Neldavi

They are just different. I think working part-time or per diem would be perfect. I was a SAHM for about seven years until I went to nursing school. Now I work full-time, 3-11 or 3p-3a, and the kids are still ages 4-10. It's a little grueling, but I wouldn't want to go back to being a SAHM, that's more grueling, IMO. I would like to be part-time, but that's not financially possible for us right now.

I took a year off and am glad I did. It let me focus on getting my bearings as a nurse. I didn't want to take too long off because I knew it would be hard to go back to school, but a year was just about right.

On our small med-surg floor we work 8's and 12's. A lot of the newer nurses (including me) would prefer to work 3 12's but there are enough older, experienced nurses that only work 8's that it would be impossible to go to all 12's. Plus enough nurses that want 40 hours instead of 36. Anyway, our floor does have 3 part-time positions that are 20-24 hours, usually 3 8's or a 12 and a 8. If a full-time person needs someone to work for them we are supposed to ask a part-time person first before a per diem person, so sometimes they end up working more than 24 hours if they want to. As a side note - I hate 4 hour shifts, or patient assignments that only last 4 hours. For example, I worked 3-11 the other night and from 3-7 had a patient assignment that the 7-3 day shift nurse had had, then from 7-11 floated so the 7p night shift nurses coming in could have their assignments for the night. Makes sense, but having a patient assignment for only 4 hours barely gives me anytime do my patient care, get my charting done, and have enough time to know enough about my patients to give a good report to night shift.

Huh. I would be interested to know what your policy actually states, and how the "right to work" laws play into it. I work in a small, rural hospital and it mostly works itself out. We have a "wish list" where people can put a specific date they would like to be called off, if the census is low. Plus, if you are a 40-hour position, you never *have* to be called off, but you have to be willing to come in and do education or float to another unit if the census is low. Plus, we always have the choice to use PDO or not, we never have to if we are called off due to low census.

Yes, this. I appreciate a CNA **** once in a while for a break from all the charting and calling doctors, not to mention that I kind of see CNA work as the base of nursing. We just don't do it so much as nurses because there's no time to do everything if you have 5-7 patients.

Thanks, I am trying to use it for good, it's just hard not to think that I'm just always going to be one of "those" nurses, a mediocre, not-on-top-of-it nurse. I really don't want to be that.

I'm a new nurse, barely 4 months in. I've heard all the advice, give it a year, the first year is terrible, be easy on yourself, but really, how can you tell if you might be a bad nurse? I'm feeling horrible today because a pt.'s family (who were nurse's themselves) complained about me to my manager, said I didn't do a good assessment, and didn't take their concerns seriously. The way I remember it, they had one concern that I addressed but didn't really communicate with me otherwise. I just feel like crap, feeling unworthy.

Yes, I was only a nanny for one family. Baby-sitter is probably a more accurate term (though nanny sounds better :)), because it was very part-time and she's a friend of mine (so would provide a good reference). I worked for her sporadically over a year and a half, 4-5 years ago. I worked as a barista for ten months seven years ago. I'm not sure the owner would even remember me by name. I was a good employee, but I'm not sure he would really remember that, as he was not around much. I would hope that he could verify my employment. My manager at the time is not employed there anymore. I like your idea of lumping them together under one heading.

Hello, I am going to graduate in December and am working on my resume. I worked as a nurse extern this summer, so I am definitely listing that under work/professional experience, but other than that I have no relevant work experience. I've basically been a stay-at-home mom for 8 years, with a couple of sporadic stints as a nanny and a barista thrown in there. I don't really want to list those because the timing looks flaky and they're completely irrelevant to nursing, but I feel like a list of one job under experience doesn't look too great either. Any advice? Thanks!

I am doing an externship at a small rural hospital in MD right now. It's 8 weeks, CNA wages (around $10.50), rotating through four different departments, since it's such a small hospital. This is the summer between my 3rd and 4th semesters of a 4 semester ADN program. The other extern is between her 2nd and 3rd. I absolutely love it. I've learned more in 2 1/2 weeks on the floor than I have in 3 semesters of clinicals.

I know of a NICU in my area that hired a GN. The PICU in that same hospital hired a GN from the same class. Not that that means anything for you, but just that it's not unheard of.

Well, I'm about to finish third semester of a four semester ADN program, so my husband and I have homeschooled our 8 year old through half of first grade and all of second grade while I've been in nursing school. We also have a 5 year old and 2 year old who go to a day care/pre school two days a week. I'm not happy with the way it's working so we're sending him to school next year for third grade. We'll reevaluate after I graduate. I would just say that you need to be super organized. Your kids are older and may be more self-motivated so it may work fine for you. Our biggest problem, in my opinion, is that there are three adults working with him (myself, my husband, and my father one day a week) on the same subjects and there was never good communication between the three of us (or, I'm just not happy with the way they do things ... :))so I feel like there was a lack of cohesion in my son's education. But my son is young enough that he has still needed a good bit of supervision so I haven't been able to do it all myself because I'm just not home enough, and when I am I need to be doing my own school work. So, take it for what it's worth, just one family's experience. I can see it working better with older kids if you can set aside time each week to plan and go over stuff with them. Good luck!

I just read this whole thread. Love it. I wish these idiotic things that people say were an exaggeration, but alas, I know they're not. A couple from my real life: - ran into someone I took a pre-nursing class with (I'm in an ADN program now) and she says that she started nursing school at another area college (a BSN program) and hated it but still wants to be a nurse so "my adviser put me in the classes I need so I can be an office nurse after I graduate, something where I don't have to take care of patients." On further questioning about what she actually wants to do she says "I don't know, my adviser just set it all up." - overheard in the gym: Woman #1: I'm in school to be a nurse. Woman #2: I have a friend who's a nurse and all she does is sit on the internet all day and she makes SO much money! Woman #3: I know! It will be great. later in the locker room, woman #1 notices my uniform and asks if I'm in nursing school. She says she wants to do a 4-year BSN program but says she wants to apply to my program. We proceeded to have a confusing, circular conversation in which it became clear that she has no idea what she has to do to become a nurse. She just wants to sit on the internet all day and get paid for it. Inset head banging into brick wall here.

I'm in this boat. My kids are 7, 4 and 14 months and I'm in the first semester of a 2 year ADN program. I have barely worked since my oldest was born .. I've just been home and taking a prerequisite here and there until now, so this is a huge change. I started having mixed feelings about being away from my kids a month ago, right when school got really hard and I was having mixed feelings about nursing in general. My kids are really fine, my husband has actually been doing a great job, but when school gets hard I start picking out the little things he does that I would do differently and start thinking that everybody would be better off if I was home. The reality is, though, that when I was home all of the time I was sort of losing my mind, and my kids just had different bad habits than the ones they have now . I was honestly about to drop out with the intention of starting again in a couple of years, but how different is that going to be, really? Like you said, kids often need us even more as they get older, so a 9, 6, and 3 year old are going to be just as needy .. I might as well just get school over with now. The bottom line with me is that we're not making it financially and I sort of have to do this .. for the student loans now, and for the ability to be employed in 2 years. (I know someone is going to jump in and say that there are no jobs for new grads, but I live in a rural area where there are still jobs, and the last graduating class - Dec 2010 - all had jobs within a month of graduation) In an ideal world I would have at least waited for my youngest to get through the toddler years, but I'm not convinced it would make a huge difference anyway. I say stick with it. Like others have said, kids change all of the time anyway, so unless your oldest is having serious behavior problems, I would assume he'll be just fine. Good luck!

I'm just a student but on my ER rotation last week an elderly man came in at 4 AM because he hadn't pooped since 4 PM.