Karolyte

I am a new nurse manager and I am having difficulty with calculations ? We are planning to implement a different nursing model and I have to figure out how many RNs and how many PCTs I have to have for the unit to be fully staffed. Our target HPPD would be 9.5. We work 12 hour shifts therefore 36 hours a week or 72 in one pay period. We are averaging 25 patients daily. How would I calculate my needs?

Bringing this topic up. I am in the same situation and chose director of nursing position. Did not want the opportunity to pass since it may never come back. Just wondering what you decided to do when u were making this decision and are you glad about it.

I did not ask ok AN right away and I prefer evidence based articles over google to find my answers. I did read several articles but I also thought it would not hurt to ask an opinion of someone here.

I have a 40 something year old with asthma.

I have always had a problem with pulmonary function tests. Help me interpret these findings PEF> 80%, FEV1/FVC >75%.

We also use commode versus bathroom, knees with femoral block are the ones falling most of the time. Do you have 2 persons to assist the patient? Do they get up with knee immobilizers?

I work on a busy ortho unit. Our recent problem is increased number of falls. Especially lower extremity joint replacement patient falls while getting them up and ambulating. Although we stay with the patient, use gait belt, bed and chair alarms, fall risk signs, yellow socks... We still end up with patient's knee buckling and falling. How do you prevent falls???

Nur500 is a piece of cake :) ended up with 98.5%.

2.5 years

I am starting January 6!!! Yay!!

Go to their website

I just started working with provant and yesterday attended my first event. In IL they pay $28 an hour. Everything was very well organized. There were 10 of us and others worked for provant 3 or more years. They send emails with events you can either accept or decline. So far everything was vert smooth.

So did it turn out to be legit?

Thank you all for your input.

Hi! I have a question for the ICU nurses. I am a student, therefore, I do not have experience but I have curiosity. I know that sedation vacations help to prevent VAP, but how about patients that are getting paralytics, who are sedated with propofol and vented? Is there any nursing research about it? I did my search but was not able to find any.

I think you've made great decision. Let me be honest. You will hate nursing school and then you will love it :) As it comes to clinicals, most of my clinicals were on Saturdays only, from 6:30am till about 3-4pm. One clinical rotation I had Saturdays and Sundays but then we had another weekend off, this really depends on your clinical instructor. For psych we had out clinicals on Fridays from 2pm till 9pm. Right now I'm on my last semester and I do not have any weekend clinicals. Right now I have clinicals Tuesday mornings 6am-4pm. Once this block is done in 8 weeks I will have my role transition and this will be Monday and Tuesday 6am-4pm. They did not lie when they said that you will be busy, but it is possible to do. We have three students who worked part time and only one student who managed to work full time during this program and I'm pretty amazed by her :) Let me know if you have any questions. P.S. Another great thing Lewis started is mentorship program. I'm a mentor and I can just wish that I would of had the opportunity to have a mentor. Once you get to Lewis go to the mentorship meeting you will be matched with another student from the higher cohort and you will be buddies :) That means that you will get awesome hints of how to study for the certain class. He/she will tell you about how one or the other professor is. You will know if you need to read a book or not to bother It is also nice to have someone to talk to knowing that they also went through this.

$14.00 no ecperience Western suburbs of Chicago, IL

I just started working as a PCT with no experience, altough I'm in my last semester in BSN. I'm getting paid $14 day shift, with differentials $1 for weekends and $21 overtime.

I'm graduating from Lewis accelerated program in August. So far non of the semesters seemed to be light. It was pretty mcuh very intense. Some of our cohort quit because of the stress and intensity. Some went to traditional cohort so that they can go at the slower pace. However, I still recommend taking accelerated courses. You get 8 weeks of classes and clinicals combined instead of traditional 16 and you do not have things like breaks other than 2 week X-mas break. This also means that you have to read 650 pages in one week to prepare fot the exam :) You will be drained but it is worth the effort. Just the note: Lewis university accelerated program has 100% NCLEX passing rate, this means that you are pretty well prepared.

Hi all! I'm graduating in August 12 with my BSN. This means that I will have my license in September. This also means that I'm missing on the new grad program that starts in August. Are there any new grad programs that start later (other that March). I'm mostly interested in hospitals in Chicago southwestern suburbs. I know that Good Samaritan is not having a new grad program this year. Can I still apply to the positions in those hospitals even if they do not have the program? If so how soon should I apply?

This semester I have my clinicals at CCU/PCU I think I need to manage my time better. Who do I see first? How am I going to round so that I would not skip on something critical.

That's exactly what happened :) Funny but that's true:lol2:

Please share what you feel you need to improve to become a wonderful nurse. Finish the sentence. I feel I need to improve my:

Edit: Never mind. Just figured this one out :) I feel like I'm hitting a wall and I need your assitance. I had a post op patient after small bowel resection and I'm now writing a care plan for the nursing diagnosis: Risk for infection r/t/ invasive procedure. I came up with one long term goal which is Patient will achieve timely wound healing and one short term which is Patient will remain free of infection by the end of the shift. What could be another short term goal? I can not use teaching because patient is lethargic and confused.

I was in your shoes as well. I decided to quit an office job with a good salary and focus on the nursing school only. Now I'm in my senior year, graduating in August. I started applying for a PCT position on 01/02/12 ? and I did that every single day and finally I got the offer on March 18th I just recently started my orientation. Good luck to you and keep looking and keep applying and you will get it. By the way I did not have any hospital or nursing home or anything else nursing related experience and I got the job!