jlnoel

Hello: I am wondering if you are still out there and wanting to correspond with me I did have some questions about other aspects of nursing to see how it contrasts with myself in the US. What are your nurse/patient ratios? We have between 2-3 kids at a time, which may not sound like a lot but we are giving chemo and the kids who received the bone marrow transplants are not very stable and can be like an ICU patient. Also, what is the mix/ages of the nurses you work with? most of the nurses on our unit are upper 20's to early 30's with a few older nurses in their 50's and a few new graduates. Also, when you say you are going to be a graduate nurse, do you mean you are licensed as a RN already and are going for more schooling, or are you working as a student nurse? Do you have a set up system for graduate school? Do you feel at work you have a lot of autonomy or are you closed "monitored" by the doctors or other supervisors? also what nursing salaries like? Lots of questions, i hope to hear back from you!!! Jenny

Hello: I am wondering if you are still out there and wanting to correspond with me I did have some questions about other aspects of nursing to see how it contrasts with myself in the US. What are your nurse/patient ratios? We have between 2-3 kids at a time, which may not sound like a lot but we are giving chemo and the kids who received the bone marrow transplants are not very stable and can be like an ICU patient. Also, what is the mix/ages of the nurses you work with? most of the nurses on our unit are upper 20's to early 30's with a few older nurses in their 50's and a few new graduates. Also, when you say you are going to be a graduate nurse, do you mean you are licensed as a RN already and are going for more schooling, or are you working as a student nurse? Do you have a set up system for graduate school? Do you feel at work you have a lot of autonomy or are you closed "monitored" by the doctors or other supervisors? also what nursing salaries like? Lots of questions, i hope to hear back from you!!!

sorry its taken me a little while to reply...been working a lot lately and this past week alone i have rotated back and forth to nights twice. work has been tough lately...i just got a little boy the other night who came in bleeding from the mouth and extremely weak. he was transferred to us from an outside hospital because they were thinking it was cancer. his hemoglobin was less than 3 and his platelets were less than 5000! i was definetely scared but couldnt show it becasue the parents were a nervous wreck. on the (i guess) positive side, he has a "good" type of cancer (if there is such a thing), and i spent all weekend with them and sent them home after starting treatment. when they left, the parents started crying and hugging me and taking pictures of me with them...they were really thankful even given the situation. it was a great feeling leaving work knowing i actually did make a difference! i have been having a lot of little ones lately at work (under three), and as sad as it is, as long as they are not puking or something, they love to run around like any other normal kid. its great to see! any interesting stories from work lately? also, in a few weeks we are supposed to give a short biography of the rn we have been conversing with, and get some background info and areas or interest/work, etc. are you going to be available if i post those questions for you? hope to hear back soon!

Sorry its taken me a little while to reply...been working a lot lately and this past week alone i have rotated back and forth to nights twice. Work has been tough lately...i just got a little boy the other night who came in bleeding from the mouth and extremely weak. HE was transferred to us from an outside hospital because they were thinking it was cancer. His hemoglobin was less than 3 and his platelets were less than 5000! I was definetely scared but couldnt show it becasue the parents were a nervous wreck. On the (i guess) positive side, he has a "good" type of cancer (if there is such a thing), and i spent all weekend with them and sent them home after starting treatment. When they left, the parents started crying and hugging me and taking pictures of me with them...they were really thankful even given the situation. It was a great feeling leaving work knowing i actually did make a difference! I have been having a lot of little ones lately at work (under three), and as sad as it is, as long as they are not puking or something, they love to run around like any other normal kid. its great to see! Any interesting stories from work lately? Hope to hear back soon!

Hello: Where in Canada are you working? I am just starting my masters program for my FNP and I think it would be interesting to see who nurses in another country work in the same field as me. What type of setting do you work in (clinic, hospital, etc)? Do you do primary diagnosis and treatment or do you work in a place where children have mostly relapsed or are not responding to the traditional treatment? For the first year i worked in a hospital in new york where we had only the sickest of the sick and people came there from all over the world for treatment (dubai, chile, australia, russia, etc) and were on pretty much made up protocols. Its interesting and can be a really fulfilling field but also have been times where you come home just emotionally drained and just wnat to cry. What about you?

I work three 12 hour days a week and have to work every other weekend...with senority i might get every third weekend.. what about you...yeah i feel like a zombie when i work nights, and i make the switch this week.... what about you

That sounds really interesting and totally different from what i do. I work at an all childrens hospital in chicago illinois in the pediatric oncology/hematology/bone marrow transplant unit. We are the first place pts go when they are diagnosed (we have patients as young as 25 days old up to about 19 years old), so we become close with the families and pts as we will be seeing them lots over the next few years for chemo, surgeries and possible bone marrow transplants. We do a lot of teaching because they will be going home with central lines, be immunocompromised and jsut reassuring families that it will be ok to try and maintain a somewhat normal lifestyle. We do have some happy endings, but the past few months we have had a lot of tough stories with sick kids not necessarily making it. We are a teaching hospital, so we have the attendings and 4 to 5 residents each month that get rotated to different units in the hospital. I have had to float to different units 2x since i started working there, and of course it was to the NICU and PICU, two areas where i have since decided i could never work at. I work a rotating schedule doing 6 weeks of 12 hour days and then 6 weeks of 12 hour nights. I am actually just getting ready for class, so i thought i would write you back. I think that after we correspond enough, we should get access to one anothers emails. Have a good day at work!

That would be great if you woul be interested in chatting! Since I am new to allnurses.com, is there any way that we can exchange email addresses to talk? What area of nursing do you work in? what was your application/orientation process like? How is the patient population that you work with? Do you work closely with doctors or residents? Now that I actually have someone interested, I am excited to hear about things! Hope to hear back soon!

I am a new graduate student going for my FNP and our instructor would like us to get in touch with a nurse working outside the US this semester to keep in touch and get to know issues and compare how things may be different/the same. I have 2 years experience as an rn and have only worked in pediatric oncology/bmt. Anyone willing or interested? feel free to email me