samantha11

I wouldn't freak too bad. I wasn't a runner either. It's easier with the big mob of other people that don't run when you are in boot. For some reason you just keep pluggilng along. You should start a jog/walk program thou. Just so you won't totally keal over. Good Luck! My problem was the sit ups, I was pathetic at those.

I was an air force medic. The responsibilities were very close to a civilian RN. You get training for EMT and triage, first aid. I got training and did suturing, casting, injections, assisting in surgical procedures. blood draws,autoclaving instruments, packing surgical instruments. Vaccinations ,lots of nursing details. In fact our nurses on our base were basically hands off. They did QA and paperwork. Actually I did the paperwork, typed all the reports. I worked in an office for a time, scheduling appointments assisting docs etc.. I drove an ambulance and did ground transport of patients in Germany. Mass casualty exercises. It's super diverse depending on your base. Larger hospitals medics would act as a nurses aide capacity. One downfall is that your EMT training won't transfer over, at least in my case, I would have had to start all over again with approved courses for work for the fire department. Their loss LOL.. My favorite assignment was a small base, varied my job a lot more. I got my RN, tried to go back in but I had just had a baby. Was over their weight restriction by 28 pounds. Still have them LOL!!

Constipation by bowel obsessed lonely grandpa's mva's with no injury cause "the police told me to get checked out" bunions tinea and assorted dermatology problems, not allergic reactions the lacerations you have to say "point it out for me" and the patient says "it's right there!" vomiting x1 loose stool x1 fever 99.9 med refills seekers: our system connects multiple er's together and it shows previous visits and what they were seen for when you log in for a patient. We see where they were and when, we even have dictated charts and can see prescriptions. Foolish people. no vicodin for you! I also get irritated when they had a surgical procedure at another hospital and come into ours. just complicates things, not that they are coming in for stupid reasons but it's stupid not to go to where they had the surgery. They don't understand their discharge instructions????

I looked at walden's online program, but after seeing Indiana Wesleyn's program I chose it. IWU's application and demo of their blackboard system took away a lot of my worries. I felt bogged down with Walden's web site. Any school where I couldn't look up whatever I wanted before giving my phone number was lower in my selection process. The price and accredidation also swayed me towards IWO.

In our ER we are expected to do med rec's on everyone. I wish the PMD's and RX would do more teaching on this, Give them a card filled out or something. Too many people don't know what they take. The Doc's are suppose to fill in indications, but all the work falls on the RN per usual. The night shift is at a disadvantage because we can't get all the pharmacies while they are open. Who really wants to call them anyway. I really love the nursing homes that send the in copies of MRA's but block off the signature section so you can't tell if it's been given or not. Really, what do they have to hide I wonder? It's all time consuming bs. People are so stupid. I love the "well you have it in your computer don't you". NO.. Anyway, you were suppose to follow up with your pmd after your last visit to the ER. That's what we tell them to do anyway..

Our official policy is two per bedside. Management's view however is they can all come back. Our docs like to assess their patient's with no family there so the nurses go with their requests primarily. I ask family nicely if they can give me a few minutes, if they object strongly I say whatever. Then when I'm asking about bowel movements and periods etc.. oh well.. so much for privacy. I will clear a bay if we are doing procedures with other patients that are embarrassing or take up space, ie: soap suds, vag exams etc.. It's bad enough having other patients on the other side of the curtain much less visitors. I love when you have a code and other patient's visitors are standing in the hall trying to see everything. I have no qualms putting in their place, back to the waiting room. My biggest pet peeve is visitors moving their chairs into the pathway to the other beds in the room. Visitors asking for another pillow for gran while we are working a code in the next cubicle. Interrupting me while I'm trying to speak to the patient, it's all about them (the visitor). Dad's hoovering over teenage daughter's when I need to assess if they could be pregnant or not. We will never be popular in the eyes of visitors because they are pretty clueless to what nurses do unless they are frequent fliers. Those are the one's that really burn me up. They already know the process and still get in your way.

It's really tough to find these classes. I want to take the trauma one and it was offered one time this year. I'm in ny state

In our ER the MDs give the admitting docs the disposition and hand the phone over to which ever RN is close by. We have sleeping docs who drop the phone, we have the whispering docs that don't want to wake their spouse and the docs that call our ER MD "that idiot" and vent. Talk about fun, fun, fun!

I also did the review test on the ENA website for $30. It was helpful. I to doubted myself during the exam and even started making a mark when I guessed. I knew how many I could miss and still pass. Some of the questions were just out of left field. The wide range of info almost makes it impossible to study for. I would say a third was stuff I had to remember from nursing school. I've been an ER nurse for 9 years, nurse for 15. I guess the biggest help would be know your disease processes, key points of each. Good luck

I purchased mosby's review and laura's tapes in 2002. I studied off and on with intention to take the exam. I was concerned about 1. the money 2. passing. 3. my department doesn't care much about certification or continuing ed. so why bother. I got my manager to agree to reemburse me and told myself I was doing it for myself so who cares what anyone else would say. I finally just said to heck with it and took the test and PASSED! It was wonderful feeling of accomplishment. My Plan of attack was to schedule the exam. go through the mosby book, areas I was weak I did independent study with ER MD reference books. They put things into context better for me. I also destroyed my Nursing Core Curriculum with notes. The exam was challenging but I had a decent margin of passing so was pleased. I also took the enpc course which had a lot of the same info I needed to know. So good luck and just do it! By the way all those nurses who thought certification was dumb changed their opinion once I started signing my name CEN