Sniffum35

Most likely surgical blood loss and hemodulation. Also, lots of patients develop anemia during a hospital stay. One thing to remember with anemia is that there are only three general causes: loss (or dysfunction) of rbcs, decreased production of new rbcs, or hemodulation. If you think about it this way you can usually figure out the cause.

The Tele position would be best in my opinion. I don't believe any school would accept l tach experience.

I had no trouble getting in to the icu straight out of school. They only had two requirements when hiring new grads. You had to have cna/pca/tech experience and have some type of critical care exposure in school. I know that both of the big hospital systems in my city hire new grads directly into the icu.

U RN ICU, I'm number one and unfortunately haven't heard anything yet. I'll keep you posted if I do.

I'm waitlisted. How long did they give you guys to accept the spot?

Has anyone heard anything yet? I figured that we would know by now.

I think it depends on how relevant your preceptorship was to the position you're applying for. If you want an ICU job and thats where your preceptorship was, then definitely put it first. That was my situation and I had good success with my resume. During the initial interview for the job I eventually took, the HR recruiter made it a point to say that she really liked that I had highlighted my relevant preceptorship by placing it first.

I just got hired into the ICU at St. Francis in Milwaukee. While I was going through the interview process, I was told that they would have more spots opening up (I think some are already listed). I was told that they will consider new grads if they have had previous health care experience (ie CNA) and did their senior rotation in the type of unit they are applying for. I had worked as a CNA in a nursing home for 6 months and did my senior clinical rotation in a PICU. Check out their website. The positions listed look like any other listing (experience preferred, etc) but the description will mention that GNs will be considered.

Agreed. I'm in an area with a supposedly bad job market and I got one of the first jobs I applied to.

Agreed. I bought the ICUfaqs book and its pretty awesome. Very readable.

LoL, sorry just reread your post. But yes, they are awesome.

Hi Kimberly, In your phone interview, stress the completion of your pre-reqs. They do consider this a factor in your candidacy. Also, whoever told you that UW-O doesn't help with financial aid couldn't be more wrong. The financial aid office has an officer dedicated to the ACCEL program. Have you filled out a FAFSA form? If you have any questions about financial aid, I can probably help you. Cari- A 75% on the TEAS is more than good enough. This is not really a determining factor as they used to do it during orientation. Its just to make sure they are not letting people who can't read or calculate doses into the program without remediation. The only way I could really see it weighing in on a decision is if someone did terribly on it (

A little primer for the phone interview.... Its focused on what you know about the program to see if you know what you are getting yourself into. They'll ask if you have the financial part squared away, how comfortable you are with technology, if you understand the time commitment it takes, etc. There weren't many of the traditional "interview questions" you would expect. In fact, the only thing like that I can remember them asking is why I wanted to be in the UW-O ACCEL program specifically. I was very prepared for a normal interview and it wasn't worth it.

This link describes the vector thing way better. I'm a pretty bad teacher :) http://www.cvphysiology.com/Arrhythmias/A015.htm This is really good also. It explains pretty much everything else. http://www.cvphysiology.com/Arrhythmias/A014.htm

It has to do with the orientation of V1-V4 to the left side of the heart. Look at the pattern of the QRS complexes, V1-V3 are predominantly downward deflections because the sum of the depolarization wave is moving away from the positive lead (because the Left Ventricle has more mass, and thus more effect on the sum of depolarization). The heart repolarizes in the same way, the sum of the wave of negative charge returning is mostly going away from those leads, so to speak. Negative going away from a positive will look the same as a positive wave going towards a positive. This explains why the more negative QRS complexes are associated with more positive T waves. I hope that makes a little sense. Its a complex concept, you need to think of the "wave" as a sum of of all the electrical activity around the heart and then think of that sum as a vector. The vector's orientation to the poles of the leads and its the strength determine everything you see on that strip. Hopefully, thats not too confusing. If you really, really want to understand 12 leads, read Dale Dubin's Rapid Interpretation of EKG's. There are more complex EKG books but none that really hit on the basics well enough for you to really understand.