tejon

I'm a palliative care NP and have been working for a short time as an outpatient consultant. I am now working in a hospital setting part-time and feel very underprepared. I am in a full practice state and will be expected to order or at least recommend opioids, PCAs, benzos for anxiety, and medications for patients on comfort care (so essentially hospice prescribing). Any good resources? I went through the CAPC stuff, but didn't feel like it gave good hands-on guidance for someone really unfamiliar.

Reading with great interest here as well. I have been working as an FNP for almost 2 years (Urgent Care), moving to Palliative Care in 2 months. I have experience with hospice, comfort care patients, and Oncology but am trying to get a good toolkit so I can learn as much as I can prior to starting.

What is an ALS light? Is that the same as a black light?

Nice set up! We have carts at each hospital with kits and exam supplies, so I won't be needing those. What are the goggles for?

What do you carry with you aside from the camera?

I'm finishing up training to be a SANE, and noticed everyone seems to have different things in their bags or backpacks. I'm trying to get things that I'll need together but was interested in what others find useful. Also, do you have a favorite bag?

I say go for it! With that kind of experience, you will do well as an NP. I'm 50 and will graduate with my FNP in May and have been told many times how much patients (and other providers) appreciate someone who has "life experience". Your plan sounds a lot like mine - keep on going well into my 70s.

I'm graduating as a DNP-FNP this May and am starting to look at potential jobs. I don't feel especially drawn to any specialty but keep hearing from many NPs and MDs that family practice can be difficult and draining. I'm currently working with a preceptor in Urgent Care, which has been pretty interesting so far, and there might be a kind of residency position available here in the near future. I'm wondering if urgent care experience would narrow my choices in the future. Is family practice somewhat like doing Med-Surg as a new grad? Not that it's necessary, but a lot of people are telling me it's an important starting point to gain experience as a new grad. Thoughts?

This is exactly how I formatted my resume. In my phone interview, the recruiter asked about school clinical experience and was interested in some of the populations I dealt with there, along with many questions about my experiences as a nurse. It makes sense, since the only predictors of my future abilities as an NP would be RN experience and whatever I was exposed to in my NP program. This is an interesting discussion!

Thanks to all who have commented so far. I just had a recruiter ask for my resume by next week (!!), so I'm working on it right now. It's interesting seeing points of view from many different people on what to include.

Yes to all - it was a huge project. I'll try to present it as such in my resume. Thanks!

The project was a depression follow up program for a family practice clinic. Would this be appropriate?

I'm about to graduate in May with a DNP and want to start the job search as an FNP soon. I'm not sure how to present myself as a soon-to-be provider, especially since I'll be brand new with no NP experience yet. Do I include clinical experiences ("clinical experiences in Pediatrics, Women's Health, Family Practice...") and if so do I include how many hours I did in each? I was also told by faculty to include my DNP project in my resume - unsure about whether this is a good idea or not. Any tips or help would be much appreciated. It's exciting and scary to look for work in a brand new specialty.

YES! I wouldn't mind a short and sweet orientation if I got the basics and could move from there. And no, not safe.

I worked as a CNA before nursing school and the experience was invaluable. It gave me a chance to work with patients directly and learn basic patient care, something that often isn't taught well in nursing school. I moved up to CNA2 while in nursing school and worked on a Med-Surg floor which added another level of experience. I would highly recommend this route.

"I'm allergic to wheat...but only that whole grain stuff. I can have white bread." "I'm allergic to Tylenol (and Ibuprofen, and aspirin, and...and...). Norco works really well." "Trazadone makes me sleepy." "Lactulose gives me diarrhea."

I'm surprised it wasn't required for your job in the ED. I took it straight out of nursing school so I could beef up my resume a bit in a difficult job market. It wasn't easy, but I got through it just fine. I would definitely take it in your case - it will give you good training in rhythms and what a code looks like in progress.

Yikes. That's definitely worse than my current orientation. I have almost 3 years Med-Surg experience and got a job in Oncology. I was given three weeks orientation with three patients assigned to me on my first night, two to my preceptor. When I asked to shadow the next night so I could ask questions, I was assigned three patients again and shadowed my preceptor with her one patient for less than an hour before I had to see to my other patients. It doesn't really feel like an orientation.

I wanted to find out about other nurse's experiences with orientation after working as an RN for several years. Right now I'm in the middle of a very difficult orientation and wondering if I'm expecting too much from my new employer or if I'm right to be concerned about how things are being handled. How long was your orientation to a new position? If it was a new specialty, was that orientation longer? Were you assigned patients immediately when you started orientation? Were you given a chance to shadow a preceptor before caring for patients?

Why can't patients have medical emergencies when I'm around? It's like they don't want me to experience any excitement at all. Be nice to your nurse. We decide how much of that dose of dilaudid your doctor ordered gets accidentally squirted on the floor. I wonder why everyone is allergic to tramadol, Tylenol, ibuprofen, and toradol these days? Yes, we are placing bets on your ETOH level. And I wouldn't pull that foley out if you ever want to cough with confidence again. Be nice to nurses. They're the ones that keep the doctors from accidently killing you.

I had a panel interview for a position I really wanted on Friday. I had a pretty dry throat, so I sipped water throughout the questions. At the end of the interview, I asked about the unit: the culture, the people, the overall work environment. The day manager piped up that this was the best unit with the best nurses in the whole hospital. As I took a sip, the night manager asked if she'd ever worked on another unit. Her response? "No." Everyone laughed. And I...did a spit take. Water all over the table. Thankfully, everyone in the room just laughed again. It must not have bothered anyone - I just accepted the job!

I once asked a very confused patient where he thought he was. "In a casino somewhere." "No, sir, you're in a hospital." "&^#%!" Same patient, another day: "Do you know why you're here?" "I was riding on a horse. I fell off the horse......BAD HORSE!" I'll admit after a while I ended up asking this patient orientation questions just to hear his answers!

We change tubing every 96 hours as well.

I don't understand the rationale, either. Our Diabetes Educator has always been adamant that long acting insulin is *always* given, regardless of CBGs or labwork. Giving the SSI and not long acting insulin would just allow for more swings in blood sugar.

I work nights on a Medical Specialities/Tele unit. We usually have 5 patients, occasionally going up to 6. It's a small hospital so there's no step down or progressive care unit - we handle anything and everything outside of actual ICU patients.