mintyRN

Hi, I've been on a vent case for a little over a year. I absolutely love it. I lucked out and got a sweet little girl with a wonderful supportive family. Some aren't so fortunate. I plan to stick with this for a while. It was a welcome change from everything else I had done in nursing. But beware, these little ones will steal your heart! Good luck.

I worked in a womens max security prison for a year. It was the hardest year of my life! Very sad cases. I am a softie and it was very difficult for me to adjust to the mentality of nursing inmates. You cannot take what they say to be true, you must have excellent assessment skills and work well under pressure. I was often the only nurse for 700 inmates. My family thought I was crazy and hated every minute I worked there. I was never physically harmed, but I was verbally abused often. I tried to be fair and consistent with my tx. I miss the excitement of it, but I don't think I would ever go back into that setting again.

Just wanted to add one thing. Make sure you have up to date scripts for those meds. If you do test positive you'll need proof that you were taking them under a doc's care.

One can be a good nurse without "caring deeply" for the pt. My experience in corrections showed me that. I had to provide care to child abusers, molesters, and murderers. Did I like these people? NO. I did provide them with the best possible nursing care though.

I also have attended several funerals of patients. I worked in dialysis at the time and I spent many hours with these patients a week. It was impossible not to get attached to them. The most memorable was a pt in her twenties. I cried like a baby with her family. From the families perspective it means alot. I lost my mom when I was 18. I remember being so touched by the nurses that came to her service.

Hi Jolly, I was in dailysis for 7 yrs in both acute and chronic settings. I also was told it was a critical care specialty. Critical care experience is very desirable in the acute setting, as the majority of patients are unstable or in ICU. As far as chronic, a strong background in med/surg is very helpful. I started out in chronic as a new grad, and I made it through, only because of experienced helpful nurses by my side. I enjoyed chronic, you get to know the patients well, you spend a lot of time teaching and interacting with patients which I loved. The patients can be very complicated and demanding though. I grew bored of the routine after 3 yrs put on, take off (kind of like an assembly line) and went to acutes. I got burned out for good working in the inpatient setting. Too much stress and long, long hrs due to taking call for emergency cases. As far as critical care nurses not cutting it, that's simply not true. It just depends on the individual. You either love or hate dialysis. I look back on my dialysis yrs with fondness, but I doubt I'll ever go back. Good luck.