Jasel

It happened to me recently. They cancelled me on March 9 when I had maybe about a month left. But they changed their mind like 4 days later.

If it was a nurse or a tech, I'd try other methods first like maybe having a calm discussion but for doctors?? Just report them to your manager. Chances are nothing is going to happen anyway. Every facility I've worked at pretty much everyone was considered more expendable than the MDs. I've seen a facility ask an attending to not come back once, because so many of the nurses hated them. But that was one time in 10 years of nursing. Fortunately, most of the doctors I've worked with are great people. Unfortunately, however at most facilities they're kind of like cops and the nurses are civilians in terms of the authority they hold. They can do whatever they want to the nurses, treat us however they want, and they're usually just going to get away with it. And they know it. One thing I've found that works pretty good is avoidance. Unless it's related to patient care I won't interact with the MD on any level, not even to say hello when passing in the hallway. I find it helps with my own peace of mind and makes them easier to deal with.

Every agency I've been with, I heard about from other nurses I worked with. And the one travel contract I took I made sure I did my research before applying with them. Not to say all the ones you see online are shady but you're weeding through some garbage.

It really depends on where you plan on working. I live in Chicago and from what I've seen it's not hard to find ER jobs. For new grads or foreign nurses. I've worked with plenty of both at every hospital I've been at. Also not too sure about competitiveness. It certainly doesn't reflect pay when it comes to travel as ER nurses tend to get offered the least compared to most other specialties per assignment.

The ER I'm currently contracted with assigns 4 - 6 patients. 2 being hallway patients. I've heard when extremely busy you can have 7 or 8 but apparently that's very rare. Also before bringing the patient to a bed the techs are starting IVs, ordering, and sending labs before they get to my bed. Patients who are completely worked up, dispoed, waiting to go to the floor, etoh, waiting for discharge papers, etc can be moved to the hallway to make room for new patients. Rinse and repeat. I also find another problem is it takes too long to transport patients to the floor. Doesn't seem to matter if it's only techs, if there's transport available, or a combination. That seriously slows things down. Could also be a staffing issue. Maybe not enough providers?

It can be. I really think it just depends on the individual and their particular circumstances. For me the material wasn't hard so much as my procrastinating and lazy study habits. That made getting my LPN, ADN, and finally Bachelor's much "harder" and more stressful than they had to be. For others it's the material itself. And for some it's not the material or bad habits but they're juggling kids, job, marriage issues, sick parents, bills, etc on top of that. Or a combination. I knew one woman who failed out of the program 3 times because they couldn't pass a mandatory math test in the first semester but she was getting A's and B's on everything else. Everyone's situation is different. If you find yourself having an easy time of it then just be grateful. I'm pretty sure if I look back I can think of a few students who didn't seem to have much of an issue with nursing school at all. I just think in a sea of complaining they weren't going to talk about how smoothly everything was going for them ?.

It depends on a lot of things. What type of jobs you're applying for, the area, the demand for specialties, etc. If you're in the Chicago area I'd recommend just applying and re-applying. If you're in an area where there's not as much demand you might have to be a bit flexible in terms of where and when you're willing to work. Also have you gotten any feedback from the jobs you've applied to??

The only hospitals I would avoid are Jackson Park and Roseland but I'm not even sure they have NICUs. With 3 years experience it depends on the hospital but I imagine you'd be making $32-$35. If you do agency you can make around $45 - $52. I'd recommend finding what area you think you'd like to live in and then looking at the job opportunities from there on out. Figure out if you can walk, need to commute, or if you have a car can drive. And as for a car it's really up to you. I've lived in the suburbs most of my life and just don't feel comfortable not having one. I could also take the bus to my job, get a Lyft/Uber, or walk for 35 minutes if I wanted (I don't, and probably never will lol). So again the car is up to you, but make sure wherever you live has most of what you need in walking distance (grocery store, public transportation, pharmacy, etc). Most places you want to go you can use public transportation. But also keep in mind public transportation doesn't all run 24/7 here and sometimes certain routes are only on certain days so do your research in that area too. Hope the move goes smoothly :)

If the situation had escalated and they wanted to leave I would have spoken up, or at least asked the MD why we needed to keep them. But once they brought them back he assessed and discharged two of them within 10 minutes (one was a female the other a male btw) and ran the etoh on the other female patient. Never heard them complain and once the Blood alcohol level came back I saw a note for her on the tracking board "move to the main" and the MD came back to speak with her. That's when I left. Next time I see him I'm going to ask him about it. He's a pretty laid back and approachable MD.

Thanks for the responses and I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who thought that whole thing seemed off. I could try asking the MD next time I see him.

So I was in Triage the other night and there was a pretty bad MVC. I think there were 6 accident victims total and we got the 3 least injured. Since triage was slow, there were two of us and we had 4 empty beds in our triage waiting area so we took the patient's from EMS. All of them had stable vitals, were ambulatory, no LOC, wore seat belts. None of them had been driving and all had been drinking (they were all 22 or 23 so legal age). The police were on scene. They had some slight abrasions we put bacitracin on and that was basically it. Now here is my concern. I could tell these guys wanted to leave because one of them had a brother (the driver I think) who went to another hospital. Charge nurse was a bit adamant that they couldn't leave (to me and the other nurse, not the patients). So not a huge shock they abscond when we were basically expected to watch them and she gets upset, but turns out they stepped out for a smoke and security basically brings them back in and watches them. She gets the attending back there to assess the patients after a couple of minutes, two of whom he discharges immediately. One he decides to draw an alcohol level on and move her to the main after it comes back positive. I'm not sure what the plan was after that since my shift was over at that point and my mind clocked out about the same time. The only thing I can think of them doing was running more tests, treating her as an ETOH and keeping her until she sobered up or got a ride, or a combination. Or maybe getting her etoh as an excuse to keep her to run more tests?? Because before he ordered the alc on her he had to have seen she was ambulatory and cognizant. And why just her and not the other two?? The whole situation just seemed weird to me. Where I am once the girl's blood alcohol came back he couldn't just discharge her. (Blood alcohol was like 250). Now once security brought them back after they went outside, they stayed with no problems, at least not by the time I left. But earlier they had clearly wanted to leave to check on their friend. Even if the doctor had seen them and wanted to run tests they would have signed out AMA. I guess I'm wondering if we had any type of legal basis to hold them to begin with? If they had been more adamant about leaving after security brought them back, I don't know how comfortable I'd have felt keeping them there. And I'm usually pretty aware of which patients just can't up and leave and which ones can. Just looking for some feedback. Maybe there's something obvious I'm missing.

I didn't work while I was working on my ADN. Fortunately I had my LPN and had been working for a few years. I was able to live off the money I had saved up, plus I lived with my parents rent free, no wife/kids, etc.

I've gone to nursing school with people in their 40's, 50's, and even 60's. I've also worked with plenty of nurses who started later as a second career in their 50s. I worked with one nurse in her 50s who had recently become a nurse after being a bus driver for 3 decades. Your age doesn't really matter.

Well I'm single, no girlfriend, no kids, and most of my friends are either moving off or getting married/starting families so I'm afraid I can't offer any wisdom in that regard lol. Balancing my life isn't a problem so much as getting one

Well I'm not L&D but I know it's a pretty in-demand specialty, especially for travelers. I imagine wherever you go people will be used to dealing with travel and agency nurses anyway. I've been treated fine at any hospital I've done agency, contract, or per diem with with (I'm ER). Once you start working and getting used to a new environment it will be like any other place with small differences. And if you don't like it a particular place, it's only for a few months.