OldnurseRN

I really need to get to bed so I can work my shift tonight (and hopefully, Just my 10 to 6 shift without being mandated to come in at 6) but, I couldn't quit reading these! After 30 years I'm ready for someone to make ME happy! I will see that when Healthcare is divorced from the sevice industry and we get back to providing care instead of customer service. I'm just short of 65 and have been in healthcare all my adult life, first as a respiratory therapist. We are 360 degrees away from what "it used to be like" yet I don't recall all the sense of entitlement and petty discontentment from the care "back then". I could easily retire if facilities quit wasting money on their Press-Ganey surveys, scripted replies, and concierge service. I'll be lucky to have time off for my own funeral. In my skilled nursing and rehab facility I have 50 people to provide care for with 2 VERY overwhelmed CNAs. Happy? I don't really know how to respond SMH!

Actually we received a woman in a similar way. Her daughter brought her to our SNF/LTC from a locked geriatric psych ward! She was told she was going to "an appointment". She doesn't belong with us but, we have her. The worst part of this story is our facility doesn't give "psychotropic" medications! I honestly don't know how they get away with this!

I stand by what I originally posted. No, you are not too old to become a nurse but, what I said is you will have a difficult time getting hired. I have many many years in and after losing a position due to surgery I had to go traveling to make a living. No one wanted an old nurse! When I just plain got tired of being away from my family, that includes a husband, children, grandchildren AND great-grandchildren, I came home and tried absolutely everywhere. My experience was ER, Oncology, and Med-Surg, along with psychiatric nursing. I've worked as a traveler at Johns Hopkins, Texas Children, some of the BEST facilities and I got nothing. Now I am in LTC. At my age this is killing me! Understaffed overworked with heavy immobile residents. Unless you are in some fabulous Utopian place you WILL encounter the silent age discrimination. They will sing praises over your resume until that face-to-face and then you will likely get that form letter of rejection. Ugly truth, isn't it?

There is nothing wrong with going after your dream. But, (and there is always one) older nurses are not a marketable commodity. Employers would rather hire new and young, to save money, than to hire a seasoned nurse. I am not just being a naysayer. I am living this reality. Recruiters and educators may disagree and tell you what you want to hear but when it's you, sitting in the chair across from the interviewer believe me your age will have a bearing and it there is a younger nurse who has applied, the job goes to that one. Is it fair? Is it LEGAL? NO! It is what it is.

Try working in mine! We have 70 residents (plus I am responsible for the 37 Assisted Living tenants attached to our building, if they push their life line pendant). We have 2 nurses and 2 aids. ONLY the nurses are required to have CPR and some nights they staff just one nurse and 3 aides for the building. It's all for the bottom line profit of the owners.

In our facility falls are inevitable. At night we have 2 nurses and 2 CNAs and 70 residents. Tell me, how do we cover 5 hallways all the time and make sure our people aren't falling? Alarms are being phazed out .... we have 3 only. If my aid and I are doing a complete bed change down hallway "A" there is no way we can know what is happening on Hallway "B". And because it is a privately owned, for profit NH nothing is going to change. Their claim is staffing is adequate and that's that.

I got 6 days orientation ..... having never worked in a SNF/LTC/NH setting. Not nearly enough, even though I had been a travel nurse the past 3+ years, used to short orientations. I start 4PM med pass at 3PM and I am lucky if I am done at 6PM. I get sent to different units which means I don't know who is who (and can't rely on the patients to know, either!). I feel I am failing miserably after my first 3 weeks. I've yet to have a supper break and have actually lost 20lbs. My problem is described in my screen name .... no one wants old nurses. Though it's great to live in my own home again I think I may have to return to traveling.

I spent the winter in Houston at Texas Children's. Do you know where you will be housed? I was housed within "the med center" so took the train to and from work. Parking is expensive in the med center and sometimes requires parking in a remote lot and taking a shuttle.

I was provided a furnished apartment within the "medical center" and took the train to work. Parking is expensive. My hourly rate was $31.00 an hour.

I am not a post-partum nurse or a L & D nurse or a MB nurse but am currently on an assignment that wanted to add med-surg to this well-known hospital. They haven't had med-surg patients as anticipated so I have been doing post-partum on mothers who have babies in NICU, or ante-partum on pregnant woman who aren't yet viable so have not fetal monitoring or taking care of women who have had fetal demise. I am a fish out of water. That being said, check out some agencies that staff Houston Texas Children's Hospital and you may some openings.

I've never been there but good luck with your new experiences!

Absolutely not!

I see this is an old thread but am going to respond anyway. I have been with Aureus for 2 years. I get reimbursed TO and FROM each assignment, even if I go home in between for a week or two before taking a new assignment. I have one recruiter for each assignment. I check in each week like I agreed to do when I contrated with them. My pay is usually over $30.00 an hour and I am provided a furnished apartment. NO I AM NOT a recruiter!! Feel free to PM me if you want information.

I was an RT years before I became an RN. Times were different then. Treatments were IPPB, we "woke" the PACU patients up, we did many things that are no longer done. I know RTs do a lot of exciting stuff but from my observations MOST of their work is mundane neb treatments on patients who are capable of doing them on their own because they do them at home. IF you are guaranteed a position that keeps you in critical care with vents or in ED with traumas then it would be much more exciting.

The facility I am at is having a census problem right now. We are a specialty unit. Regular staff gets cancelled, put on call, or floated. I am a traveler with a "no float, no cancellation" contract and feel some animosity toward me from a few. Most are very gracious and tell me they knew this would happen and agreed to it before I arrived because my being there ensured their vacation.