C_perugiae

It's funny you say this, because I've been saying it for the last couple weeks! After about four weeks of applying to every position I could find (70+ apps in 12 facilities), I started landing interviews. I have 3 scheduled in the next two weeks, and I need to call them to cancel because I just landed an awesome job yesterday! When I was interviewing, I felt like I was dating multiple people because I had to be careful not to say that I had interviews coming up for other jobs. I'm just glad it's all over! And yes, there are jobs for new grads out there with less than a Master's. I have an ADN and still found a great full-time job! I will say that, if there's nothing in your immediate area, you may have to relocate. This is what's happening in my case, but it's totally worth it.

I grew up in Marquette and most of my family still lives up there; in fact, I have three family members that work at the hospital in Mqt. For the most part, they really love their jobs and speak highly of their individual departments. Be aware, however, that it may take a long time for them to respond to your applications. I've been told that they hire slowly because they want to make sure you're the right fit, so it might take months to find a job at that facility. Then again, that extra time spent may be well worth the wait! I can't speak for Munising because I know nothing about that hospital. I'm not going to add anything about Escanaba because, other than some very negative anecdotal evidence, I have nothing of substance there, either.

Unfortunately, this has happened to me a couple of times in the course of my clinical experiences. Each time, I personally dealt with snippy nurses by being firm but polite in my communication with them. I also took a moment to collect my thoughts before I went to speak to the offending nurse, making sure that my statement or question had a specific purpose, was concise, and very polite. It gave them little room to be nasty back at me. It is up to your instructor to help diffuse individual disagreements and get the entire staff to accept the presence of students. If this doesn't happen, and the relationships continue to be strained, at the very least you can take solace in the fact that you won't be in the facility for long. It's too bad that staff can be this way, but sometimes riding it out is the only option. Hope things get better for you. Learning isn't nearly as fun and easy when you have a bunch of nasty nurses snipping at you all day!

I'm doing my mental health clinicals right now. Asking a psych patient, "Do you like to play card games here?" He says, "Oh, yes. My favorite is horse shoes!" Seems like a hard game to play with cards.

When I asked this question to a friend of mine, he suggested I look at Concentra, a company that does employee health fairs. They use nurses on a per diem basis. You can also check Craigslist for freelance nursing opportunities... I know an LPN who stays pretty busy just on those leads.

This particular news item has me thinking about picking my specialty according to how easily people can find me in the hospital, instead of where I think would be the most interesting. Maybe I'll work in the OR... they're hard to navigate unless you know exactly where you're going! It scares me that people now think that the solution to every problem is to shoot a bunch of people.

I'm also going to a prison for my mental health rotation. Our entire group is women, and we're going to a facility full of male inmates, so life should be pretty interesting... I'm glad that our instructor is retired from the same facility and has a lot of respect from everyone there.

I think many of your questions depend on the individual school's policies. For instance, my full time program had a summer break (wow, it was hard to get back in the swing of things) and we can't go to clinicals when the school is closed d/t weather. Their explanation was that their insurance only covers us when the school is open, so it doesn't matter if we're already at the hospital with the instructor or not.

The only time I get an itchy or runny nose is when I'm gloved, especially if I'm in sterile gloves, but I think my problem is psychological. :)

Have you applied to homecare or long-term care? I know it's not your goal, but it will be something to put on your resume. Also, if you need money, check on Craigslist and in the newspaper. A girl I know has been working (as an LPN) just doing odd jobs around southern Michigan that she's found from these sources. She's scored hours at flu shot clinics and two-day health clinics offered by employers to their factory employees. It probably won't do much for your resume, but it helps to have paychecks coming in, even if they're sporadic and small. Good luck to you!

I'm not even out of nursing school yet and I've teared up at the hospital in front of my patient last semester. She was a CHF pt who was being placed into end-of-life care (different floor of the hospital). It was already hard to work around her because my grandfather died in much the same way... the sound of her breathing brought me right back to his bedside, four years earlier. A couple of my fellow students helped me wheel her bed down to the other floor and get her in place in her new room. Everyone else walked out of the room, leaving me squeezing her hand (hand squeezes comforted her, since her LOC was a little off d/t low O2). She looked up at me and said goodbye, and I thanked her for letting me be my patient, which brought tears to my eyes. I was pretty quiet around my fellow students for the rest of the day, that's for sure!

I've heard a lot of rotten things about being in a "float" position because it moves you around the hospital so much, but my dad ended up being hired into a float position on his first job a couple years ago, and he really appreciated the wide range of experiences he had. It allowed him to pick his specialty (after 6 months of floating) without going into it completely blind. Just a thought...

I actually got through 4 years of a 5 year program in Music Education before a few things happened: 1) They changed the curriculum for everyone, saying you had to have more credits of ensemble time on your major instrument than you did before, which would've resulted in me going to school for 6 years before I got my degree, all for 2 credits of band. 2) I became disillusioned with the direction that music education is taking in my state, namely, that winning contests is the most important thing, not educating the kids on music. 3) The line up for subjects for the student association's meetings: how to handle difficult parents, how to get enough funding to keep your program going, how to defend your program from being cut, how to find a new job when your entire program is being cut. I took those things, plus my boredom of not having science as a major part of my life, as a sign I needed to get the heck out of there. Of course, now that I'm finally a year away from being an RN, I find all these lovely posts about new grads not being able to find jobs... *sigh* I'm not going to be discouraged this time, though!

I've been told not to; both times I've donated blood, I've passed out afterward. I tried to donate plasma, too, and ended up sick and "out of it" for the rest of the day. After the second blood donation, I was told not to try it anymore.

Go for the 27" length without thinking twice. I wouldn't want it any shorter; the shorter the 'scope, the closer your face has to be to someone. Not too awkward until you're checking for bowel sounds, and then it's just weird. :)