heelhook80

As an independent contractor, is that mean you were hired by an agency, get insurance and benefits through the agency, and it is a temp to hire kind of situation? If that is the case I would run unless I was desperate, at least at a hospital I should be basically guaranteed a permanent position, benefits, etc.

report back how it goes and your thoughts on this position and type of nursing. good luck!

oops meant to say it is a core measure to prescribe a statin at discharge for a STEMI, sorry if that was confusing typed that one up in a hurry before bed

I stumbled on this thread and have to put my .02 in. colloidal silver spray will turn you into a smurf, I literally had a stemi patient that was blue. Family member was a quack and a nurse. She tried to say he had mercury poisoning many years ago, while assessing the patient he revealed to me he took colloidal silver. I had him again a few days later, doctor prescribed a beta blocker and a statin, they refused the statin and acted upset that he was prescribed a statin. I explained to her that it is a core measure to prescribe a statin. Everyone should at least know what core measures are: https://www.northwesternmedicalcenter.org/hospital-quality-core-measure-update I don't have a problem with anything backed by some science. Preventative medicine in the US is horrible and many are overmedicated. The whole country needs to seriously improve diet, eat real food, sleep more, work less. However, you cannot reverse serious disease processes with just healthy food/herbs. Medicine and surgeries are needed. Diet/exercise/herbs are great preventative care. You can load up a cancer patient on all the organic kale you want, just follow the core measures. Someone on this thread mentioned Stanislaw Burzynski as a miracle cancer doc. Ummm, have you even googled his name? I saw his documentary, read about him from numerous sources, the testimonials in the documentary are BS.

So he should try and publicly draw attention to this in attempt to smooth things over with people who just back stabbed him to management over an offense that evidently wasn't even serious enough to warrant a disciplinary write up? Clearly some people have it out for him, if they wanted to be civil they would have approached him, since THEY were the ones offended. Negotiating with people like this is the equivalent of the government negotiating with terrorists. Just doesn't work. Not everyone will be friends, ACCEPT THAT NOT EVERYONE WILL LIKE YOU! Accept it and FOCUS IS ALWAYS ON THE PATIENTS, if you have an issue with someone drop it and make all future interaction be 100% work related. Don't trust them with any personal info, get the resume cleaned up too. Also, without going in lengthy detail I can safely say your manager sucks. Remember, haters are fans in denial and that success is the best revenge. Maybe the haters just did you a favor and motivated you like gasoline to a fire. Remember this when you are working towards your goals, career or personal goals. That is how you deal with this.

thanks for the post, I accepted a float pool position at my hospital and extremely excited, they will be paying for me to get a few certifications, all kinds of cool learning experiences, I couldn't be happier. I am also going to get my BSN and maybe go NP route, I have so many options this is amazing. For now I will focus on getting my certs and being a good float RN, if I want to settle into a specialty I will do it in a couple years.

Anyone else get almost confused with all the nursing options? I mean, you can only know how well you will like something by reading or considering it. I think a lot of times you gotta jump in and try something to see how you like it and how good you are at it. I have been a med surg oncology RN for over a year now and want to go to days and would like to kill two birds with one stone and move on to a different unit as well. Possibly even leave bedside. I have a business degree and I would say my goal is to be in a position I bring some passion to and don't have crazy stress from which would make a great long term fit, it took me 6-7 months to relax at my job and it did a toll on me and I wonder if ten years from now I will want to be running down halls for every bed alarm or code or answering 50 different questions at the end of a 12 hour shift. For months I hated all the backstabbing going on and made me think to the saying "those that gossip to you gossip about you" even though everyone has always been nice to my face. Its amazing how much backstabbing goes one, I dislike it but have learned to accept it and just move on. I consider 4 10's perfect and I would love no weekends/holidays to have family time, I don't necessarily want to be stuck on a computer all day although I wouldn't eliminate the idea, I like some variety as far as tasks performed as well as scenery (moving around a building or city but can't travel overnight due to spouses job), I would love some degree of autonomy and a job I could advance in, something busy enough so I don't get bored but not so hectic that everything is rushed, I love good interactions with people and I don't really need the feeling of "taking care" of someone, just "helping" someone, I particularly enjoy health, reading, writing, researching, discussing, learning, consulting, teaching, and computers. In nursing school I wanted to go into ED and ICU was a distant second with CRNA school in mind, those plans are gone now and I think I am interested in the following: med writing (usually for md's) Health/wellness promotion/ sports medicine/ antiaging or testosterone clinic (not a lot of jobs here) Clinical Research consultant or analyst of some sort (very interesting, maybe my top pick) Community health/public health/ph clinic/occupational health /corporate health (hard to get into?) Informatics (hard to go into? Ever get boring? What about advancement?) Agency nurse or float nurse (stress from 1 yr experience and chaotic days) Sales (have background in it) utilization or Mds coordinator (don't know a lot about it), Home health or private duty (unsure) other specialties (allergy clinic, dialysis) I may apply to a position above, or transfer to days and maybe float or PACU or cardiologist office and progress my career from there. How did you ultimately decide where you wanted to go?

Of all my friends the one I turn to most for advice is a friend of mine who over the past 6 years has been promoted three times and is pretty much set for a high level executive position in a fortune 500 company and this is what he tells me the #1 success and leadership quality is the ability to be a strong positive influence for others. Think about it, what makes you want to work hard? What inspires you? Odds are it is a great leader, an influential leader, one who is positive, excited, intelligent, compliments you. In my mind as a floor nurse that also has a business degree, I think that when I hand over my patient to the next shift they think "wow he was on the ball, positive, and went the extra mile for these people". If I can get the next shift or charge nurse to think that, I feel that I was then a direct positive influence, a motivator.

Ripping someone off for $5 is childs play, there is some trickery and taking advantage of someones stupidity here when these trade/vocational schools like Concord charge someone 35k for a respiratory therapy degree. Its laughable to rip someone off for $5, but it takes a special kind of cockroach to rip someone off for 30k. I ran into an old friend going to Concord for respiratory and felt bad for him, maybe I'm wrong but I know the guy's had a hard life and I think he is being screwed and doesn't even know it. Shame on him for not researching. Shame on him for not knowing better. But that doesn't mean he deserves to get a worthless unaccredited degree that won't help him land a job. I have relatives that went to Ivy league colleges and spent 120k on their bachelors. They landed 100-150k a year jobs right out of school and were talented people. Thats one thing. Its completely different when trade schools push student loans on people, promise them that they will have these high paying jobs waiting for them when they graduate, and taking them for every cent of student loans they can possibly squeeze out of them for what are, essentially, worthless degrees. Apples and oranges my friend.

Ivy, I'm a nursing student and almost done with school and I've been a CNA for 2 years at a large inner city hospital so I feel like I know very well what I'm getting into. You seem intelligent and like you've researched this and I hope you go forward knowing all it involves. I think some of the bad nurses out there became that way because they didn't know what they were getting into and became bitter when things got tough. You may have to remove a fecal impaction, you may have to wipe and change gowns 4-5 times a day in a mentally challenged screaming patient given laxatives, you may work a 12 hour shift with a 15 minute lunch break, you may have to enter a room and start an IV on a patient deathly scared of needles while their family watches your every move, you will be very busy most days you work on a hospital floor, you will certainly have to study a lot, be on your feet alot and need good shoes, you will certainly stay home a lot of weekends to study, and you will have nursing instructors that work to humble you. Don't let anything stop you.

I just try and keep my mouth shut and get my work done. This negates the 'mean instructor' thing, at least in my experience. One student in my clinicals is so clumsy and slow I don't know whether to laugh or to just feel sorry for her. She struggles with literally everything. The clinical instructor has a very obvious bulls eye on this student and is brutally tough on her. Its cut throat but your caring for peoples lives. I do get frustrated and lose sleep over missing test questions that contradict the book and having the instructor refuse to discuss it, that's the worst part of nursing school IMO.

I had an infamous physiology teacher at a community college, where the nursing program had so many applicants they really tried to weed out as many people as they could and only leave the best behind. My class had almost half drop, the half that stayed about half of them failed, so only 25% of the people there on the first day passed. So try and take it with an instructor with a good reputation. Talk to people who have had the instructor before and ask for advice. Take good notes, what he/she talks most about they will surely test over. Get in a study group, try and simply or dummy down everything so its not so technical. Use notecards, physiology is first understanding the principles then a lot of memorization for hormones, steps in hemostasis, etc.

good thread

What about oxygen? Wouldn't oxygen be the only possible exception?

Dude do you realize a classic sign of ADD is job hopping due to boredom? This is like telling a drunk to drink and figure out his problems. Cerda, you can't rely on stimulants like adderrall forever. You eventually have to take more for the same affect which can lead to overuse and addiction. So I recommend avoiding stimulants, and this is coming from someone with ADD and experience with ADD meds. My ADD doesn't seem as bad as yours, but I've job hopped, I require quiet place to study to memorize stuff, I think of random childhood crap or deceased friends or how I need to mow the lawn or of a random movie I saw 5 years ago and have a random song playing in my head at any given time, these random thoughts may even distract me during class lecture or exams or when someone is asking me something. However, I am able to function at a high level academically and clinically, and I really excel at fast paced clinical environments because I naturally think very quickly. Just focus on giving yourself a quiet place to study without distractions or time limits, and see if you can make this work. After that, you can start to see if this works for you or not, if not I'm sure you can find an easier profession that pays just as well or just as gratifying if you search enough. Good luck!

Nothing in particular but everything in general

sorry to bump an old thread but I have a question here: " what action will you take first when a see a pt with right pneumothorax 1- assist the pt to cough and deep breath 2- administer sedative 3- prepare to insert chest drainage system 4- prepare the pt for CT What do you know about pneumothorax first, will give you clue on how to answer these question. what is the best priority in these situation? A pt with pneumothorax has air trapped in the pleura space. What can you do to remove the air? preparing for CT can no remove the air, or administering sedative is of no use and importance but can be given before inserting the chest tube and also encouraging the pt to deep breath and cough can be done after chest tube to expand the lungs. The correct answer is insert chest tube to remove trapped air in the pleural space. This type of question is asking for Nursing process which is implementation." I also like answer 3 the best, but technically I don't like any of these answers as I haven't really been taught how to enter a chest drainage system I am only a second semester student, but I've never seen heard of a RN entering a chest tube. Can anyone help me make sense of why we would be asked that when we don't do chest tubes or am I mistaken?

NCLEX pass rates is public info, here are pass rates: http://www.appliedtech-stl.com/component/content/article/96-front-page-articles/180-latest-nclex-pn-pass-rates-released NAU's pass rates don't look to bad to me (91% in 2009), but it is ridiculously expensive for an unaccredited associates degree, which you cannot branch into a BSN or Masters.

sorry I haven't had time to read the whole thread yet but I'd like to address a couple things. I have spent some time researching this subject as it appears to be a popular one on the web. The MMR vaccine link to autism article has been refuted numerous times. The current flu vaccine is a stack of both traditional flu shot and H1N1. I don't think the current flu shot has ethylmercury in it, I just think the MMR vaccine has a small amount in it. Do not confuse mercury with ethylmercury. Small amounts of mercury (hg) are very toxic, very small amounts of methylmercury are toxic (like in fish, methylmercury has a life life around 100 days), ethylmercury is even less toxic with about a 7-14 day half life. MMR vaccine in the past has had very amounts of ethylmercury as a preservative, this has never been shown to be toxic and is well researched. Also, just as caffeine and cocaine are similar chemically, huge difference bio-actively between the two. Equally large differences between mercury and ethylmercury. Lastly, Formaldehyde has also been used as a preservative. This amount is minuscule in comparison to the amount of Formaldehyde even a child's body produces in a day (yes the human body produces Formaldehyde, just look it up). In fact, the widely popular artificial sweetener "Aspartame" actually breaks down into Formaldehyde among other things. Maybe thats why your not supposed to consume aspartame while pregnant? Another discussion all together anyways, but point is the amount of formaldehyde is in the picograms or something in these vaccines, less than a child would probably get in their body from a diet coke.

excellent post, may I also add in the word "pain". I know you said stress, which is good, but I've always been taught that pain can also get the sympathetic nervous system and blood sugars going just like stress.

Nina Hartley (Media star that has been on Oprah a couple of times defending the profession) Phillipe Nover (former UFC fighter, was on the TV show "the next ultimate fighter", currently works in a NY ER) John Hackleman (UFC fighter Chuck Liddells longtime trainer, since about 2000 or so he said he's just been a trainer and doesn't work as an RN anymore)

I agree, and to me tattoos should never be an issue, but with patients they might be. Even 25 years ago I would be shocked to find a police department that allowed employees to have sleeves. Patients may not understand that these days its perceived differently and tons of everyday people have tattoos, heck even the Hanson Brothers probably have sleeves by now. Most of our patients are going to be 60+ so they are from an era where heavily tattooed people were perceived much much differently and won't be their first choice of a caregiver. It will take some education and time to help older patients understand this generational difference.

In the 80's to me people with full sleeves or several tattoos were either a biker, prisoner, or a crazy SOB. Everyday people didn't have tons of tattoos. These days tattoos are so commonplace, half the musicians in my church band have sleeves or are heavily tattooed and they are the nicest people you'd ever meet. Over time it will become less of a big deal, for now I'd try and cover them up or talk with a manager about it.

anyone besides me find it funny this thread was started by a dude named bigrigcowboy? not trying to be mean here but either this is a professional troll job or lol

I'd take on the extra money and stress and try to challenge yourself. Financially between car maintenance and gas money and income this makes all the sense in the world. Even not looking at it financially, this makes all the sense in the world since it sounds like better experience for nursing school. Its natural to be nervous, just go in each day well rested and ready to get everything done and be positive and you'll be way ahead of the game.