silentRN

I've been a RN for almost 11 years (1 year floor, 10 years surgical-trauma ICU). I was playing around with the idea of transitioning to psych. The only psych experience I have was back in 2005-2006 when I worked in a locked-down sub-acute facility with adults as a BHT. What are your thoughts? Anyone here ever made the transition from hospital bed side nursing to psych?

Well, it really depends. Sometimes those headaches turn into a ruptured aneurysm.

Well, depending on where you came from...as for me, nursing has been a great accomplishment from working low-paying dead-end jobs. I can't complain. I work a week on and get a week off. I get two weeks off a month and the pay isn't bad once you put your time in. I started off on the floor for a year and then went to critical care ever since. I'm coming up on 8 years in June. You learn to get over the small stuff within a few years, and just find a routine that works for you. having the 2 year experiences and not finding a job isn't true at all. I have interviewed, hired, and trained plenty of new grads in critical care over the years.

There seems to just be a high turnover rate no matter where you end up. Lately, I've seen a very high turn over rate that I have never seen in the past 7 years in our ICUs, and like you, there are a good share of new grads taking up those places. Healthcare isn't really about patient care anymore, but rather patient satisfaction scores, which all ties into reimbursement. Hospitals seem to care less about educating us nurses anymore (we don't even have a nurse educator nor a CNS, and I work at a "teaching" hospital), but rather they would cheaply fill the void as long as the patient surveys come back with good numbers. Anymore, ICU seems like a joke. The skill set has been really dumbed down, and it feels more like an adult baby sitting unit. We are just expensive baby sitters. Would you like a blanket?

I've been a preceptor for new grads or even new employees with ICU experience for a good amount of years, but I was wondering if anyone had anything they can share for me to read or just some past experiences as a preceptor and/or the as the preceptee, that can help me become a better preceptor. Anything is appreciated Thank you :)

My answer is still the same as it was a year ago when I responded to this post...nursing still sucks, and it's just gonna suck even more.

I think it just depends on the access you have.

why would anyone in their right mind say that a charge nurse should have any patients, unless you are part of the administration??!!

Usually the longer that you have done the job, the more negative your attitude becomes. Healthcare in general is a hard industry to work in. There is little to none recognition, and a lot of back stabbing that goes along with it. You get a lot of blame, and more work just gets added onto your plate without any compensation.

So, I want to know, how many wage increase have you had in the last 6 years as an RN? I've had 2...and the last 1 i had I didn't even see a difference on my paycheck because it got wiped out by the social security tax increase a few years back. Nursing has become a stagnant career. But, my boss puts it best, it's not a career but a trade...these hospital sure do treat us like ****...

Yes it does. I'm sorry that you have to hear it like that, but yes it sucks bad.

Well I hope to God that some heroic friend of mine doesn't try to extend my life when it's pass overdue. It's the nurse's and the doctor's role to give a realistic picture on the quality of life, and the reality of the situation. There are worst things than death.

Email the manager. That's how I got my interview set up when I was working a floor unit and wanted to transfer to the ICU. I didn't get a response back until 3 months later when a position opened up. I applied, was interviewed, and that's all there was to it. Let me remind you though, that was during a time when nursing jobs where guaranteed to pretty much all that applied...times have definitely changed for some time now.

I just run the machine, the renal doc gets the big bucks to decide what I run through it.

If it becomes uncontrollable, you can try propofol, and if that doesn't work you put them on a pentobarbital coma, but you would definitely need an EEG...problem with pentobarbital coma, is that it takes forever to clear the system. There's other drugs that can be tried first too, like Keppra and phenytoin that may help with the seizures, but from experience if the patient continues to be in status then they're gonna need a continuous gtts of something. If it's twitching because of an anoxic brain injury, then ya, there's really not much you can do for them but do the propofol...but you can't keep someone on propofol for the rest of their life...and as the prior person commented before, it's an indicator of a poor prognosis.