TreehuggerRN

Sounds like a bad soap opera. I don't see how he/she gets away with disposing of narcotics alone, usually a pharmacist has to go through a specific process to do this, and in the presence of a nurse.

Well, that's just too bad. Just because people need to vent doesn't mean it's justified. It's kind of like kicking a dog because you're frustrated with something else. Or coming home and abusing your child because you feel stressed out. Some things are just plain wrong, no matter how you cut it up.

This attitude works both ways. People who have no understanding act like losing weight should be like flipping off a light switch. It isn't that cut and dry. That's the problem.

What I find most disturbing (and heartbreaking) about this thread is the vile attitude and utter contempt a lot of nurses seem to have for fat people. Not only that, some of the comments confirm that just because someone has a title after their name does not mean they know what they are talking about, as many of the assumptions and tacky comments and stereotypes reek of IRREVOCABLE IGNORANCE, not to mention a total lack of compassion for a fellow human being. You fat bashers should be ashamed of yourselves. You also need to educate yourselves. Not all (or even most) fat people are selfish gluttons who eat themselves into oblivion because they want to make it hard for "you" to care for them. Their problems-including their weight-often go much much deeper than you apparently are capable of understanding. I'm sorry to be blunt, but this really makes me angry.

In the long run, no, but a BSN may help you get your foot in the door over a new ASN.

I've been offered a position on the med-surg unit (nights). The pay stinks (really bad) and I'm totally not a night person at all but I need the experience and am excited about doing a good job. I've been warned I'll feel overwhelmed at times, but right now I'm looking forward to the excitement and finding a system that will help me really show my stuff out on the floor. I'm eager to do well. My plan is to use med surg to get my foot in NICU (I hope.) How about a PDA? What about books that would be helpful to have?

Well, well, well... www.wsbtv.com/news/21677645/detail.html

I called and actually got an interview this evening. It was the DON/NM and director of the rehab unit. They want me to come back tomorrow for a "peer interview." They did tell me to not expect I'd be making anywhere near what I'm making at my current job, which worries me. They commented on how nervous I was and I told them it is just my nature (and it is.) I have a prescription for Xanax but I really do not like taking it, though while my hands were flittering around and I was chattering like a fruitcake I realize I probably should have for this interview. I will for tomorrow's interview. They commended me on my enthusiasm. I was asked what team work meant to me and they said they really liked my response (I said something about building each other up and sometimes catching something else one of your co-workers missed and fixing it without announcing it over the loud speaker...) The NM said they actually had one applicant respond that teamwork to her meant that people would help her when she was behind. I guess that's not what they wanted to hear. I was so nervous when I left it was hard to catch my breath (I do suffer from panic attacks), but the people there were very nice and welcoming. Thank you to all who have offered advice. I also noticed that where I work now, the DON's attitude toward me is definitely different. I can't help that, I have to think of my own future and personal growth.

Two people shouldn't even be lifting a person that big. Your facility needs a lift.

It's hard to leave something when it never started in the first place, isn't it?

I've got it so easy at this job (most of the time) that I feel guilty taking a check. I'm like the nurse on stand-by, I've been a life saver to them more than once when there has been a call-in or a crisis on the weekend. I'm here at work now looking on the internet and they never give me any grief over it. The DON (who is a he, by the way) says that hospital is awful, but I learned from a co-worker his NM position was phased out and he didn't want to work the floor so that is why he left. I know I would not make as much at this hospital, but I think the experience would be a lot more than I'm getting here. I'm wondering if they would let me work PRN?

With no acute care experience I feel the time has come to expand my horizons. I applied to a hospital in my neighborhood and got a call back to come in for an interview. I know the DON used to work at this hospital so I asked about working at this hospital. "Oh, you don't want to work there...I was a nurse manager there and it's one of the worst hospitals I've ever been in. You need to stay here with me and help me run this place (then had to add) you're one of the best nurses we've got." I asked some of my co-workers and got a different response. Several of them have family members employed there or know someone who is employed there and not one of them told me anything negative. I know just because I've gotten an interview that doesn't mean I'm hired, but I hate the guilt trip being put on me. What would be worse is if I got this job and it didn't work out and I'd come back with my tail between my legs looking for my job back and it wouldn't be there. Beside the advice to follow my heart and all that, anyone been in a similar situation?

We have an older lpn who's charting kind of makes you cringe. She charted, "Resident had skin tear to right elbow and I fixed it." This is just one example.

I think it's pretty rotten to call up administration and tell a lie, like the old creep who called up and said he came in at 10:30am (when it was 8:30) because it would add drama to his assertion that his wife had been sitting in poop since 5:30am.

I know how you feel. I was just talking about making a choice between family and career and that I just couldn't abandon my children. So, yes, I feel like I settled as far as a career goes but I'm trying to make the best of it.

The school I'm going to didn't require this. When I read the title of this thread my initial thought was they were looking for something political. What you have sounds good, though. I hope you're not goint through an expensive private university, not that it's my business but it's expensive enough going to a state school.

At 35 I feel pretty over the hill. I know a former state trooper who is in CRNA school now and he is 37. I know there are some older than that who swing it but I feel like I've missed enough of my childrens' lives working and going to school as it is. I have to choose one or the other, and it's them. I'm enrolled in an NP program for Spring 2010. If it wasn't for so many responsibilities and agonizing over spending so much time away from family I'd be a medical doctor by now. I'm just going to make the best out of what I have, and I figure becoming a nurse practitioner is about as far as I can attempt to go, and I'll be thankful if I can accomplish that.

All I have are a bunch of automated reject letters jamming up my computer. Thank all these nursing schools recruiting new nurses. I can tell you right now where there is a community college next to a hospital who has a contract with the school to get their new grads so the nurses can walk from school across the parking lot to the hospital, just like a cattle chute! They've got them coming all day, why would they need us? Nursing shortage my you-know-what.

Hey, if you know how to get hospital interviewers to buy that let me know how you do it. I've got a BSN and I'm enrolled in graduate school but the first thing they crinkle their face at is hearing that I have most of my experience in a nursing home.

This is not me stereotyping, this is the mindset of all interviewers in hopsital positions I have applied to. And ultimately the reason they do not choose me over other applicants. This perspective I have on LTC did not come from nothing. I know what I do is valuable, but apparently only in a nursing home, and it is not considered experience that will count for getting you a hospital job. I had one nurse manager spit out at me (after I started to tell her about my LTC experience) "Our nurses do a lot more than pass pills." I held my temper and didn't say anything, but I let her know I did a lot more than "pass pills" too. It is what it is. Hospitals don't want to hear about nursing home experience. It may even hinder you when looking for another job. It has me.

I wonder if you experienced LTC workers think that these demands/observations are unreasonable. These are some comments I heard (or heard about) the past weekend by several different resident's family members (mostly private pay): An aide goes to answer the call light and the daughter is standing there tapping her foot and says, "Do I need to go call the administrator and tell him you don't have enough help? Mom has been waiting here almost 3 minutes for someone to take her to the bathroom. And look at how filthy the wheels on her bed are...do they ever bleach these walls???" A resident's son angrily comes to the nurse and says, "my mother has been needing to go to the bathroom for an hour!" The nurse asks why the call light was never turned on and the son says, "don't you think you people should make it a point to check on these patients every few minutes or so???" This happened to me. A family well known for griping about everything came in about 8:30AM to see dear old Mom. I had been in there 30 minutes before to give her meds while she was eating breakfast. The call light goes off a couple of minutes later and I walk in and smell poop. Her husband says, "She tells us she's been sitting here in mess since 5:30 this morning. I tell him that couldn't have been and why and when I leave he immediately turns the light back on. After a couple of minutes (the aides are busy tending to others at the time, I hear him say, "they need to get here TODAY! TODAY! TODAY!" He leaves but makes sure to call back Monday morning and tells the management he came in at 10:30AM and his wife had been sitting in mess since 5:30 that morning. If I have to deal with much more of this I'm going to lose my job because I'm going to tell them to wheel the car around to the side door so we can roll Mom's or Pop's @$$ out there and they can take them home and do it themselves. Private duty is not included in the price of their bed. The good residents and families we have are REALLY good, and the bad ones make it unbearable. I just think these are people who would never be pleased.

I'm not a new grad and I still can't get any hospitals to give me the time of day, and my GPA is good, too. Maybe I'm just too old? (mid 30's)

I mentioned "A Hall" and he said, "You calling me an A-HOLE???" (joking, I know, but you kind of expect someone to be a little more reserved, especially when you have first met them.) They paired him up with one of our residents who is an old army vet with a foul mouth and they got along fabulously.

Not just me, either. Where I work we have a practical nursing class doing their rotation and I was approached by this very large, rough-looking guy with a shaved head. He was loud and crude, and when I would answer his questions he would say things like, "what a bunch of crap!" He looked like he would be more at home in a biker bar than as a nurse. Now before anyone blows me to smitherines for "profiling" and stereotyping I want to say that I'm not the only one who thinks he is weird. I mentioned to another nurse I would not trust handing this guy the keys to a med cart and she totally agreed. I was surprised at my visceral response to this guy because I do not like to jump to conclusions about people and I know looks can be deceiving.

The person I'm speaking of has been accepted into the U of South Alabama as an Adult/Gero (primary care) NP student for 2010. She applied for ACNP but they offered here the ANP and said she did not qualify for ACNP. So, she is taking what she can get even though she thinks she will probably have to move to get a job.