Maikafer-RN

an estate planning attorney for a trust and LLC? Can you explain why?

News Item Reader JNC 8 will be on the AANP exams this year

Our floats are always RNs (we don't staff medics). It depends on how busy we are as to how many floats we get - but not in a good way, if we are busier we need more nurses to take an assignment and if we are slower we don't have patient's for every bed and therefore we have extra floats. No specific competency or expectation, just that you help where help is needed. It seems that there are certain RNs that are typically assigned to float and some that are never float for a reason (i think we have a few velcro-butts in my ED too). I'm a new RN with almost a year of experience and I'm assigned float frequently and I think it helps me learn a lot - I see more patients, give more meds, start more IVs, see the interesting cases, etc.

We don't have demerol in my ER...I graduated a little over a year ago and if I remember correctly I thought no one uses Demerol anymore...don't know why though..

We usually give Zofran for nausea. Every once in a while we give Compazine or Reglan and I cringe when I see these orders. I've had many patient's have reactions to compazine and maybe 1 or 2 to Reglan. We don't have 50 mL handy to use - we have to get them out of the pyxis but we have 10 mL flushes to dilute.

there is a hospital near where I work that uses ECU - emergency care unit

We must have started at the same time as new grads in the ER and I feel the same. I'm 3 months off a 4 month orientation and I just had a review/eval with the director and she is very impressed with where I'm at as a new grad. I didn't think I would be doing as well as I am but I feel very confident with most situations that come through the doors. Of course there are those full arrests that come in and we some how get them back and they are unstable and ICU isn't ready to receive them for a few hours so we end up holding them and coding them repeatedly and I need help from the other experienced RNs but generally I feel pretty good. I oriented on days and since I've been on nights on my own I get a lot of the RNs asking me where I worked before and when I tell them no where I'm a new grad that had practically zero ER experience they are shocked. A lot of people tell me they would have never guessed I'm a new grad. I think I work with a good team of nurses and they are always open to questions I have. I would say our ER is fairly busy, I've been told we are one of the busiest in the county (no trauma though) and I'm generally able to hold my own with little to no help from others. I think about the same things as you...why does this job feel so right for me (I actually ended up in ER on accident, they had filled all the ICU positions and offered ER instead - I NEVER thought of being an ER nurse but I accepted and LOVE it and can't imagine working any other unit!) I think I'm making not necessarily a better nurse but I'm becoming a very competent nurse. I feel like if I wanted to I could go work any other unit from ER since we see it all. We see many procedures in the ER, we are used to emergencies/codes, we get an insane amount of practice with skills (IVs, foleys, NGs etc) so I feel like working ER as a new grad was an excellent choice!

I don't work at Hoag sorry but I do work at Fountain Valley Regional which is a few miles north of Hoag. At FV new grads with a BSN start at 27.95. I think ADNs earn 5% less. There is a $4 shift differential.

I graduated in December 2008 and began working in February. I only was able to get 1 interview and it was at my #7 hospital that I really didn't want to work for. All the other hospitals I was interested in kept telling me to check online for openings and that openings should be posted soon. Well I checked every single day from the end of September until the end of January and never saw openings for new grads at my #1 hospital, yet somehow they hired a bunch of people. I even spoke with the manage of their ICU after a fellow classmate got hired after she did her preceptorship in their ICU. My classmate told me that she said they were going to hire a few other new grads and told me to call her. I called her the next day and she told me they weren't hiring new grads. It was just a weird thing. I graduated close to the top of my class, had ACLS by the time I graduated and was a member of a few organizations yet I couldn't get an interview! Finally this other hospital called me and I tried for ICU there but didn't get it so they offered me the ER. For some reason ER always intimidated me - I guess because you never know what the person has that you're treating. But I accepted that position because its 4 miles from my house and I figured it would be good experience and it was through the Versant program. Well I've only been working for 2 months and I love it. I can't see myself doing anything but ER ever again! Most of my classmates signed a contract with a local hospital so they were pretty lucky to find a job. Out of the ones that didn't I'd say maybe 5 found jobs and maybe 10 haven't. GOOD LUCK!

Interesting...it looks like you're right. CSUF now has an entry level BSN program. It must be new. As far as what I did to get my BSN was I went to a community college (Saddleback) to take care of my prerequisites (Anatomy, Physiology, Microbiology, Bio Chem) and I spent 5 semesters there even though I finished my prerequisites in 3 (I didn't know I wanted to do nursing in my first semester and then I was waiting to hear about my admission during my last semester). And from there I transferred to CSU Long Beach and was admitted into their Trimester Program which takes 2 years but it is full time during fall, spring AND summer. I found there were advantages and disadvantages to that but in the end (I just finished in December) I'm happy that I just got it out of the way. They also have a basic program that takes 3 years because you don't have school during the summer. Hope this info helps! Good luck with everything!

i went through NSO during nursing school and now I'm working and haven't renewed it yet. i'm curious what other organizations offer malpractice insurance. i haven't heard of any others and most of the nurses i work with just use the one the hospital offers. thanks!

I will be starting ECCO in a few weeks and I haven't really heard much about it from anyone I work with yet but what do you get when you finish it? Do you get some sort of certification as a critical care RN or is it a certificate of completion or is it just that you now have added knowledge that not everyone gets?? thanks!

There is no wait list for CSULB...you have to apply every semester if you didn't get in the previous semester. they have an "alternate list" of maybe 20-30 and those people get to start the program if someone on the "accepted list" changes their mind. also, i know there are a few other accelerated BSNs in the area but I can't think of any off the top of my head. check the CA BRN website for a list of all the nursing programs.

I entered the CSULB Nursing Program Spring 2007 and just finished in December (trimester program) and we didn't have to do an interview. They told us because so many people applied it took forever to do interviews and when they asked why the applicants wanted to be a nurse they got the answer "because i want to help people" and they got tired of hearing that. Sorry I can't give you advice on specific questions they ask. I would imagine your GPA and TEAS score would be more important in getting in. GOOD LUCK :wink2:

As far as I know LBMMC has a hiring freeze right now. I just graduated from CSULB in December and more than half of my graduating class signed a contract with them, I did not. When I called to see about getting a job there they said they couldn't hire me (even though I did every single one of my clinicals at that hospital) because they had to find spaces for at least 70 new grads by the end of january. Also, they recently shut down some of their med-surg floors to save money and are trying to get rid of all of their traveling/agency nurses too. If they really are hiring, give it a shot but good luck getting into a specialty floor. More than 10 of my classmates were just hired on the PICU and they have no more openings and they only opened up 2 spots in the ICU because they didn't have any openings either. Just curious - what was the start date for the listing you saw on the website?