Mr.RN-CDE

I make a dollar more an hour than I would if I worked the floor. That's it. No 75k, just a dollar for the certification.

"and believe me males do not have the monopoly on crudeness and explicit conversation" You got that right. I have at times found a double standard. One night "the girls" at the nursing station had a birthday party for a co-worker. She got a male nudie calendar, a phallic shaped lollipop, etc... Now if I had done something similar for the male CNA that I worked with, they would have been offended....

My wife graduated 5 years after me, and I would say things aren't better or worse. All nursing texts are behind the times. Meds change faster than publishers can update etc. But the basics are the same.

I can't see myself doing anything else. Yes, it is frustrating at times. The pts who just tell you what you want to hear and are obviously not doing what is best. But those are outweighed by the one pt who is dx'd with a BG of 1930 mg/dl, who now has an A1C of 5.9%. We're their cheerleaders, their support, their confidant. Like all of nursing it is very rewarding and very frustrating.

It is part of a good nurses job. A poor nurse will let the patient sit in their filth until a CNA can come and clean them up. I have no use for nurses who think that cleaning a pt is beneath them.

Call your reps. Bayer, Roche (AccuCheck), Abbott (freestyle) Johnson and Johnson (One Touch) all give out free meters. They keep us stocked. BD for supplies, syringes, pen needles, glucose tabs, education materials.

To be a diabetes nurse educator you have to become an RN. (although there are other practices RD, Pharmacy...that can get their CDE as well.) As much as I knew about diabetes going into nursing school, I didn't understand how diabetes interacted with other organ systems. So I worked Med/Surg for a year before I took a diabetes ed job. At the time I didn't want to, but now I am glad I did. It really helped me to understand all I was taught in nursing school. The new guidlines for taking the CDE exam require 2 years of nursing and 1000 hours of pt education, with at least 400 of those being in the year leading up to the exam. So it's kind of a catch 22, you have to get the job to get the certification, but you need the certification to get the job.

High blood sugars put in-patients at high risk for infection among other problems. This is a problem everywhere. Our team is struggling with this and trying to get docs to recognize what a serious problem hyperglycemia is. We have heard that under new Medicare guidlines, if hyperglycemia is not addressed it will effect reimbursment. I think that this will actually help. If it means dollars, docs and hospital administration will finally take hyperglycemia seriously.

they go to western state hospital for a couple days and maybe mary bridge, other than that its all in aberdeen. i was dx with diabetes 10 yrs ago. decided i needed a career change and went to nursing school to become a cde

Both my wife and I graduated from there. It's the only nursing program that I have been through so I don't have anything to compare it to. It's a good school. As far as clinical sites, the first quarter of the first year is spent in a nursing home. The rest is done in the local community hospital. They do offer a wide range of out-rotations so you get to see a lot of different aspects of nursing.

This forum is always about whether men should be nurses, etc etc etc.... Let's have some fun guys. Let's face it, we are working in a female dominated field. Many of us previously worked in a male dominated field. SO let's hear some stories. What has suprised you? What things do you see hear daily that you didn't expect? I have always gotten along with my co-workers with a few minor exceptions. I have always had a knack for flying under the radar. Anyway, there were some nurses who were always bad talking the men in their lives and men in general. I'd be in the corner charting, and would quietly clear my throat and they would look over and say, Oh, we weren't talking about you... you're different.... Let's hear some stories.

What do you want to know?

My wife and I, she's also an RN, are taking a sewing class just so we can learn to make scrub tops.

I had a situation where a 16 year old had an order for a Foley if she did not void by morning. I told the charge nurse that I wouldn't do it. She argued with me about it, saying that if it is ordered I have to do it. I told her that I was not comfortable putting a foley in a teenage girl and she certainly wouldn't be comfortable with it. One of my friends did it for me. Sometimes you have to use common sense, even if the charge nurse doesn't have any. I have never had any problems. As has been previously posted, always take another female with you. Never close the door if in a room alone with a female patient. I am a diabetes educator now, and there are some patients that I will not close the door with, just because I get a vibe, or they are mentally unstable.

We're in no hurry. My wife has Seasonal Affective Disorder. We just don't want to spend another dark cold wet winter in the Pacific Northwest. Forks is only 3 hours north of us, where all the vampires lived in the Twilight books. She may have exagerated but not much. My wife loves the southwest, and spent three years in Arizona before she met me. She wants somewhere warmer dryer and sunnier.