applewhitern BSN, RN

Everyone gets a token amount of cash, barely enough to buy a tank of gas with. That said, the managers, supervisors, etc., get treated special. They get larger cash gifts than we peons. They used to get treated to a retreat, but I guess that went b...

It is hard to do real estate part-time, it is pretty much a full-time job. You might find you prefer it over nursing, though. Good luck.

Just be sure your facility will accept the online portion; mine won't.

I was charge nurse of a 44 bed telemetry unit 5 days after I graduated nursing school. Just a few days orientation. Back then we could hit the floor running without having to go thru a lengthy orientation. We were taught well in nursing school. ...

Our male nurses place urinary catheters, clean patients, etc., without a female present, as do our male nursing assistants. If a female patient requests a female nurse, we try to accomodate, but this is a hospital, we do what we can with what we hav...

I would fully expect the camera to be turned away from the patient when exposing them in that manner. I would be furious if someone had a camera on my private parts! Females do not accompany our male nurses or male nursing assistants when they exam...

I would simply starve before I risked my license, career, health, and life, by being an escort, period.

I assume those are low acuity patients? Our med-surg nurses take 8 patients each. Way back with my very first nursing job, I had a 5 day orientation, and was immediately made charge nurse of a 44 bed telemetry unit! Talk about being a nervous wrec...

My son's port was to be used for chemotherapy only, period. The cancer center always stuck him when drawing blood, they never used the port for anything other than chemo infusion. He always got a peripheral IV for everything else. They get infecte...

I work in ICU and we no longer have paralytics in our medicine dispense system. We can only get it from pharmacy or ER. This really bewildered me when I first started working at this hospital, but now I can see why! One would think any nurse would...

Surely your nursing school will give you a list of things you need, mine did.

Nurse's pay deeply depends on the region of the country you work in. Our LPN's here make 15 bucks an hour, and new grad RN's make about 22 per hour, so really, your 16+ per hour is pretty darn good.

Those really sound like bogus reasons to let you go. (Not changing out an iv that was due that morning? We don't change ours at all, we only re-start one when it goes bad). You are probably lucky to be let go, because it doesn't sound like they wo...

You are lucky if you have a job that recognizes seniority; my hospital does not. It doesn't matter how long you've been here, they will cater to the new employees and not their loyal ones.

I just threw out a box of papers and folders from 10 years ago. Several brown recluse spiders crawled out of it! It had been sitting in a closet for a long time.

We don't get paid sick time until we are out the THIRD day. The first and second consecutive days you are off, you do not get paid for. That makes it really hard on people who do get sick; you feel almost obligated to call out the 3rd day, too, jus...

None of the hospitals around here require a BSN. They prefer a certification over a BSN. ADNs get hired just as easily. They are both registered nurses with the SAME SCOPE OF PRACTICE.

We don't use social workers in our hospital. We have RN case managers instead. They got rid of the social workers and started using the nurses instead.

Over my 30 year career, I have had patients try to say they didn't think they received the full and correct dose because they "didn't feel it." If they don't feel that instant "high," they think they have been cheated. Patients will request that we...

The dilaudid we use at my current hospital comes 2mg/ml in one syringe. Just saying.

I have no idea how much UAB pays prn nurses, but the cost of living in Alabama is pretty cheap. I hope you get the VA job (wish I could!) and good luck to you.

You see a sickly old man who doesn't eat well and doesn't want to take his meds. The wife sees the man she married, loved, and promised to take care of. Why shouldn't she want him to have his medications? It is her decision and she has to live wit...

@PeakRN; we don't use a call service at all. All of us have our doc's cell phone numbers and/or home phone numbers. We call or text them directly. Never been a problem for us.

Do you not have to scan meds at bedside at your facility?

That is true. The 4 year colleges in my area take pretty much anybody, because they have to do their basic pre-reqs before they get into nursing school anyway. The community colleges want the nursing students with the best grades because they are g...