built it, we built it handicapped accessible, so I can stay here forever (when we built it my elderly in-laws were living with us, they have since passed.)

When I worked 11 - 7, you were permitted to nap ON YOUR BREAK (because it was YOUR break,) but after your break you were to be up and working. Perhaps approach it as "Break time is over, this needs to get done now." But I agree, since you worked with them, it's likely to be a difficult situation.....

You worked on a step down neuro unit so you knew what you were getting into, so I don't think it's nursing (although I could be wrong.) But rotating shifts is very hard on the body, there have been studies done (can't quote one off the top of my head though, but you could look it up if interested) and that may be part of your discouragement. I would try to get on a unit where you don't have to rotate shifts until you get your feet under you (so to speak) as a nurse, and then maybe go back to neuro if you really enjoy it.

I hurt my back 28 years ago catching a patient who was falling, I was an RN at the time, declared permanently partially disabled, and still work full time. I became an NP 13 years ago due to believing I can assist with moving and turning patients for exams part of the time but all day every day I would likely not have been able to work until retirement. So depending on the nature of your back issues, I would say "yes." I would try to look for a facility where minimal lifting is involved, or maybe look at pediatrics (patients are usually smaller.)

I find other patient's information misfiled in charts all the time - It is not unusual, so unless it is a habit, I would think printing out wrong MAR/TAR is an "oops!" And why did the paramedics not look at the name on the MAR/TAR before they left? I think the blame is not only on you.

Never ever work without malpractice insurance - it is money well spent, so you can have the lawyer take care of issues like this. I (thankfully) have never had to use it in 36 years, but at (about) $100/year, and an attorney is about $500/hr, I am glad I have never been without it - I have paid for about 7 hours. And you did NOT abandon your patients.

I agree - if it was someone I had worked with every day for several years and I knew them well and trusted their judgment, then probably (and because we usually knew quite a bit about each other's patients.) Someone I had never worked with before - no way! You were totally correct.

LPNewbie, I am an NP and also teach in an LPN program. I also have suffered from depression since age 14 (that I can remember, probably longer.) I started getting help for it when I was almost 40 years old, was prescribed medication that did not help the depression but made me sleepy, I did not like it. I got counseling from a social worker in independent practice, she was VERY helpful. Told me as long as I had been depressed it likely would never go away but I could learn to deal with it and have a good life. You CAN learn to be organized (that was never a problem for me, I am very anal about things.) You CAN succeed, as I mentioned before you need to be satisfied with yourself, and realize nursing is truly thankless much of the time, but you ARE making a difference in your patients' lives (particularly if you wind up in LTC, so many of the elderly have no visitors and you become their family.) You are correct that healthcare is a business, and management does NOT care about the workers, but workers very often care about each other and usually care (sometimes too much) about their patients. I know I worry about mine at night and when I have a day off.

Probably works at the "house of God" in Cleveland, which (as a fellow Ohioan) I don't think is as wonderful as the worshipers seem to think it is.

The healthcare system is not interested because they have already done the math, if they cut "x" number of nurses they will save "y" number of dollars, and "z" number of people will die. There will be lawsuits and they have figured out how much that will cost them. Nurses are cut accordingly to save the money, and lives be dam**d.

I just don't see why giving sedation should be "routine," without at least trying without it. Less medications (and risk for adverse reactions) the better.

Your management will RARELY give a **** about you. Your co-workers might, but you almost never get a thank-you, we used to be told "work it out among yourselves, but someone has to stay." We never thanked the person who stayed, but we tried to take turns as we could so not one person was stuck every time. I guess that was our way of thanking, kind of taking turns. We worked together, but I don't remember us thanking each other in so many words, we just all pulled together to get the job done. It was understood, and I worked on that floor for 23 years. We had a fairly stable staff for that time, most of us long -term, but some would quit and we'd get a new person in. In nursing you kind of have to be "self-contained," because you don't always get filled up by others.

Agency is a good way to see what facilities are REALLY like before you get hired there. Sometimes if you are good at a facility they will offer you a job. When I did agency for a few months, I was signed on with 3 agencies. I could have worked 24/7 if I had wanted to between the 3 agencies. Sometimes you are cancelled because a regular staff decides to pick up, no reflection on you.

This happened at a SNF I cover - the STNAs kept telling the DON that there would be fewer falls with one more staff member. The DON LISTENED and did a study, and found out that with one additional staff member there were fewer falls, so she gave them one additional STNA per shift and made them promise she would not hear call lights going off then. The entire staff was thrilled that she LISTENED and gave them one more STNA.