AhJee

I had a question and was wondering if anybody reading this forum knew anything about it. I work in a hospital in Los Angeles and was very fortunate to take care of a patient for the past 4 nights. We got along very well together; though the work was around the clock and quite heavy, I knew what she needed and she knew how I worked. She approached me with the idea of me being her independent private duty nurse. I was flattered by her asking me and it has got me thinking about it but I know nothing about private duty nursing, let alone working independently. Where would I start? Insurance? Billing? Do I have to go to my state's BON and do paperwork? Is it illegal to work for her without making some sort of contract? TAXes?? I have no idea how plausible or realistic this idea would be. I am only considering it to this extent because I thoroughly enjoyed being her nurse. If anybody has any advice, it would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Hello all. Thanks to those who posted much support and advice to this thread. After applying to 150+ jobs in the past 5 months, I finally got a position! I'm very much excited and wish those who are looking only the best.

I just graduated from NPU in December 2008. If you do have time, it would be best to apply to the university and take your prerequisites there. They do prefer their students over transfers and there's plenty of students wanting to get into the program. I did hear from people still in the program that admission is getting tougher. Make sure you have a strong GPA, good TEAS score, have your prereq's done, and good recommendation letters.

bypassing HR and going straight to the managers. I've heard and read this advice a lot. My question is what's the best way to do this? I know it's simple. You go to the hospital and go to the unit and ask for the manager. But I always wondered if the managers would be ok with it, like think I'm being disrespectful for coming in unscheduled.

thanks for the advice youknowho and suzanne4. I keep telling myself it'll get better once the economy gets out of this rut.

Hello everyone. I've been reading allnurses.com for a while but this is my first post because I feel like I'm going to lose my mind. I'm a December 08 nursing school graduate and just took the NCLEX exam today (Feb 17th) . I've been applying for jobs in California since October 07. Mainly I've applied to southern California and considered northern California too. From October to now, I've applied to about 15 hospitals (UCLA, Cedars-Sinai, USC, Good Samaritan, several Kaiser hospitals, several hospitals in CHW network [California Hospital Medical Center, St. Mary's LB, Glendale Memorial Hospital, St Mary's Medical Center], Saddleback, and White Memorial). In northern California, I have applied to Good Samaritan in San Jose and Stanford University Medical Center. I interviewed at UCLA in Nov and after 4 weeks of waiting, heard back from the manager that I was not selected for a position. Then in late Jan, I interviewed at Stanford and am still waiting if an offer is going to be made or not. Hours of work has been put in refining my resume and cover letter. I even asked previous preceptors and instructors for letters of recommendations to put in my portfolio. I dress in a suit and spend a few days practicing interview questions. Granted I know that since I'm out of state, it makes things harder but when I read the posts here, I see that it is doable for many new graduates. I know I should be relaxing and feel relieved to have the NCLEX done but this is very unsettling and it's getting harder to sit in front of the computer for hours night after night researching hospitals and completing the online applications. Am I doing something glaringly wrong?