chansen

The concept of multi-tasking is flawed. It takes away mental or physical energy from whatever task is most important. Forget the word multi-tasking exists. It can impair performance. Have a mental routine before your shift. If you're religious, pray...

If they are department beneficial, try and make the department pay for them. If you work in a place that is not willing to help improve the work environment, morale, and flow with cost-effective, thought-out solutions, and expect the employees to pay...

The ED has been and always will be the scapegoat for too many hospital problems. Unless they've worked in an ED before, they won't get it. Sure, it may be that nurse's second admission of the day, but you may have 40-deep in the lobby and have to kee...

Or a rhesus monkey.

I've paired down quite a bit. Used to carry full sets of IV start kits, but our nurse-servers in each ED room carry a good many things. - stethoscope - hemostats with a tape roll on them clipped to my scrub top with my shears down through the tape. -...

The sheer number of young female "abdominal pains" that arrive by medic and then elope when their urine HCG comes back positive never ceases to amaze me. Hooray for 911 pregnancy tests they never have any intention paying. And people complain that a ...

Similar to what was said before, the ED is so much more task oriented than other places, and the biggest thing you need to do to provide the safest care to your patients is continuously reassess what tasks need to be done and place them into three ba...

There are definitely a few instructors who I think are just burnt out from their support at the school (or lack thereof) and the swap to semesters is definitely a large source of that anxiety. There are also instructors who very much care about the e...

December graduate, in the OhioHealth critical care fellowship right now. What we learned in terms of clinical application was on par or beyond that of the other area schools with BSNs or ADNs. Skills are one thing, and as previously mentioned, any mo...

You need to really start developing those critical thinking skills. It's not enough in an ICU setting to just memorize things like, "if my patient has low blood pressure, put them on a pressor." You need to know what that's doing, why it's increasing...

Dyslexia in physicians is always easy to diagnose.

As a new grad you have an easy and effective "weakness" you can list if the question comes up. Delegation. "As someone who has been in a position of learning until this point in my life, I've had less experience delegating tasks. I'm not in a positi...

I love cargo uniforms, because I'm a walking boy scout in the ED. I don't like to have to leave the room for additional supplies for IVs or gather up extras for med admin when making a trip to the pyxis. Stethoscope around the neck, small flip pad t...

20' and above tends to be the height at which falls get ugly. Had a construction worker fall 60' off a roof, landing feet first on the hood of a car. L1 and up on the CT were pristine. Some minor damage to L2-L4 (never found out if there was cord inv...

I think I'm in the minority that go the minimalist route with shoes. I wear new balance minimus to get a near-barefoot feeling.

i'm sorry you live in an area where healthcare organizations don't have programs in place for new grads to transition into critical care areas and succeed. however, some of us do, and are quite happy to skip over the year on the floor and go right to...

New RN but I've been an STNA for the last few years through school, working in a long term care and rehab facility. This is completely true from the assistant perspective. The nurses that willingly assist in the simple tasks that save me time are the...

Don't approach it with the attitude that it's a waste of time, and don't assume you won't be doing or learning anything. Clinicals, in general, are what you make of them. I did 10 weeks of postpartum and L&D and never once had a mother or soon to...

First and foremost, confidence. You don't walk into a room and say, "Hi... um... are you ok having a guy in here?" You say, "Good morning/afternoon/evening, I'm icarr757, the student nurse working with nurse blah blah today. I'm here to see if you ne...

Graduated last month, already landed a position in a 21 week critical care fellowship, took and passed my boards this last week. At this point, taking a family vacation for the next week or so until the fellowship starts to relax.

Ohio is a very saturated area (as is most of the Midwest), especially because of the number of nursing schools churning out new grads every few months. Traditionally, those that get jobs out of school are those that networked well during school and h...

Out of the scope of practice for an STNA. Facility to factility is different with what their techs are allowed to do, but most sterile dressing changes are taught during training/schooling. Simply state that while another nurse may be comfortable wit...

haha, yes. I recall first week of 100 being a fairly insane number of chapters, but it tends to get better once you get over the initial hump of reading in the D'Amico book.

Get used to books and the class packets being sold out or available late - it'll happen every quarter! I'm in 3rd quarter right now, full time, and the biggest thing I can suggest for 1st quarter is to take advantage of Tina Berry's supplemental inst...

Mind mapping has been crutial for me. If you're a visual learner and you've never heard of mind mapping, I'd suggest you do a youtube search for "tony buzan mind mapping" and check out a few of the videos. It's a technique I only learned recently, an...