sserrn

Have you worked in the vascular access specialty before? If not, you’re not eligible to sit for the exam. See https://www.vacert.org/eligibility/ I have been FT on a VAT since November. Will take the exam this year, either June or December, and I plan to use the AVA resource guide that you mentioned. It’s supposed to cover the exam content. Good luck!

Regarding the dilaudid, which I realize has been beat to death already, forget all the stuff about drug seeking, chronic vs acute pain, getting a high or not getting a high. Shouldn't even be a consideration. Best practice is to push over AT LEAST 2 mins. If it makes me uncompassionate to not 'push it fast', I'm totally cool with that, whether the pt is in real pain or not.

Are you an ER nurse, thenursemandy? If so, for how long?

5 pts per nurse

I'm surprised that you need an order to mix it with lidocaine at your facility. As to your Q, I've always wondered of it really helps and kind of doubt it, but who knows!

Sounds like good experience.

2 pens, badge(s), 'scope, trauma shears. Used to carry more, but really this is all you need on your person imo

I would take ACLS & PALS instead. The CEN, in my opinion, doesn't mean a whole lot without any experience to back it up.

I couldn't agree more...but policy is policy, unfortunately!

We're required to run everything on a pump, so a simple L bolus takes an hour :-/

Nothing! :-)

I just passed Tuesday for the first time!! Same amount of experience as you! Went to a review class by Mark Boswell in January and also watched Jeff Solheim's review on MedEd (which is where you will find his AWESOME series). I bought the NEW lippincott q&a book and do not recommend it. As far as practice questions I recommend only the ENA ones. And I did ALL of them over 4 months. And as a final assessment I strongly recommend the official BCEN CEN practice exam, bc I made the EXACT same score on it as I did on the real thing. Good luck, everybody!! It's very doable!! Can't wait for my little badge thingy, which I hope they will send!?! :-)

Had that the other day^^

"Needs excuse for work" popped up on our tracker board today....true story!!! Lol

The trolls on this forum are just as unbearable as our ER pts. Deleting AN off my iPhone. Take it away!

Yes, all the time

You just don't get it, do you? You think that since you're not that sick it shouldn't take that long. No, honey, that's not how it works. It's called the emergency room, not the clinic room.

TNCC and ATCN are both great and I learned a lot in both! Not sure if one is harder than the other, but you should prob take TNCC first IMO. I take NRP next month for the first time so I can't personally say whether it's helpful, but I know some ER nurses who have taken it and seem to think it's very useful!

Agree with other posters. Sounds like you can forget it. :-/ Are there any other hospitals closer than 2 1/2 hrs to you?

^^omg....just got it!! ;-P

You really shouldn't give rocephin ivp anyway. You should give it ivpb diluted in 50 mL NS. And give it over 15-30 mins.

That's a very strict rule at my ER. It's a JCAHO thing. In my opinion, it leads to dehydration among nursing staff, which is very dangerous. Not trying to give TMI, but there have been dozens of 12-hr shifts where I've peed once. Oh, and I have interstitial cystitis!!

It seems to me that enpc would be invaluable preparation for cpen?? I haven't taken either yet, so maybe I'm wrong, but I wouldn't think it would be "one or the other."

With the current, increasing emphasis on pt satisfaction scores, we nurses are little more than glorified waiters. At some hospitals, I sometimes think they'd be ok with us overdosing a pt and killing them, as long as we didn't offend the family in the process...

My ER hires almost exclusively new grads!