TraumaRN11

Are you looking for a big hospital or small hospital? My advise is to stick with the non for profits. The level one trauma centers that I know of in Phoenix are Maricopa County, St. Joe's, Good Samaritan, John C. Lincoln. I work at John C. Lincoln and love it. It's a medium, non-profit hospital. We are also Magnet. Autonomy is greatly valued here and our nursing turnover is low. They majority of our staff are staff nurses not agency nurses. Since I've been working there it is rare that we even use agency nurses. Check it out at http://www.jcl.com As for pay, I "think" our new grads start around $23-$24. JCL is not the highest paid hospital and not the lowest. We do annual salary adjustments to keep up with what other hospitals are paying. Final advice: Interview at several hosptials and decide where you feel most comfortable. Go for lunch in the cafeteria and talk with other nurses not only about how they like it but what they feel other hospitals reputations are like.

I relocated from Chicago almost three years ago so I know exactly what you are going through. If you would like to do burns contact Maricopa County Hospital. They are the only burn center in Arizona (I think) and has the reputation as one of the best in the country. As for where to live, I advise taking a weekend trip here and driving around. My advise though is to not live south of I-10 or in central phoeinx. These are not good areas and have very high crime. For safety and affordability, try North Phoenix or North Glendale.

I'm a clinical teacher so these are mine! 1. Showing up late! 2. Dressing unprofessionally 3. Acting like you know more than I do. (You might but I have license with nursing experience and you don't!) 4. Cheating 5. Not asking questions 6. Not turning in assignments 7. Being rude 8. Complaining 9. Making excuses (just do it, I don't care what the excuse is)

I've never heard of this. However, we've all heard of something that works which contraindicates how it should be done. In this instance, it is an infection control issue and should not be tolerated. My only suggestion is that is our job to teach students how things SHOULD be done, not how others may do them.

Get out of nursing and find a new career! It's ok if nursing is not for you. At least you can say you tried it and it wasn't a good fit. Find out what you do like and do that. By staying in you will only become more miserable and make others around you unhappy. Trust me, everyone who works around you, including your patients, knows that you don't want to be there. Think about how your behavior is affecting them. Life is to short to be unhappy. Especially when your unhappines puts you at a higher risk of committing an error that could kill.

The most important thing in clinical is to get the exposure to as many patients' conditions or experiences as possible. Yes, this means even cleaning patient's who pooped and doing things such as inserting foleys! You'll be doing them as a nurse so you might was well start doing them now. (No, it's not just a nursing assistant's job) Also, ask your instructor to provide you with a variety of patients and disease processes. Another thing, ask other nurses on the floor to find you if they do anything interesting so you can observe. Even if you haven't learned the skill in school you can still watch and learn. By observing different things you'll find your niche and what speciality you'll want to enter into graduation.

If you really want the ER then go there. You don't want to waste time hating the Med/Surg floor and be miserable while you wait to transfer. However, in MY OPINION, I don't think new grads should start in the ER. I believe that the ER is not the place to teach new grads how to be a nurse. It's just too busy! As an ER nurse you need to be able to look at a patient and instantly have an idea of what's really wrong and the severity. For example, an experience nurse knows (in general) what a true heart attack patient looks like and how treat. I think that being in the ER is just too overwhelming for a new grad. In my ER we hire new grads but by experience I noticed that very few last. They usually transfer to the tele floors because "this is just too much". In fact, we hired four new grads and only 1 stayed. The turnover for new grads in the ER is very high so be prepared....

That was very funny! My favorite however is still "I'm allergic to all pain medications except Dilaudid". Unfortunately, I get that a lot!