mooremds

I have talked to them, and they said that it's possible I could get a site closer to where we are, but they cannot guarantee it. They said if we cannot move than the best thing would be to reapply next year, I'm just afraid I may miss out on the opportunity to next year.

So I got accepted to a CRNA program, however, my primary clinical site would require me to move, which I at first though wouldn't be a problem. Now I realize how a difficult it was for my husband to get a job, and I'm not sure he would be able to get another job in the location we're going for my clinicals. I could accept and just hope that a clinical spot opens up that wouldn't require us to move or that my husband would be able to find a job. I could also hold out and reapply next year in hopes that I get accepted again and can get a clinical site that wouldn't require a move. Have any of you declined and reapplied and gotten in? Would a school not want to offer me a position because I turned one down before?

So I got accepted to a CRNA program, however, my primary clinical site would require me to move, which I at first though wouldn't be a problem. Now I realize how a difficult it was for my husband to get a job, and I'm not sure he would be able to get another job in the location we're going for my clinicals. I could accept and just hope that a clinical spot opens up that wouldn't require us to move or that my husband would be able to find a job. I could also hold out and reapply next year in hopes that I get accepted again and can get a clinical site that wouldn't require a move. Have any of you declined and reapplied and gotten in? Would a school not want to offer me a position because I turned one down before?

I've applied for CRNA school for Spring 2013 and have met all of the requirements for admission. I received a request for the interview process for September. Any pointers on how to prepare and what to expect?

I'm just curious how many hospitals actually make their nurses do this. Our hospital floats some of the more experienced nurses (I'm one of those with only a year experience) to other floors and has them charge on those floors because they're the only RN with more than 6 months experience. It doesn't seem safe, and something I'm not very comfortable with. What's your opinion?

Hey everyone, I've been working the night shift (obviously since I'm online this late) steadily since last February, and I was just wondering what everyone's schedule is like. I usually try to stick to nights on my days off and will go to bed at 3 or 4 in the morning and sleep in until the afternoon. I seem to need a lot more sleep when I work the night shift and cannot make myself get up before noon on my days off. My eating schedule gets all messed up as well on my days off. Sometimes I'll only eat 1 or 2 meals a day, definitely not healthy, if it's my first night off I'll sleep until 5 or 6 PM, especially if I worked a lot of days in a row, and then I'll eat around 9 or 10, and go back to sleep around midnight or 1 AM to try and be awake a little during the day the next day. How do you spend your days off? Does anyone else have as many problems as I do with the night shift?

Wow, must be really nice to have your state mandate ratios. I wish Texas did. In our ICU we usually do 2:1, sometimes 3:1, not too bad; our floor nurses have it rough. They often times have 7:1 and I've heard of them getting 9:1. I dread the day I'm floated and they're short staffed and I have to take 9 patients.

I work in a rural hospital and our ratio is always 1:2, occasionally 1:3 if we're short staffed. Rarely do we get 1:1, that's only for one nurse on the unit usually that's only given 1:1 to leave room for admits during the shift. Our charge nurses don't even get 1:1, we take 1:2 or 1:3 just like everyone else during the shift. It's almost like, what's the point of the charge nurse? If they're taking care of their patients, how can they charge? We just simply don't have the staff to allow free charging. We do for some reason have 2:1 for day 1 post open heart patients, our only cardiothoracic surgeon has requested that we do that. Any time they're still in the unit they're a 1:1 patient, even if they'll be most likely going to the post surgical floor that day. It sure makes it hard to have 2:1 ratio when there's other nurses on the floor who are working 1:3.

I was a new nurse starting out on a critical care unit, I got a little experience doing 3 months Med Surg and 2 months step down, then on orientation for 2 months in ICU. My first day in ICU I became physically ill because I was so nervous, and it was almost that bad the first day I was on my own. I would have to talk to myself in be the mirror every day before work and tell myself that I could do it. It was weeks before I would go in without my stomach churning, what helped me get through it the most though was my coworkers. I realized that I'm new, I'm not going to know everything and I never will, but I can always go to my coworkers and ask questions. Never be afraid to ask questions, and know that people will be there and willing to help. You can get through it!

I am wanting to go into an advanced practice role and looking at my options. I intend on shadowing a CRNA in my facility and hopefully in other facilities around my area because I realize a lot of what you do and your independence if affected by the facility you work in. My question is how many years of ICU did most of you work? Most programs require at least 1 year and suggest 2 years. By the time I start applying and really looking into going to school, I will have close to 2 1/2 years ICU experience. I'm concerned if this will be enough though. I work in a rural hospital with a 16 bed ICU. We get many different kinds of patients, mainly a lot of sepsis, intubated patients on multiple gtts, a lot of post-PTCA patients, but I have been lucky enough to work 2 fresh post-CABG patients, but with a lot of help from experienced nurses. I will definitely be working to get tougher assignments in the next 1 1/2 years that I work so that I can learn as much as I can. I'm also going to be working towards becoming CCRN certified and taking an organic chemistry course (most CRNA programs require this, but unfortunately my degree only required intro to chemistry). This long post just to see that I am mainly on the right path. I have heard (from a nurse recruiter, so not the best source) that working in a rural ICU may be better for a CRNA standpoint because we're not limited to 1 body system as we may be in a larger hospital, where we could be working in a "cardiac ICU" or whatever. What are your thoughts? Is 2 years of ICU experience enough or do you think there should be more?

We've been having a debate at work on setting up the ventriculostomy with the external transducer to measure the ICP. We're a small hospital and don't get many ventriculostomies, but we've had several lately. On one we were told not to inflate the pressure bag on the external transducer because with it inflated it gives a continuous flush of approximately 3 cc/hr. I completely took the pressure bag off so that it would not be accidently inflated. The next one we get, we're told to inflate the pressure bag because it won't transduce if it's not inflated. Some say you can do that as long as you roller clamp it off so that they won't get the flush, others say leave it open and it won't flush anything if the pigtail isn't pulled. Also, if you're going to clamp it off what's the point of the pressure bag? I was just wondering what some of you neuro ICU nurses say since you probably deal with these a lot more often than we do. I hope my question makes sense.

Our local Hobby Lobby uses colors for their overhead codes. I jump every time they call Code Blue.

I love this! It's not a shift if I don't find myself cleaning poop at least 2 or 3 times each night. And there's many times that poop involves critical thinking...how do I get the poop off of this 300 lb patient without getting it on these clean linens I just put on the bed for the 3rd time tonight?

I'm needing to get new shoes and I was wondering which ones everyone thinks are the best. I'm thinking about some Nike Shox or New Balance shoes. I hear SAS are really comfortable, but I don't like how they look. I'm not wanting to get Crocs either because a lot of hospitals seem to be banning those now. Let me know what you think please. :)