microkate

Depends on your facility. At ours, you do not need to be an assistant first, though many people work up to CRC. Assistants have no special qualifications. They help with studies, data entry, and with regulatory paperwork, but the CRC/research nurs...

You absolutely should take a look at Oncology research. You'll use your brain and develop a whole new knowledge bank, but you don't have to make critical decisions on the fly. I'm very type A, want to do everything perfectly, get very anxious under...

Don't write it off yet. One job, I had interviewed with that manager previously. Didn't get it, but she strongly encouraged me to apply again when I had a little more experience. Next time a spot came up, I applied, and emailed her to let her know...

See if you have a local Medical Reserve Corps. Ours is run through the Dept. of Health as part of the Emergency Management section, and provides volunteers for events and emergencies. Tons of variety - blood pressure screenings, vaccine clinics, eve...

It's doable, if you have a good support system & everything goes well with the pregnancy & birth - which is not a guarantee. I started my ASN pregnant with my first, already had all my gen ed classes under my belt, so was able to take 10 wee...

The CITI program (CITIprogram.org) looks good - the CRC Foundations & Advanced courses together are $300. One of my co-workers did this program: Online Training for Clinical Research Coordinator l June 218 Batch and was very happy with it. SOCR...

Hi Quendi - I came into clinical research nursing with a lab background that included clinical research, followed by nursing experience. I emphasized exactly what you did - I already knew how a protocol worked, was familiar with the IRB, etc. You c...

Good luck! It's a pretty steep learning curve at first. Feel free to PM me if you have any other questions

I've been a clinical research nurse (oncology as well) for just over 2 years, and I love it. Don't get me wrong - there's still frustration, occasional boredom, sometimes going from bored to frantic very quickly. I don't miss 12 hour shifts at the ...

Like everything else, it depends on you, but it is entirely possible. During nursing school I was pregnant, then in school with a baby, then pregnant with a toddler. Yup, I was tired a lot, but I made it through with a high B average. As for find...

I moved into oncology clinical research. I still work with patients as I enroll them on clinical research trials and follow them throughout the protocol, but a lot of what I do is administrative. It's still a lot of work, but more intellectual, les...

I graduated there in 2012. Overall, the program was decent. Most of our instructors were great, although I know several have left. After talking with other folks, I don't think it was significantly better or worse than any other in the area. Our ...

Ah, gotcha, that's not how it sounded from the first post.

I always try to set up both swap days at the same time to avoid that kind of issue. If I'm the one needing a favor, I always offer to take any day that they want off. Normally, however, if I need a day off I just approach the per diem nurses. I've ...

I'm working 2 12hr nights a week, and get tons of time with my kiddos! I do have basically 2.5 days out of the week where I sleep, but we have dinner together before I go to work, and I see them a little in the AM. That also gives me 4 full days to...

I wouldn't do an hour commute for a 5 day per week job, but 2 days would be worth it. Think about it this way - 2hrs/dayx2 days/week = 4 hrs commuting each week. If you'd like the job, I think it's worth it.

I've done this for our facility, when we had 13 aides call out in one day. I didn't mind at all. I was not only paid my usual nursing wage, but time and a half, since it was on short notice. I wouldn't say it was easy - our aides work their tails ...

Entirely depends. If you talk to HR, you should be able to find out a starting salary range. I've been working in a SNF, and just got hired at a hospital. I'll make $4/hour more there. However, someone I know works at another SNF is the area and ...

I try to sit with my patients as much as I can, though not on the bed. Most of them are older and either stuck in bed or in a wheelchair. I think it's nice to have someone at eye level with them, especially when they want to chat a little or are ge...

If there's a military hospital near you, you can volunteer there by going through the Red Cross. Without experience you won't get anything acute, but they do take volunteers to work actual nursing jobs.

Absolutely doable, if you have a good support system, an uncomplicated pregnancy, and you don't normally have a difficult time with classes. I started our program pregnant, had the baby over a break (there were some classes I had already taken, so I...

Thanks for posting - I love reading things like this.

I use alert much as you do. To me alert is when they are awake and engaged with the environment and other people, regardless of the level of orientation. I used to be a vet tech, and our equivalent of alert & orientedx4 was "BAR" - Bright, ale...

I just feel like I'm not learning much. Maybe it's because I already have a B.S. (biology), but I was expecting the classes to be focused on improving practice and going deeper into topics that were skimmed over during the ADN program. I would love ...

I did find that having a science-heavy background (2 semesters each of gen chem, orgo, and biochem, plus a host of bio/micro classes) really helped everything come together when it came to patho and pharmacology. I was seeing an overall picture, rat...