littlepeach

I worked a year L&D before NICU and am thankful for that experience. If you have the chance then it is worth wait. Especially if you are a new nurse. I had two years surgical before L&D, so to each his own...

although i do work NICU, i don't deal with ECMO. my bff's baby is on the heart transplant list d/t hypoplastic left heart and recently took a nose dive in his stability. put him on ECMO until he gets his new heart..but not sure if he can hold out. what kind of a window are we looking at that he will possibly be able to be weaned off? i know this is a last ditch effort. he's going on 24 hours now worth of ECMO support and still waiting for his heart. i know pre-surgical ECMO is usally the beginning of the end. Any expert opionion of my fellow nurses would be greatly appreciated.

The hospital offers the vaccine, but noone is required to get it. All of our nurses have received seasonal flu vax, but most are choosing not to be vaccinated against h1n1. Personal choice. All babies and moms must be isolated for 48 hours when a mom has flu like symptoms.

Can have it at the station as long as it stays out of site. But most of us drink as little as possible so we don't have to go to the bathroom.

CAN I GET A HELL NO!

Memorial Medical Center in Savannah, GA. We need nurses soooo bad.

we are in the process of picking a few new nicu warmers. we have looked at new giraffes and pandas. however our unit is on the fence about having them with neopuff (t piece oxygen) or just regular bag hookups. do any of ya'll have any particular preferences? or do ya'll just deal with whatever you have? a few of the nurses have had some major opinions both ways.

I have mastered the skill of forgetting most people after discharge. It took me a long time, but in the end it's the best for my family and my all around mental health, so I doubt they'll remember you. What you can focus on is trying to be the best student possible while in the NICU and that would give them a great reason to remember you!!

When our census is down, Our people can be pulled anywhere a warm body is needed. Highly unsafe. We have all complained about this and it falls on deaf ears. Especially the nurses that have never worked in med/surg before. They still have to take a team of patients. But i have never seen a nurse get pulled to our unit before.

We had a 28 on a baby only 24 hours old. She had some weird endocrine disorder and it was still in the low 20's when we sent her home 3 weeks later. I think she's two now and on dialysis.

We don't even do couplets anymore. When we did, the most was 5. (And that was rare) Our well baby nursery handles the little ones and the moms have the opportunity of sending baby to nursery for the night so they can sleep.

And people wonder why we can't help but sometimes take our work home with us. I'm sorry. Hugs from GA

We have a hiring freeze as well. The hospital has been using agency nurses to fill in the gaps though, and I don't understand how that's cost effective. Why not pay the already employed nurses overtime? We are about to get our annual raises, but everyone is anticipating that it won't be much and blame it on "patient satisfaction scores" rather than personal performance.

So my best friend's baby has hypoplastic left heart syndrome. He survived his first surgery on Thanksgiving. He's doing fantastic. His mom is awesome. He is scheduled for his second surgery next month. Although I am a NICU nurse, I don't care for heart babies in my hospital. Anyone with any suggestions about how I can prepare her for his second hospital stay? She is well informed and calm. Is there anything different with the recovery from the second surgery she should know. Dr's can only tell her so much, so I am turning to the experts for advice!!:heartbeat

We too take our own babes. Md's tend to mommy. We gown and glove and carry our babies to the warmers. I don't think OB doc should be leaving the mom either.