nakeia

Email was sent! Congrats to everyone who was accepted!

Hey Everybody! I'm also in that waiting game for Class 146! 😬 I also emailed about the change of date and also asked if we would find out 6-8 weeks from the changed date. They replied and said we should find out within a couple of weeks and I received that email on 11/30. So we definitely should know before Christmas! Good Luck everybody! I hope/pray we all get in! 🙂

This post has been very enlightening! Thank you Mamita for asking the question and thank you commenters for responding!

Finally got hired a year after initially applying then reapplying 6 months later but this may be different based on the unit you apply for and their need. Also recommend finding out who the manager is of that unit and sending an email to them as well. They base their pay on a point system. You get points on what type of degree you have and years of experience. Hope this helps.

Since my first new grad job in the NICU I had four interviews before obtaining my current job which is my first after my new grad job and they all asked the same things: Tell me about yourself? Tell me about the type of unit(s) you came from? Tell me about the type of patients you have cared for(this is when they usually tell you about what type unit they are and what they offer)? Then they will start to ask questions related to your work ethic such as: tell me a time when you were faced with a difficult patient/parent/coworker, how did you handle it, what was the outcome? Tell me a time when you had a teaching moment with a coworker who had less experience than you (to see if you have good preceptor skills)? Tell me a time when you felt the need to get a second opinion from another/higher up provider to advocate for your patient? Tell me a time in your practice when you had a learning moment that changed the way you did your job (learning from your mistakes)? Give or take they will be around these type of questions. Nothing knowledge/situational based. They know you know your stuff/how to take care of preemies since you have worked in the area before. They just want to know what type of nurse you are and experience you have had and if you will be a perfect fit into their unit. Hope this helps.

Be persistent! It takes a big hospital system awhile before they get around to you but also know that there are probably 80 other applicants that have applied for that same position. I would recommend calling the nurse recruiter. Or possibly even finding out who the manager is for the unit you are interested in and send an email. Pay is based on a matrix depending on criteria ie years of experience and type of degree Differentials are good especially if you work weekend nights. Again I say be persistent if this is the place you really want to work for. Good Luck!

This post is very vague. First, I would not recommend moving to an area without finding a position there first. Second, what field of nursing are you looking to get into?

Has any experienced nurses applied to VCU in the last month or so? Have you received any call backs for interviews or have been hired? There are several positions posted that have been up for months.I have applied and received a call from the nurse recruiter that my application was forwarded to the unit's manager being very promising of an interview but I have yet to get a call back for an interview and it's been a month. Is this normal for the organization? Should I hold out a little longer? Or is this basically a way of the unit's manager saying they aren't interested? Does anyone out there have any insight? Let me know! Thanks!

For the NICU you had to have completed an externship or preceptorship to get hired as a new grad. I also was in contact with the nurse recruiter throughout my application process until I was hired (her information was listed on the website). Are you interested in te NICU? If so, I can PM you contact information.

So I started a new job and I'm currently in orientation. Today we were introduced to the hospital's computer system for charting and medication administration. The instructor which was also a nurse began talking to us about documenting in the computerized MAR. Then she started talking about a scenario about if we see that another nurse has charted the wrong dose or wrong glucose level or the wrong number of tablets given or if they even forgot to document that they gave a med that you can check with the nurse to see if they gave it and if they gave it correctly then you can go in under their time of caring for that patient and basically chart that it was given and document in the notes that the other nurse has stated that she did in fact give the med. First, why have a computer system that doesn't recognize this immediately when you are in the process of giving the medication??? Second, I don't know about you but I felt that what she is saying is that I can basically change someone elses documentation which was/is a no-no where I used to work and when I was in school. And how should I even know/trust that when I ask this nurse if she gave it that what she said is true. I questioned her about that and she as well as other nurses in the room were saying how nurses have to have each other's back and we should trust that what the nurse said was true and sometimes we make mistakes and we should help each other out. I understand that but isn't changing someone elses documentation illegal, even if it was wrong??? Help me out people!

Greetings fellow NICU nurses! I currently work in a busy Level 3 "does everything except ECMO" NICU and have recently acquired a position in a Special Care Nursery due to my husband's job relocation. Unfortunately no high acuity NICU's were hiring and it was the only thing available... so I have taken it and start in August. The Special Care Nursery is on the same floor as L&D/Nursery/PostPartum (its all one unit) and apart of my job is attending all of the deliveries as well which is something I look forward to. The thing is..... Will I get bored?? Is there anyone out there that has did this transition and has not been bored and loves it and will never go back to a higher leveled NICU or do you do a little of both (part time here... prn there)? Im just curious, also nervous because I'm afraid I won't like it but I'm going into with an open mind and seeing how it goes. Thanks for reading and responding!

on our phillips monitors you can use the blood pressure cuff as a tourniquet... just press the tourniquet button says the Phillips inservice guys... but no one has used it since the inservice... everyone has stuck to the good old fashion rubber bands, the blue non latex tourniquets or the wee light

The NICU is a busy unit here. There are nurses that have left other units to come to the NICU. It depends on what you like first. But from what I hear most do not like working on the floors at CHKD. I heard the PICU is a cutthroat unit but not too bad if that is what you want to do. I would recommend starting with these units: ED/NICU/PACU/PICU and not the floors.

hello! i work there.. but in the NICU. i'm sorry that i cant give you info about the ED but i can give you some tidbits about the hospital. it is the only pediatric hospital in the area and services hampton roads to the eastern shore to parts of northern north carolina. there are satelites but for peds offices, outpatient surgeries or radiology. i'm not sure what the pay will be for experienced rn's (i started as a new grad here) but i can tell you that we recieved a 2 percent pay raise last year (yes! a full 2 percent!) and that was the first in 5 years. Also, the hospital is a little outdated as far as technology goes. they are just catching up with the rest. CHKD is a hospital that is respected in the community but everyone has there complaints about working here. i enjoy working here but am looking to find something else... mostly because of pay, secondly because of tunnels and traffic. hope it helped. :)

I wouldn't worry about the pregnancy and finding employment. I was in your shoes a year ago. Found out I was pregnant after graduating. I didnt tell my employer until the time was right. I was able to take off for 6 weeks, they call it short term medical leave where I work. I would definitely continue the search for a nursing job.