dollphyn

If you are that unhappy, you definitely need to find something else. I am in the same boat as you are. I am just over a year as a RN. I have been out 2 months due to a critical illness and am now trying to get back in the groove of things. I am on a small unit that we night shifters used to have 14 patients, 2 nurses, one tech, and now are 10 patients, 2 nurses and no tech. It is horrible!! Not to mention, that me coming back, I have more experience and am going to be charge nurse tomorrow night. I am like you, I sometimes just want to cry when I am at work. I get nervous before I go into work and even after knowing I have to come back. Needless to say, I have applied for another position on another floor that I have floated to in my first year of nursing. I heard from the recruiter on Friday, but was at work, so hopefully will hear from him this week. From your post it sounds like you are very unhappy and you really should not be at a place that makes you so unhappy. I would have left my floor 6 months ago, but I had a year contract. Now, that it is gone, I feel so free. My advice is, if you do go to work, continue to give your best care possible, so they have no reason to say you are being insubordinate and find somewhere else that would be a fit for you. Not all nights are like the one you have been having, but most are. I just try to stay positive and remember the nights that were good, that is really the only reason why I would come back the next night!! I wish you all the luck in the world!! Take care of yourself.

Definitely apply now. I applied back in April 2008 and found out they were giving me a job on the floor I still work today. I started June 2nd 2008, but did not take NCLEX until June 17, 2008. If you do not pass, at my hospital, they keep you, but you will not be a 'GN', but you will be a nurse tech and get paid accordingly. Graduate nurses start out at like 21 an hour and nurse techs get paid about 15 an hour. You will stay a nurse tech until you pass the NCLEX. I had a lady that did not take the NCLEX until like August 2008 (even though she started on June 2nd), so she was a nurse tech until she passed. Good luck with your new career!!!

Unfortunately it does happen. I had a girl that was pregnant, but she was due in the summer. So, she finished third semester, then had the baby like in June or July when there was a break. For me it was a different story. I found out I was pregnant with my son in Feb, and he was not due until Oct. Well Spring of 2006, my son made me very sick, but I was able to finish my third semester, and then had to take off. They changed how you get back in, so I took the Fall off, and tried to get back in all of 2007. Finally in Spring 2008, I was able to get back into 4th semester and finish. Now a grad for year and my RN almost a year. I also worked full time as a tech and secretary going through the first 3 semesters 3-11 schedule and then 4th semester I worked 16 hour shifts on Sat and Sun. You haven't started yet and it will be that much harder for you to leave your newborn to be cared for possibly by strangers (don't know your home situation). My husband was able to stay with our son, so we were able to forego day care especially while he was little. Nursing school is a full time job. I was one of the students that my ever waking moment was spent with my head in a book. I had a very hard time with learning the NCLEX "hospital" way of life to pass the test. You have to put nursing school first and that is so hard when you have a newborn that really should be first. Before you decide what you want to do, you really should tell your boyfriend and talk about your decisions together. Good luck to you.

Also in Dallas, Texas, at least at the hospital I work for. I was a part of the June 2008 new grad preceptorship and we had at least 250 new grads. Don't know yet for this year, but do know they have been recruiting for this year's internships. (Jan, June, Aug/Sept)

Texas.....Days is 4-5:1 and nights used to be as many as 7:1, but they have taken some of the rooms to make surgical rooms, so now nights is 5:1 and no tech. Day shift gets a tech, but they leave at 3:00pm. This is a post-op surgical floor with some mix of medical at times.

I had to leave my final semester d/t an unplanned pregnancy in Fall of 2006. When I tried to return in Spring 2007, they told me they lost my paperwork. Then when I tried to get back in for Fall 2007, they said that since I had been out more than 1 semester, I had to prove myself and redo all of my skills labs and pass them. So I spent the whole month of Oct. 2007 redoing the skills. I then applied again for the Spring 2008 and was accepted in on the first day of class!!! I had to jump through so many hoops, that my head started to spin. Regarding boards and forgeting things- It was hard on me at the very first especially the first test. We are to make a 78 or higher to pass that time and I made like a 74 on the first test, so I failed. I then got a 78, so I was going in the right direction. By the end of the semester and with HESI which was our final grade I ended up with a B for my grade. I did a whole lot of questions on study CD's, in books, online, etc. More than I ever did in any of my other semesters. For Hesi, I did the Hesi book and CD. For boards, I used Saunders and NCLEX 3000 and 3500, which they now have like over 4000. I pretty much had to teach my brain again the way the questions are supposed to be answered and leave my feelings or what happens in the real world at bay. HESI and NCLEX to me were completely different beasts, but can be accomplished with determination. I even say today that is the word for me is that I had the determination to get back in, finish, and pass the tests I needed to become the RN I am today. Good luck with the Army and nursing school. Just keep moving and know that there is a light at the end of the long black tunnel!!!!:wink2:

On my floor, which is a post-op floor, we do hourly rounding until 2200 and then every two hours after that. I do not wake my patient and ask anything if they are asleep. I quietly walk in the room, check to make sure everything is right, breathing, IV bags going, PCA number for my charting (if they have one) and then I walk back out. Most of the time the patient does not even hear me. I would think, waking them up every 1 hour to ask about pain or to let them know you are rounding especially at night would make patient satisfaction go down, not up..... We have up to 7 patients per nurse on my floor. I can't imagine having 9 and trying to round every one hour. It is hard enough to do every two hours and do charting.

My floor has just taken over the bariatric service. I really enjoy watching Discovery Health especially about the journey of people who are morbidly obese and are seeking help. There was this one episode that discussed this very issue. I think the person weighed over 1000 pounds and had to lose a lot of weight at least 500 pounds or more before doctors would attempt to do the gastric bypass. It has to with how large this person was and how safe it would be put them under with anesthesia. Unfortunately this person did not make it, although did lose like 300 pounds. So this person was considered "End stage untreatable obesity" because they were unable to do anything to save them because they were already at the point of no return. Their body just could not handle the dramatic change it had to go through to be able to get the surgery. Also many of these patients, do not realize that it is a life style change. They are so used to eating large quantities of food, that they can't get over the hand to mouth movement. It is an addiction that they have to learn to control. Unfortunately many of the people that they talked about were considered "cheaters" even after having the gastric bypass and subsequently are larger than they were before the surgery.

I went looking around on Google to see what I could find. On one of the websites that was a MD website, regarding the eye, drainage and discharge were used interchangeably. They even gave a listing of all the names of different eye disorders and used both terms. I guess it would depend on the body part that we are discussing. I wouldn't think a lady partsl "discharge" would be considered a drainage, unless it was something abnormal. Even then, when talking about that I would say, the pt has a greenish lady partsl discharge, not drainage.

I guess it really depends on when it was taken. On my floor, the night shift tech will take the blood sugars from 0630-0700 before going off shift. We night shift nurses, do not cover with our sliding scale at that time, but tell the day shift nurses the fingerstick or they see it on our white board. Our trays do not come until 7:30-8:00, so it is easier to have it ready for when day shift does their assessments, to already have the sugars and can cover them at that time. This works for the AC and HS patients with our sliding scale. Now if your patient is every 6 hours or every 4 hours, it really depends when the fingerstick was taken. I had a patient that their fingerstick was at 0400, so depending on what it was, I gave insulin per our sliding scale orders. I didn't hold off and give it to the day shift to do. I did tell the day shift, this what it was and this is how much I gave. If the fingerstick was taken at midnight, you would think that if your sliding scale or any orders regarding insulins, the night shift nurse, would cover especially if the sugar is over 200 or depending on the case. At my hospital, we cover for over 120 on diabetics. My advice, would be to find out what the policy is on your floor or what it is at the place you work for. Managers and supervisors are there for a reason and hopefully can help you with the policy.

On my floor there are three of us that started back in June. As soon as we were off orientation, they started floating us, even though we were told that we would not be floated for six months. My manager hired too many people for night shift and so one of us gets floated a night. Last week, I was floated 2 out of the 3 days I was at work. Yes, I am now 7 months out, but it has not gotten any easier. I have to stay another 5 months due to contract, but the other new grads are thinking about leaving and just paying back the money we got to pay for NCLEX or whatever other fee we have to pay for breaking contract. At our hospital the philosophy of other floors is to give the float nurse the worst patients. They go around and ask which patients do you not want and they give them to the float nurse, no matter if that float is a new grad or seasoned nurse. We have complained, turned the floors in that do this, and it seems like it falls on deaf ears. Needless to say, my first seven months have not been as I expected and I have already started looking elsewhere since management does not follow through with what they say. Good luck to you.

I used the website Google and found some information about Burkitt's Lymphoma. The first website that came up was Wikepedia, it even had some pictures of children that had the Burkitt's lymphoma. My mother died of Non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, so I knew that if I googled Burkitt's some info may come up like it did for me when my mom was dying of another form of lymphoma which affects adults usually. I hope this helps you.

this website that i am sending you the link to has free nclex questions that really helped me during school and after. it is the nclex 3500, i know there is a new one out there with more questions, but hey the site is free and it has the dreaded multiple answer sata questions!!!! good luck to you with 4th semester. http://nursing.goivytech.net/nclexrn3500/mainmenu.do;jsessionid=d1b1d1b9a342c33c79e73221c8230945

Mine came via email, but in my junk email folder. I really do not remember what addy it came from because I deleted it after I got my license. Just make sure before you trash anything, you are checking to make sure it is not the ATT. Also, make sure you print out everything that it says to print out. I made the boo-boo of not printing out the one paper that was desperately needed which said ATT at the top. I had all the other papers, but they needed that one especially before I could test. They made me go and get it the day of testing. Luckily, there was a nice security guard at the Dallas location that printed it out for me so I could test. Just make sure to print each attachment and not to forget any of them so you don't have to go through what I did day of the test! I actually think I had two different emails, that had different attachments in each, so definitely be checking that junk mail!!!!

Back in May, we took the Hesi on Wednesday May 7, 2008 and I got my ATT on May 28, 2008 so about three weeks. Some of my classmates did not receive theirs until June and one of them did not get theirs until July, but that was due to ECC boo-boo. I tested on June 17 because it was at the Dallas location on that date. Good luck to you with the upcoming NCLEX!