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i also cry at weird moments. i don't usually cry at work--but since we got a manager that is unfair about things--i did a few times. i think it's a way to let out my anger without getting fired. for some reason, when i go to the doctor, to discuss issues i just lose it. i try to prepare myself ahead of time because these issues really do not upset me that much in my "normal life". i still cry every time. it is so embarrassing-and then the doc thinks i am depressed. i also can make myself cry just thinking about an abused animal and don't even mention watching animal cops. i even cry on "homeward bound"--when the old dog makes it home. that should be a happy part. different weird things trigger me. anyway--you are not alone.

at our place you keep your hospital wide seniority which would relate to lay-offs, but you lose departmental seniority which relates to scheduling. you do get some credit for having been an lpn towards your starting salary--1 year for every 2 years as an lpn.

money

occupational therapists are in demand at my hospital. they make more, have weekends and holidays off(sometimes work half a day), and never have to break a sweat. i know some places are different but this is where i worked for more than 15 years. they can spend one on one time with the patients (not being rushed) so they never have any complaints against them. and anything they don't want to do---nursing will be told to do it because ot is for training purposes only. for one example--they don't want to give showers--nursing must do it. ot will give the patient a "DRY" shower in their department for training. they come to the unit to get a patient--they want nursing to have them dressed and in the chair--ready to be wheeled to their dept. if the patient is not ready--they complain. they even go around in the morning looking in the rooms saying hello to the patients and telling them to make sure their nurse gets them up for breakfast(coffee in hand).so if you have six patients with no cna--you have like two hours to get them dressed, up in the chair, give meds, do assessments, txs, adls, some showers, etc...it's impossible to give decent patient care. anyway--i got off on a rant--but you get the picture. i'd go for ot or better yet pt or speech therapy.

i was with seiu(or is it sieu?). i felt they were a little weak in getting us raises, ratios, etc into the contract. of course, they represented everyone at the hospital so they had alot of people to satisfy. there were alot of grey areas in the contract that management could manipulate. we really did have good benefits though. i still wouldn't want to work here without a union. even with a contract in place we had to fight management to follow it. they still have the mentality that they can do whatever they want. my manager told me that even as i was showing her the union contract that said otherwise. i had my union contract out alot with this particular manager.

she said 95% of the people that responded to that thread. she is not making any assumption.

i'm not venting. i'm being honest. i just wish i had had someone tell me all of these (negative) things before i went to school. do some research on other medical fields and see how happy they are. maybe you would be happier with something else...or maybe not. if you really want to be a nurse then go for it. it is up to you. pt, ot, st, etc... all loved their jobs where i worked. they don't get dumped on like nursing. good luck whatever your decision is.

if you work for a float pool say at a hospital, you will be placed on whatever floor/unit has a need for you(floated around). you really don't have a home unit.

sorry to say...but i would if i were you. i'm an lpn that recently quit nursing but i have worked with many rns as well and all that work the floor feel the same way. too much crap is dumped on nursing.

i didn't. now i'm gone.

i was an lpn in las vegas making 24.36/hr full time + all benefitss and shift difs i recently quit nursing.

i would never encourage my child to go into nursing. if he/she brought it up i would make sure they were fully informed and have them check out other career options. especially the therapies if part of the interest was in "helping people". if they were adamant, i'd give support, of course. then years later i could say "i told you so!!" lol! just kidding!

we used an acuity system. you check a box next to the service that will be needed for the next shift. the nurses that work the floor were not included in setting it up and deciding options. half of the stuff we had to do was not included in the choices(like transporting pt off the unit for xray where you could be gone for 30 min to an hour/sometimes two staff needed to reposition patient). or when a staff member has to leave the floor with a patient for a procedure and be gone for hours or all day. i worked off site from the hospital so we had no support staff. there was nothing to indicate starting heplocks(it was done by the iv team at main hospital),changing picc/central line dressings(also iv team), and so many more things. plus how can you anticipate what will happen on the next shift???!!! i checked every box possible every day. we would get "talked to" for checking too many boxes. like i checked lab draws every day because they drew labs on the next shift. they would complain if the pt didn't get that done--but i'm anticipating the doc to come in and he might order it. most pts got labs almost daily. i checked shower--we were only supposed to do it on shower day(qod)--but who is to say if that pt has an incontinent episode or his family comes in and demands a shower at that time. i just tried to anticipate any and all things that might happen to help with our staffing because it was bad. and we were offsite--we had to call 911 for a code!! i floated to the main hospital and did their grasp--i was shocked to find out they got more points for their dressing changes than we did. burn care did the dressing changes over there. we did our own(including wound vac and complicated burns etc...). they also had alot more options to choose from than we did. i notified our manager and the person in charge of grasp at our hospital but nothing changed. i don't know why i bothered--it was still like moonrose said--#of patients=# of nurses and or cnas. i think our staffing dropped the last time from 6.3(without counting unit sec and manager) to 5.7 counting unit sec, manager, and assistant manager. it is just ridiculous. i better stop now but you get the idea. please don't do this to your staff!!

i used to work with a nurse that was not that much older than me. she would wipe the patient after a bm on the toilet with bare hands and a small wadded up piece of toilet paper. eeewwwww!! i also heard second hand from a cna(so who knows if it's true but she swore it was) that as she was helping a nurse turn a trach patient the red cap popped off. she said they wanted to pull the patient up after the turn and the rn stuck the cap in her mouth between her teeth while she used both hands for the boost up. she then replaced the cap.

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