Odimodus

Just got accepted to transfer into a Lvl II NICU. Really looking forward to it! Most of the places I've worked so far had at least a few guys. I think this will be my first place where I may be the ONLY guy, but I'm not at all worried about the gender issues in the unit.

Knew a guy in the army whose first name was H. Just the letter, H. We called him hache (spanish for the letter H). Also knew a guy in highschool whose first name was Major, and he had two brothers named Lieutenant and Captain. The father was military. When naming our youngest wife and I decided that I would name a boy and her if a girl. Baby is a girl and she wanted to name her after a game character she made up... Xaliktina. I sucked in a deep breath, scrunched up my face and gave a firm "Veto". Unique names are one thing, but sometimes people dont stop to think....

I've heard of business majors being in charge of a hospital nursing unit. They are managers and as such handle the staffing, budget, and similar issues. Now the questionable part is when the medical side conflicts with the business operations side of things. I agree that the supervisor of a medical unit should be a medical person or at least defer decisions affecting the medical aspects to someone who would be appropriate, such as the doctor on staff, but past that I dont doubt that it can be done. Also, remember that this is Texas your talking about. Texas has a history of being business friendly, even if this particular business is a prison/jail. I wouldnt doubt that they could in fact put a non medical person in charge of a medical unit, especially in a prison. Research your suspicions, but try not to **** on any shoes while you are at it.

Committees are an excellent way to waste time. I was once on a "paperwork" committee and we went over how to simplify forms and such for speed and efficiency, hospital system went and redid them the way they wanted without taking anything from what we suggested. We get on average 1-3 new forms or redone forms a month. I try to bite my lip and just do my job though, its always been like that and no amount of groaning or feedback changes it. I also half wish JCAHO would just develop a set of forms and notes for hospitals to use and say "here, just use these and we'll get off your backs about your forms". At least then we would have one organization remaking the forms instead of everybody and their dog who is in middle and upper management. Hospital paperwork is far far worse than the army's. Sure, the army has a plethora of carbon copy forms, but at least they seldom change and are consistently functional. Hospital paperwork morphs faster than a virus, and makes me just as ill. /rant off.

Dont give up. Find out what you need to do and dive back in. Retake the classes next go round. You made it this far. If you didn't kill the beast with the first volley, reload.

Are you kidding? Too many nurses anywhere? While nurses probably do tend to get paid a bit less here than elsewhere the cost of living is alot better also. There is always room for improvement but the sky is hardly falling. Keep in mind also that San Antonio is in south Texas and while most of our population comes from the local area we also get a SUBSTANTIAL number of patients to our city from all over south texas, its a huge area. I've seen a fair number of patients also come up from Mexico as well for specialized surgeries as well. I wouldnt let worry of a flooded market stop you, even here in S.A. You'll have a much harder time getting into nursing school than finding a job I bet. On the down side, you will have to be aggressive following up on those jobs though. I've worked several places and you practically have to pester the nurse recruiters no matter what the shortage is.