stevemac

I did Micro and A&P II together, and also earned A's in both. Yes, you can do it. The courses also compliment each other.

I've blown off studying to cruise Allnurses, and here you are! My resume looks like a sampler platter rather than a main course. One of the things that I liked about being a truck driver was that I didn't really have to talk to anyone, outside of "What door? Where's the office? Where's the bathroom?" I have had to LEARN how to just...chat. I've had to LEARN how to banter, how to break the ice. Those are skills, and you can learn them. And then you can practice your new skill until it becomes part of who you are. My "work/ life balance" is decidedly unbalanced. It's NOT a fault of the nursing profession, or healthcare in general. It's Steve's fault. I work extra shifts because I want to get out of debt faster than I could if I just worked 3 12s. One of the superficial trades is that I was only on my boat three times this past summer. One of the much deeper trades--and now I regret my decision--is that I have spent a terrible amount of time away from wife and children. I'm a travel ER nurse, and sometimes Psych. I take travel contracts reasonably close to home (usually) so that I can go home on my days off, and I've also traveled to other states. Your nursing career will be what you make it. I like travel nursing because it gives me flexibility in my time that a staff nurse doesn't get, and it does pay more than being a staff nurse--IF you live cheap while not at home. You don't have to master those things in "What's scaring me" in order to be successful as a nurse. You do need to be aware of them, and you need to figure ways to work through, or around, them. The benefits to a nursing career that you mentioned are some of the same things that drew me, and you are correct. This is a stable, growing, in-demand field that pays well and is very portable and can be very flexible.

Management refusing to fix their staffing issues, and refusing to come in to cover a shift. Poor leadership seems to be a systemic problem, but I'm sure there's an excuse for that.

Have you considered a Pediatric ER? I bet you're a wizard at those really short sick people! I'll also bet you're good with their sometimes frantic families.

I'm maybe a bit of an oxymoron: I'm a travel nurse who wants to stay close to home. You mentioned you like to travel. Spend a year becoming a competent ICU nurse, and then become a travel nurse. You will have input on which assignments you want to take and where, and sometimes even when. I travel because I have some more autonomy over my time, and the opportunity for my family to travel with me and see parts of the country together that we wouldn't be able to take a vacation for. I'm an ER nurse; there is a lot of teaching in the ER. The patient load is variable, presenting complaints change by the moment, sometimes; there is lots of thinking and problem solving. And, it's a bit rare as a traveler, but there is also sometimes the chance to be a preceptor--and I really enjoy that time! I'm trying to encourage you to stay the course. Become good at the specialty you've picked, and from there you'll find lots of opportunities to use your new skills. Oh. And do your coworkers a huge favor: stop the attitude. There is no reason on earth to be "bored" in the ICU. You hold the outcomes for critical patients, and their families, in your arrogant hands, and that demands an attitude far different than "I'm bored." We haven't met, but I can tell you exactly what God's will for you life is: "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, working for the Lord rather than for men." (Colossians 3.23) No "boredom" there, eh?

Kooky Kork's got it nailed. This thread provided an interesting debate in our sleepy ER tonight, so that was fun. What if I wear my "Media Kills Love" T shirt? No doubt that'll offend some people who like Media and others who don't like it but are easily triggered by anything related to Media. What if I'm recognized at work by a patient who had been offended by my shirt days earlier? There's seems to be no "safe space" for freedom of expression anymore...unless it's a snowflake campus and you're one of the snowflakes. Then you're golden. I think the guy's shirt was in poor taste, but I bristle at the idea that society should be policing people's personal tastes. And even more so that someone who decided to be offended can affect, or threaten to affect, someone else's job. By all the articles posted here so far, Ol' Clayton is an...if I continue I'll breach the conduct rules myself! His dismissal from LE seems directly tied to his job: he was "corrupting a minor." There is a chance that he is a competent nurse and is able to hide his (presumed) prejudices while on duty; because we don't like his wardrobe doesn't necessarily mean that he doesn't provide competent care to whatever kinds of patients he serves.

I'll side with Devnation. I've only been a nurse for 3 years, and having spent my entire adult life never wanting to be involved in healthcare, I now wish I had looked at it more seriously many years ago. Some of the things that I like about the field of Nursing: It is an in-demand job. Pick a specialty, and even some that you would not have thought of for a nurse, and you'll find job openings for Registered Nurses there. It's an extremely portable job. When you get a wild hair and decide you've always wanted to live in Rhode Island, it's a very simple matter to relocate and step almost seamlessly into the new job. It pays well. After almost 4 years of experience as a Paramedic, my very first RN job paid $10/ hr MORE than I earned as a Medic. With just an Associate's degree (I realize your program is BSN), a new nurse in my area STARTS around $50k/ yr; more at the hospital right in my town. It's very flexible. Do you want overtime, or only sip from the time-clock? In many cases, the choice, quite literally, is yours. Oh, the variety! Especially since you'll enter as a BSN nurse, when you decide that you want to change specialties, even to something radically different, after your first job it's all just on-the-job training. To your concerns: I once had to intubate a seven year old boy who had been involved in a car crash. It was very difficult for me: he's a little boy! And, he was just about my own son's age. I had to dissociate myself from the emotion of it, and think about him simply being a body that needed an airway. Whatever the tasks are, and especially while you're in clinicals, they won't be terribly complex or scary; look at them as tasks that need to be completed and simply complete them--competently and professionally. Just yesterday I had an 11-month old baby that needed an IV. I'm very good at starting IVs, and I also knew that I had a partner who is God's gift to little baby IV starting! So I let the family know that I was going to ask my partner to come help, and away we went. If you're friendly and honest with your patients you'll find that almost all of them (and their families) will relate to you being new--or a student--and will be patient while you "practice" on them. Finish your schooling. Study hard, become a professional. And then find a slot in the extremely broad, amazingly varied field that is Nursing that does interest you. It's completely okay if it is not bed-side nursing.

When you play music at your work station, do you usually ask everyone else if they would mind, or take a poll as to what should be played? As I type, my partner is playing something that I don't really care for--and he didn't ask if I'd mind--but it seems petty to be offended by it. He certainly is not TRYING to offend me. I suspect your coworker was not deliberately trying to offend you, either. And now, I'm going to wrap up some night shift work and then listen to something that I've been wanting to since my drive in...without asking my partner. I suspect we'll both be okay.

I didn't think y'all become "former" Marines...? (I was a sailor, so you'll understand sibling rivalry is required!) Some years ago the pastor of the church I was part of had what I think is the most excellent answer to the age-old question of Christians: "What does God want me to do with my life?!" Not word for word your question, but I think the direction is similar. Shane's answer: "Love God, and do what you want." Which dovetails nicely with what Paul wrote in Colossians 3, "Whatever your hand finds to do, do it as working for the Lord and not men." which he must have stolen from Solomon's statement in Ecclesiastes. My resume looks like a sampler platter rather than a main course also. And I was 42 when I entered nursing school. I'm able to draw from a wide experience to help build rapport with a huge range of patient types, and their families. I owned a successful construction company, and am able to relate to guys in the trades, the "little guy" just starting his business, and the professional business person. And I've been a complete and utter failure, and can kneel on the floor and meet the guy crouched in the corner because he feels unworthy to be on the hospital bed. It is not "despite being a Christian," but because of my relationship with the King, that I meet the HIV+, gay, homeless guy, the depressed and ragged Marine sniper who has abandoned his high ideals, and the in-fighting homosexual couple just the same as I meet the self-important guy from my church: "Hi, my name's Steve. What's your name?" Welcome to the world of nursing--where we care for our patients but too often eat our young. Now that you're here, work hard at being a good one. When you finally earn that chance to teach, remember to include the lessons that never get published in a text book.

Thanks! I didn't know there was one!

I've made some mistakes also. Consequences have varied from correction to termination. There's a difference between taking correction to continually riding yourself. Take correction like a professional, admit the mistake that you made, determine how to correct it so that it doesn't happen again, and move on. Your post reads like you've pretty much done those things, but rather than moving on you're continuing to beat yourself. Your supervisor provided the correction when you finally told her, and determined that that was the extent of the consequence you needed at that time. Now move on. Not only will you be happier than you are right now, but your patient care will improve because you won't be carrying some unnecessary guilt into each encounter.

I'm an ER nurse, and my wife is a veteran Home Health nurse. Prior to nursing I was a Paramedic. I mention it because I definitely understand your affinity for Emergency care, and because I lived with "house calls" and with a nurse who does do what you're thinking of doing. After nursing school, I rode along with my wife for a day. Married for 15 years at that point, and she'd been a home health nurse almost that long, and that was my first time seeing her "in motion" so to speak. I had responded to calls for her patients where she happened to be the home health nurse on scene, but then I was focused on the call and not on how she works. After spending the day with her, this was my impression: Home Health seemed a lot like a 911 call, but with NO stress. My wife is excellent at building relationships with her patients and their families, which is an asset in out-of-hospital care that is hard to explain quickly. (I benefit from it sometimes, because some of her patients send food home with her!) If you like providing care based on relationships instead of answering call lights, you might really like home health care. You'll likely have housekeeping duties and ADLs to assist your patients with, like many facility-based CNAs have, but you will have much more time with each patient and fewer patients. My wife's hardest client to date has been a lady who was my wife's age, and our son and her son were in the same class. My wife was doing Hospice as well as Home Health at that time, and that client had terminal cancer. It hit very close to home for my wife and was hard for her. More recently she had a patient that proved to be hard for ME! The patient was discharged from Home Health (no longer needed in-home care), and so that ended my weekly supply of some kind of oriental food that guy's wife always made for the days that my wife visited them. I was sad.

I'm currently a travel nurse, about half way through a geriatric in-patient psych assignment. Prior to this, all of my nursing experience (just under 18months) has been ER. ER and psych are my two favorite areas, which is why I accepted this assignment (and it's pretty close to home and they grouped my shifts together so that I get lots of time AT home while on the assignment!) There's a possibility of extending at the end of this contract...my concern is that I don't want to make myself irrelevant as an ER nurse by spending too much time out of the unit. And, I'm still relatively new as a nurse. I do like the idea of being able to work in two different specialties, but between the two, ER is home. Any travelers--or hiring managers--with thoughts on this?

Personally, I would be more concerned about the ability to return to work and stand your assigned shift safely, than the safety of staying late at the end of the shift. I have a one hour commute each way, and pull 12hr nights; I'm okay in the morning when it's time to leave, but if expected to stay late it impacts my ability to work that COMING night...when there is no replacement.

I went to Pratt Community College, Pratt, KS. They have a bridge for Paramedics and LPNs to go to nursing school. Myself and several other students were from out of state. I realize you said you don't do well with online school; I don't really care for it, either. But it is the reality, and I've had to learn how to make it work for me. In my class, 6 of us were Medics in the beginning and the rest were all LPNs. We met together for some in-person lab days and for clinicals. The didactic portions were all completed via lecture/ required reading. It was actually much better than ANY of the other "online" classes I've taken: the Pratt instructors were available by phone/ email, and we also got to know them face-face while meeting for clinicals and lab days. Hutchinson Community College, Hutchinson, KS, also has a bridge program that is very similar. Moving from Paramedic to RN, I only found a few choices. I talked to a lot of colleges that had had a bridge in the past, or were considering one. Being an LPN already I should think you would have a lot more options. Happy hunting.