kythe

I am currently in an Alternative to Discipline program for a petty crime. After I am finished with the Board's monitoring program and have a multi-state license again, can I move to another state unencumbered? Or if I apply for a license in another state, will they look at my background and want to start over with monitoring for the same issue?

I worked in long-term care for over 10 years before getting a job in a family practice office. It turned out to be a very good move. I used to be athletic when I was younger, and felt natural at a job which required physical activity. Over the years I slowed down, began to fatigue easily, and started walking with a distinct limp. A few months ago I was diagnosed with osteoarthritis in my left hip which will lead to a hip replacement. I can no longer stand for long periods of time and have significantly less core body strength, but this does not affect my current job. I work in an office where my primary duties are "desk" work, like returning calls to patients, discussing results, medication refills, and referrals and prior auths. It isn't completely inactive. Nurses assist with some office procedures and sometimes triage walk-ins or emergencies. When Medical Assistants are busy or if there is a call off, I room patients. But a doctor's office job is physically less stressful than floor nursing, and the hours are better too.

Hello, I've been an LPN for 13 years. Most of my experience is various forms of long-term and sub-acute care. My adult daughter lives in another state and I have considered moving to be closer to her. I still live in my hometown, and have never moved any real distance. The idea scares me because of the unknowns. How do you get a job and set up housing from a distance? I recently put out a resume online and by coincidence, was contacted by a recruiter for a travel agency. I've never seriously considered it before. So this may be a dumb question because I know this isn't the purpose of travel nursing, but I'm in unfamiliar territory here. Is it possible to take an assignment with the intention of permanently staying in that place? I know the job and housing are temporary, but it would be a way to get my foot in the door of another community.

I'm an LPN and burned out of long-term care after several years. I kept working only because I need to support my family and that is my job skill. LTC also pays well for LPN's, but in terms of personal satisfaction money can be a poor motivator. But recently I started with a home health agency, and very suddenly I remembered again why I've always wanted to be a nurse. I like spending tuime with people and being able to get to know them. Now I'm not just passing pills or rushing through treatments. I'm helping *people* (not just "patients") maintain the highest standard of living they can while still living in their own homes. This is personally rewarding. :)

Probably 8 years ago, I spent time at a Planned Parenthood as a Medical Assistant through a temp agency. I loved it. At the time, MA's did the back office work - rooming and vitals, fingersticks for rh and hemoglobin testing, prep for pap smears, etc. LPN's worked in the post-abortion recovery room. But since I became an LPN, they seem to have stopped hiring LPNs and gone exclusively to MA's. Many offices do this for financial reasons, but it is disappointing. I applied for a job anyway, hoping to get in with my past experience at PP as well as past experience as an MA. But now I'm overqualified. Everything about the hiring process is done online now, so its hard to talk to a real person and I kept getting redirected.This is my personal experience - its still worth applying in your area if that's what you want to do. This is what you may face, though.

Ok, I tried to clean out my pm's - something I think I haven't done since joining the site years ago. Maybe I should stop second-guessing myself based on what random people on the internet say. I should probably hang out here more, I would get a better education.

I once heard a cell phone ring with a certain tone, and found myself following the sound to another room to see who's pulse ox alarm was going off!

Hello everyone! I've been an LPN in LTC for 6 years now and though I've been trained as a doula, I have never worked in L&D. So I have a question for all of you more experienced people. :) I was recently in an online discussion with some people over the issue of clearing a newborn's airway. Someone asked why doctors hold babies by the ankles and spank them. Most people replied that it is the best way to drain fluid from the lungs and clear their airway. I wrote what I *thought* was a rationale I remembered from nursing school, but I was completely torn apart over it. I thought this hasn't been a common practice since the 1950's and 1960's because dangling babies causes whiplash and spinal problems since they need to be supported. Also, spanking their bottom doesn't stimulate the lungs - it only surprises the baby. The lungs aren't empty sacs that fill with air, or water to be drained by simply being tipped over. The alveoli look more like broccoli branches, and the best way to clear them is through vigorous rubbing on the chest and back, and oral suctioning. And this is all I've seen at the hospital births I attended during nursing school. But it seems the practice of holding a baby upside down and spanking it is still common. What are your experiences?

I went to nursing school with one thing in mind, and that was to become a Certified Nurse-Midwife. I haven't made it past LPN though, and I'm actually considering a different route to midwifery. Working in long-term care for the last 5 years isn't where I wanted to end up, and its taken its toll on me.

Not as a nurse, but as a Medical Assistant working in a doctor's office, I had a couple of celebrity encounters. One was a well known author, but he was a jerk. He would come in self-advertising his books, and he tended to assume everyone kissed the ground he walked on. In reality, no one looked forward to his visits due to his arrogance. Another was a local celebrity who actually seemed a little surprised that I recognized him. He was very humble and down-to-earth. I actually felt bad after I told him I knew who he was (I was a big fan) since he seemed a bit embarrassed.

I'm not sure what you mean by "direct-entry CNM". I've always considered direct entry and CNM to be the two different routes to midwifery. Direct entry means a program that teaches midwifery without requiring nursing school first. CNM is obviously the nursing path. Even though I'm an LPN, I've considered going into a direct entry path because I want to attend home births. I'm not interested in working in a hospital. I don't know what CNM programs require in terms of previous experience. Direct entry midwifery requirements depend a lot on the legality in your state. In my state, DEM applicants are required to observe a number of births before starting on the next step of training, the active participation phase. Some people meet this requirement by shadowing a midwife in her practice. Another way is to become a doula and attend births as a labor support companion. Doula training is very useful for learning the non-medical side of labor support. Working as a doula gives you the opportunity to witness a lot of different styles of labor and pain management, births attended by various doctors and midwives, and you would have first hand experience with common interventions and complications of labor. I went through a doula training program and hope to work as a doula, but I haven't been able to adapt my schedule yet to being on-call 24/7.

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend anyone. I've met people who really believe this, and from several of the comments in this thread it seemed that way here too. Maybe I am taking things too seriously. I'm not trying to scare you off from posting though. I'm sorry if I had that effect.

Sorry, you don't have "hard evidence" of these things. This is still opinion. You can't measure "mean, crazy, and stupid people", though someone could do a study on drunks and drug addicts. But no real study has ever supported the idea that the moon affects people's behavior. I'm too much into astronomy to let this kind of thing pass. It bothers me when educated people believe stuff like this. But speaking of legends, some say its the new moon or "dark of the moon", not the full moon, that causes people's behavior to be unpredictable. It's all in which stories you choose to believe.

I think the full moon issue is just a figure of speech. On busy days I hear people say, "It must be a full moon" without even looking to see that we are nowhere near that time of the month. People just assume because of their preconceived notions.

I recently fainted while on a nature walk with a group, and a nearby med student checked my pulse and asked me basic questions to assess my orientation before letting me stand up again. Someone else gave me a couple of water bottles, one to drink and one to cool off my face and neck. Someone else drove me home in case I was still dizzy and lightheaded. But beyond basic interventions like that, I don't see what else would be appropriate in a non-life threatening situation. If you really believe the person needs more than just some friendly assistance, you probably should be calling them an ambulance. Maybe the person who "looks sick" is struggling with a chronic illness but knows how to handle their symptoms. Or maybe they are having an acute illness but they've already been to the doctor and don't need interference from strangers. You never know what a person's background is, but it also isn't necessarily just anyone's business.

I've learned over time that it is best to keep things like this to myself whenever possible. Don't lie about your issues if it directly comes up, but you can stick to a "don't ask don't tell" personal policy. I've been an LPN for 5 years now, and suffer from Major Depressive Disorder. I have had psychotic episodes when under a lot of stress. But there is no one at work who knows this. I recently took a medical leave of absence and my manager found out in the course of things that I have depression, and fortunately she was very supportive. But I've been working there for 2 years before this even came up. I remember being asked to declare medications I'm on in some of the paperwork when applying for nursing school, but many people are on anti-depressants and it isn't an automatic disqualifier. They don't need to know the severity of a diagnosis (I wouldn't even write the diagnosis if they don't ask for it), especially if your problems are controlled and it won't affect your work. I think they are mostly looking to weed out problems like drug addiction, especially since you will be working a lot with medications. Mental illness is a grey area when it comes to disabilities protection. I have worked with other nurses who have various mental illnesses, there are no laws preventing people from working. But you do have to beware of stigmas however, which can be very real even in the health profession.

I know it's been a while since I posted here, but I thought I would give an update. I used up my paid LOA and am currently looking for another job in a different specialty. There isn't much out there for LPNs aside from nursing homes, but I have seen opportunities in clinics, group homes, and outpatient psych centers. It wouldn't pay as well, but that is no longer a top priority for me. I've just come to a point (after 5 years) where I can't do nursing homes anymore. I'm tired of the heavy workload and frequent criticism with little encouragement from management, as well as being in a field where I get close to people who decline and pass away, rather than recuperate. I have found myself completely drained, rather than emotionally nourished by this job, so its time to move on.

I know this post is years old, but what is a "mermaid"?

I work in a nursing home. After making repeated med errors on the job, I chose to use up my vacation time with some time off to try to pull myself together. Unfortunately, it's not working. I have no desire to go back to work. The nursing home I'm in is actually a pretty nice one and I've been there 2 years. It's not that I want to work in a different nursing home, I'm just tired of doing this altogether. When I became a nurse, I had dreams of going for RN and getting an advanced degree in midwifery. But I got stuck somewhere along the way, and now I'm years away from even going back to school for RN since I would have to repeat a lot of the prerequisites. I would like to do something different, but I feel like I have nowhere to go. Nothing else pays as well as nursing home work, but I hate to feel like I'm in this only for the money. So how do you get out of a rut, in terms of attitude toward work?

Great thread, thanks for bumping :) If I wasn't a nurse, I'd be a midwife (and I probably will be someday). Other dream jobs: Astronomy - my brother majored in it but I thought I wasn't good enough at math and physics. Paleantologist Book store owner, or metaphysics/new age shop owner

I paid out of pocket for prereqs that I took individually (usually 1 class per semester), and I never totalled what that cost. Once I entered nursing school full time, my loans totalled $12,000 for the two semesters I went before earning my LPN in 2007. Tuition itself was a fraction of that cost, but as the sole financial provider for my family, I needed loans to cover living expenses as well. It was completely worth it, since I have more than doubled my salary and have a real career. My career mistake was becoming a Medical Assistant many years ago. I went to a private vocational school for only 9 months and wracked up $12,000 in debt that I still haven't entirely paid off yet. The only thing I had to show for it was a $9.50/hr job, no different in pay than many careers that do not require "college" education at all.

Even if employers don't use credit information against you, it still seems way too personal to be any of their business. There are laws against prospective employers asking questions about your family or religious practices. I don't see how it is okay for them to know every payment you owe and to who, and the general state of your financial affairs. Your credit report tells them which credit cards you have and how much you owe on them, whether you own a house, late payments, what other companies have checked your credit (basically what investments you have considered). This is at least as personal as other issues that are legally considered off limits for employers. I've never had a credit check in association with a job, but it has always bothered me that it is possible.

I do think first aid training is a good idea for everyone, but I doubt it would affect a person's ability to deal with seizures, or many other emergencies for that matter. Teachers have a great amount of pressure put on them over students' grades, behavior, etc, and all with increasingly lower budgets to work with. On top of that, many schools no longer employ school nurses at every school, replacing some of the nurses' duties with unlicensed, uncertified "health aides". Considering all of this, blaming a teacher for the mismanagement of a student's health problems seems unreasonable.

I worked sub-acute for several months in a facility that split the unit into 3 halls, with one nurse having up to 20 pts each. When census was low it was alright, but things got difficult when there were a lot of issues going on at once. Sub-acute can turn acute quickly at times, so it isn't just routine med pass and treatments. With that set-up and each nurse having so many of their own patients, it is hard to help each other out when things get rough. My current facility generally has 35-45 patients on the subacute unit with 3 nurses. The way they are set up, two nurses split the floor for med pass and treatments. The third does admissions, discharges, taking doctor's orders, and helps in whatever other way needed. This seems to work well, and encourages more support and teamwork between each nurse. Subacute is always busy for everyone, but you get good experience with assessments, treatments, and general time management. I've seen several RN's get hospital jobs after a year in sub-acute.

I work four 8-hour night shifts per week. I've always been an "evening" person, so night is just an extention of that. It works out well for child care in my family too. As for truly adjusting to a new sleep schedule, that happened when I started taking sleeping pills. My problem is that I work too few nights to maintain a rhythm. 4 nights a week is pretty much half the time, so I feel like I'm doing swing shifts. If I worked 5 nights a week, I could probably adjust completely to nights without needing sleeping pills.