bds165

Hello everyone! I noticed that there are several nurses posting here who have worked both in the U.K. and U.S. I was curious about the differences in practice that a staff nurse would see. For example, the differences in ancillary staff. Do U.K. hospitals utilize specialized disciplines such as respiratory therapists, physical therapists, phlebotomists, etc. or do nurses cover those tasks? What are the relationships between nurses and doctors? Is there a collaborative effort or more of a top-down model? What are the typical staffing ratios? What country did you prefer and why? Forgive me if there are previous posts addressing this. I did a search and couldn't find much recent information. Thank you very much!

You know, 100% of divorces started with marriage...

Stewart/Colbert 2012!

Hey five_marshalls, We're in the same boat (somewhat). I'm completing my package for fully qualified med/surg (active duty) and the deadline is 27 Sept for submission to the board. The "Fully Qualified" board I believe meets sometime at the end of October but I don't know the exact date. As for the reserve requirement for package submission, I don't know if it is different. In other reserve AFSCs (job descriptions) you do apply specifically to a job in a specific unit. Do you know what that job/unit is? Since you say that you will be active for a year for training and then go reserves I am assuming you are going into flight nursing (due to its long training regimen)? USAFblue is right, you'll go to COT instead of OTS. I don't have to go to COT because I went to OTS in '99 and served 4.5 years active duty as an officer in another career field (space and missiles). I'm sure you'll do fine in COT. Hope this helps. Recruiters can be tricky to track down but stay on them. They'll eventually get back to you. There's probably some ambiguity as to active duty verses reserve recruiters. Good luck!

If your pump cassette has a piggyback clave, after you've primed the line take a 10cc flush and squirt out the contents and attach it to the piggyback clave (keeping things sterile with swabs of course) and backprime the air out of it. If this doesn't work, keep the flush attached and draw back about 10ccs of fluid from the cassette/line and it should work. Done this many times and one or the other seems to work. Hope this helps.

Thanks for the info. Yep, got my BSN last year. Right now, I have 1+ years of full time Med/Surg experience. And personally, I would feel more comfortable with another solid year before looking to go into an ICU program. My recruiter seems to think he can get me into the Sept boards but I am very doubtful. But I know this process will be a slog so I'm prepared and motivated. Thanks again.

Here, Here!

I've gotten the ball rolling with my recruiter to join the Nurse Corps and I've got a few questions that you esteemed allnurses folks might have answers to. The recruiters, bless their hearts, don't always have the most current or accurate data. -I discharged in March of '04 as a Captain, did NOT resign my commission, and went IRR...will I keep my same rank? -I'm nearly 100% positive I won't have to attend COT.....? -Does break in service affect retirement calculator? -My eventual goal is to get into Critical Care. What is the general wait time to train into Critical Care from Med/Surg? BTW the recruiter told me there are 77 open med-surg/clinical nursing slots. This seems very high. Any thoughts? Thanks for your time.

Excellent topic. I too am about 9 months into my nursing career and luckily I've had two previous stressful occupations that taught me some hard-learned lessons. I try to evaluate each shift by asking myself these questions as I head home: -Did I make my decisions with integrity? -Did I keep my patients' well-being and best interest in the forefront of that decision making process? -When in doubt, did I bounce my thought process off a trusted, competent coworker and asked for advice? I usually am able to leave things at work. It's not always easy... We new grads are taught to be sponges during our first couple of years. Most of the time we are not reminded to wring it out.

Ok...way off topic...but dude, I love your screen name. Such a great SNL skit... Sorry for the interruption...

Freaking hilarious! Ruby Vee, I get the frustration, but is anyone making you visit this website? Are mouse-clicks that hard to pull off? "HELP ME" posts are never well thought out and, for the most part, obnoxious. This is a FREE public forum that can and does attract anyone who can use google...expect some stupidity. I love your posts. I just think you're wasting your ire on this one.

L&M refers to a Leadership and Management course. I'm in my last semester and this course allows us to work with a nurse manager to see the ins and outs of management within a unit. I think some schools call it a Capstone course. The reason I asked is because I have the opportunity to work with an OR nurse manager this semester so I'm hoping that will help my chances of getting into the OR. During L&D, I was ALWAYS bugging my instructor to get me in all the C-sections I could (I was able to see 5). With my special rotations in both M/S courses I was able to swing shifts in the OR. I wish my school had the OR option!

Out of curiosity, for those of you who have landed a New Grad OR job, what was your background/experience? Did you do your L & M/Summer internship in an OR? I've gotta say...I'm a little jealous! Congrats!

Actuall post-op/ortho DOES interest me as well as OR. I loved my clinical rotations in both of those units. At this point, I'll take just about anything other than OB. Got any openings for a not-so-green new grad?

I'd get sprayed with OC once a day and twice on Sunday rather than get hit with that Taser again...but I really like spicey foods so that maybe why it didn't bother me that bad. I still shudder when I imagine that clicking/popping sound.... When I was in the military, I was "volunteered" to don the REDMAN suit and take some baton licks from the trainees...I had bruises the size of a footballs on my outer thighs. In fact, I still have tiny calcifications there from the blows....and I would STILL take that over the Taser. Oh the memories...