Guest20074

I've read the thread twice actually. I went over to ANIA site, but I thought I would ask anyway since there are no NI jobs where currently I live (I plan on moving when I finish my BSN) and I was hoping to get some experience in an adjacent field and bridge over in some way. Thank you for answer my question .

I'm interested in getting some experience to prepare me for the field of the Nursing Informatics. There is a job opening in the HIS department at where I work and I wanted to know, is it a good idea to get some HIS experience to help prepare me for NI?

Actually, it's about NVCC (Northern Virginia Community College) which is located in NOVA (Northern Virginia).

I'm in the online RN-BS program. Started in January 08. :)

Thank you so much. This is what I was looking for.

I'm very much aware of the opportunities BS nurses have in nursing, but are there any opportunities for BS nurses out side of nursing? Are there any other professions that will take a nursing degree as an education requirement?

NO!! You do deal less with patients' families, but the surgeons can be even worse. As an OR nurse, you're there for safety reasons and you *HAVE* to have the courage to speak up when you see that something is wrong.

I'm considering moving from the Southeastern VA area to Northern VA and I'm curious to now how much do nurses make in that area?

I originally did Surgical Stepdown with a lot of medicine initially, so when I joined the agency I decided to do Med/Surg. The only orientation I got was on the Psych unit where I was oriented to some of their computer systems and their medicine kardexs. The actually machines where medication was stored I already knew because my previous job used them as well.

For some reason I couldn't edit my original post, so I'll just type it here in a second post. I too had been out of nursing for a year so I could work on pursuing my BSN and I've started doing med-surg for an agency while doing so. Someone on the board recommended that if you haven't done med-surg for awhile, it's best not to pursue it unless you can get some form of new grad orientation to the floor. I will admit it is hard, but I think that if you can review some of the stuff (like how to read EKGs, etc.) and with your 15 year history of working med-surg, it will be easier for you.

I would certainly like to hear other's opinion on this. I'm sort of in the same situation myself.

We use Techni-care in our OR quite a bit. Very effective and I love the fact that it's a very versatile cleaner too.

I disagree. Smaller O.R.'s often do not have first assistants, which means if you scrub, you will often have to first assist and scrub at the same time which is very difficult for a new nurse. Surgeries usually take longer in teaching hospitals, which is less hectic for new nurses. Like it or not, large teaching hospitals are the best place for new nurses. You have the most resources there. I've been in both, and some smaller ORs do have first assistants. Where I work at, they are in *every* surgical area from the main OR, ambulatory surgery, to the endovascular lab, and even some of the L&D OR suites. The nurses in smaller OR's make excellent resources. So as a nurse in a smaller OR, you won't always be without resources. And even in large teaching hospitals, your resources go home after 4:00pm.

I'm in currently in the same boat myself and I've decided that maybe going to a smaller OR would be a good thing for me. If in the end it doesn't work out for you at the large teaching hospital, lots of smaller ORs are hiring nurses.

I've been a nurse for 7 years, but I'm currently new to the OR doing the 6 month RN internship. My time in the internship is up in January and I don't know what specialty to choose. What specialty are you in and how did you know it was right for you?

I worked on a surgical stepdown unit for 7 months and just recently started the OR internship. What I love the most about the OR is that the staff is friendly, they all say hello and take time to learn your names and introduce you to surgeons. Another thing I like about the OR is hat I have more time to spend with my family and friends and not working weird 4-5 12 hr shifts every week. As for job opportunities, there are lots for OR nurses, but the same could be said for nursing in general. You could work in PACU or even become a CRNA. You could become a RNFA (RN First Assistant Scrub) or get certification as a CNOR to get more money. I personally think that the idea of having critical care to have a good nursing career is so false.

It depends on where you posted your resume on the internet. Most hospitals like for you to fill out applications on their website instead of places like monster.com.

Chesterfield and Midlothian which are both outside of Richmond (about 15 mins or so) are both pretty safe areas. I've got friends there and they love it.

I knew of a hospital somewhere that I knew for sure paid back new grad student loans, but I can't remember off the top of my head. I think it may have been the Bon Secours system. Not sure about relocation costs or new grad incentives, I don't recall any of the hospitals (Sentara, Bon Secours, or Chesapeake Health) offering that. But just check with the recruiter and talk to them just to be sure.

For the new grad RN, the starting pay is 18.50. As for what shift you work depends on what hospital you're at. Each hospital has different differentials. As for the CNA/LPN/RN, it depends on what program you go for. If you go for either RN or LPN, you can go for a CNA after a few months of being in the nursing program. And then there are some programs that offer an unlicensed nursing assistant position (which are like care partners). From my experience, CNA to RN would be much better.

Good luck to you guys!

About 4 months, I started working on a Surgical Stepdown unit as a new grad RN. The unit has been having a lot of management problems and is unable to keep a manager (we've gone thru 9 managers in 12 years). About a week ago, the unit got notice from the director that they will be moving the unit to a regular surgical floor. The current unit will be closed and 6 (instead of 9, the current number) beds (one pod) will only be open on the regular floor for surgical stepdown patients. What will happen job wise is that all the nurses and care partners can transfer to the regular floor with no guarantee that they will be taking care of the stepdown patients in the new stepdown pod. If we want to transfer to another unit, we can. This hasn't been the only time that something like this has happened to the unit, it's been moved to another unit before. The doctors are angry, our nurse manager who's leaving is angry, and I'm tired of management trying to find ways of closing us down. I've been thinking about switching to L&D regardless of what the outcome is. I'd like to hear from all of you if I should stay and fight this out or start looking for a new job?

At first you'd only be going maybe 3-4 times a week from about 8 or 9am until noon, 1, or maybe 2pm at the latest. As you get more into the program, you'll be doing more 8 hour days to get you prepared to working 8 hour shifts and because to be NLN certified they can't do more than 8 hours of teaching. Most of my classmates got jobs while they were still in school. I took a break, but I got a job pretty quickly when I started looking. One habit I do recommend is go, go, go to study groups. Pick a person to lead all the study groups and have a study group session for everything taught in class.

I graduated in May of 2005 from there and it's a good program. Everyone in my class passed boards. I will say this, if you do go there will be lots of changes. For one, it's the only program that asks for the students' input and they're constantly tweaking it. Sentara graduates have one of the best reputations around here.

I'm a former LPN (6 years) and a new grad RN.