cpl_dvldog

...and here is a problem I see. The first person that accused you of something you didn't see as true about yourself you became defensive. That happens quite often in the workplace. Most people know what is expected of them at work and they already know if they are slacking so is it really necessary to bring it up to them?

My 12 hour shift begins at 0630 and ends at 1900. I have been able to leave my area to eat less times than I have had to eat at the desk or not eat at all. If I do not get to leave for lunch I get to clock out with no lunch, which pays me an extra 1/2 hour. I would much rather eat than get the money. I rarely eat breakfast so often I eat dinner the night before and am not able to eat again for 24 hours. This seems to be a problem with many nurses.

About the cheapest place to get immunizations will be the Health Dept downtown. I had to get a couple of mine there.

From what I read birth control pills are not covered by insurance in AZ. With the proper documentation they will be covered for endometriosis and such only, not for birth control.

I cannot find a a single reputable news agency that has covered this. Not even CNN or MSNBC. If it were true they would be all over it. Also addictinginfo.org is such a reputable site they refuse to post who their writers are. Anyone in the health care industry knows releasing info of this nature at will is a big HIPPA violation. HIPPA is a Federal law, which supercedes any State law. They sound like a bunch of loones trying to upset people over nothing.

Realistically in this day and age do you see a new ADN becoming a DON? You did not tell how long it took you to reach that position, how many years of nursing experience you had. You also did not say if it is in a hospital, a Nursing Home, or a Home Health agency.

Nobody gets "canned" for using contraception. They just don't provide it. On the other hand I have never heard of an ins company paying for condoms either.

I think the contraception thing is they knew when they started that Catholic Hospitals don't pay for birth control. I am a firm believer in the seperation of Church and State. Keep the Church out of the Gov't and keep the Gov't out of the Church. Besides, what happened to the mantra of telling the gov't to, "Stay out of my bedroom and stay out of my womb?" Are they trying to be selective now?

I do not smoke, therefore I don't have a dog in this hunt, but smokers have been considered outcasts for years. I am not aware of the gov't regulating birth control.

I see your logic even if I don't agree with it completely. I don't see how someone that you, a patient, have contact with for a few hours, a nurse, can be considered a role model.

Several years ago the Coca Cola Co. here started testing for nicotine. If you came up positive you were fired. A law-suit ensued and the company won because they were able to prove that health care costs of smokers was much higher than non smokers, causing increased costs to the company. The only stipulation the courts put in was those hired before the new policy were "grandfathered in." I imagine if the "fat cats" were not mostly overweight they would also have implemented a CHO test also.

A high school guidance counselor gave me some great advice, that I did not follow unfortunately.... Ignore how you feel about a job at the present and decide where you want to be in 10 yrs, 15 yrs, and 20 yrs. In most jobs the first year or two are pretty great, then you get settled in and start seeing opportunities. Talk to people that have been in that job for 15-20 years to get a true feeling if that is where you want to be at that stage of your life. Advancing your education is never a bad thing to do. It will not prevent you from going where you want to go, but if you don't have the education you can watch others pass you by.

In my area you are not allowed to work under your education. An RN cannot work as an LPN or CNA and an LPN cannot work as a CNA. I was told this is due to they do not want someone that is working as a CNA, but holds an RN Lic. to do something outside that scope of practice setting the hospital up for a lawsuit. I was under the impression this was national not just regional.

You did not mention if you are in an ADN or BSN program. I will assume you are in a BSN program because your Pell Grant should cover your costs for Summer term. You can get a student loan to cover the Summer. The Navy program is very hard to get into. Many people apply for it. I read where it can take months after application to be accepted into the program. I am not aware of any hospitals in the B'ham area that have tuition reimbursement anymore. This is because there is NO nursing shortage in this area. I was told my hospital receives 40-60 applications for every RN job they post. With numbers like this there is no incentive for hospitals to pay any tuition. If you are in an ADN program look into the WIA program. It will cover 100% of the costs of an ADN program, including tuition, fees, books, and supplies. Regardless of what program you are in go to your financial aid office. They will be able to offer you the most help.

A close friend of mine got her MSN in Community Health. She said that degree gave her the most career choices. It qualified her to hold a Nurse Manager's position (which she does), a Nurse Educator, and others.

One program I have looked at, UAB, has the RN-BSN-MSN program. I compared this program the the AMNP program which completes the BSN in 3 semester, 1 year. The AMNP program is very intense working on the BSN. It is ~17 hrs a semester on campus. The RN-BSN-MSN program is fewer hours per semester, thus it takes 3 semesters to complete the BSN portion. It is set up for people that are working as a nurse and cannot dedicate their entire life to nursing school again. I am not really sure how comfortable I would be with a "shake and bake" NP. Going from zero nursing experience to a NP in 3 years. With the first of those years immersed in classwork. Leaving two years of part-time nursing experience before becoming a NP. Just my opinion.

Many things come into play. Most areas do not have a nursing shortage. Just look at hospital websites. Most post a few RN jobs. Think about the number of jobs posted in a month, multiply that number by 12 months, then think about all of the schools that have an RN program in that same area and how many grads they produce a year. I will almost guarantee there will be about 2 times as many grads as jobs posted. Like it or not but most hospitals are a business. Their goal is to produce a profit for their shareholders, not to provide jobs. It is more cost effective to pay fewer nurses overtime than it is to provide pay and benefits for additional nurses. Some think it is terrible that companies think so much abaout profits, but those of us with 401K's want our money invested in companies that turn large profits because it boosts our investments. Schools are also in business to make a profit. They do this by convincing you to come to their school. They have no problem charging you tuition for a job field that is saturated. It is up to the student to choose a field they can get hired into after school. In the 80's computer programmers were in short supply. The schools took that info and completely saturated the market with programmers. This caused the pay for programmers to drop significantly. One thing I noticed in nursing school was about 80% of my female classmates had their hearts set on working peds or L&D. Many even chose to precept in those areas knowing the jobs in those fields are limited. Especially units like NICU as a new grad. I am not sure if any of the unhired new grad RNs are just holding out for a dream job in one of those units. I was lucky enough to be hired into the unit I precepted in as soon as I graduated.

A word of caution.... Do not let the first semester fool you. First semester is by far the easiest semester in nursing.

That does not sound too bad. Do you know if any of the 87 starting this Spring are readmits or LPN's bridging in?

Yep, I am a nurse. Once again you DID NOT DISPUTE ANYTHING I SAID WITH FACTS, only your biased opinion. Perhaps it is because you have none. Maybe you missed what Al Gore or other left-wing nut-jobs said. I have no problem caring for my patients. Even the ones that did something stupid to become my patient, like trying to manufacture meth, attempted suicide, mixing alcohol and guns, drug deal gone bad, etc. Face the facts, oftentimes people do stupid things and end up in the hospital. Maybe you cannot compartmentalize but I can. I can think a patient is a total moron and still give them great care. Expose my propoganda? I think this started when you incorrectly tried to correct me stating that unions do not provide insurace benefits, which I corrected you on. This debate is getting old. You are not substanciating anything you say. You are just parroting what the left-wing talking heads say, ignoring common sense facts. You would like to believe adding 30 million people to insurance will cost the gov't less money.

You need to put the crack pipe down. I have not insulted anyone. Is my opinion biased? Probably, because I have lived long enough to know everyone can not be saved from themselves. I noticed you did not dispute anything I said with facts, only your opinion. Your mention of the waivers earlier was somewhat correct. Many companies, ALONG WITH UNIONS, were given a one year waiver not subjecting them to Obamacare. Surely you don't think a left-wing liberal website would post the negatives about the law. Such as how many of Obama's supporters are not being penalized by it. I suggest you look at who got the waivers, both corporations and unions, and look at how much money they have given Obama. I see you missed the point I made about Wikileaks. I will type slowly. Gov't secrets were made public by a low ranking Army private. I have a feeling the thing that seems most unreasonable to you is someone disagrees with your OPINION and you can't stand that.

Don't be silly. If you knew what you were talking about you would know that some unions do provide healthcare for their members. You would also know that as many as 50 different unions have been granted one year waivers so their members would not be subjected to the new law. Apparently Allnurses will no longer allow you to copy and past. The UFT of New York got a waiver so its 345,000 member would not have to be subjected to the new law. Look it up. My knowledge of Def. Dept spending comes from my experience in the military. I know from personal experience how much extra military personel are paid for being in a combat zone. Google it. In Canada, and other countries with Nationalized helath care they have a smaller percentage of their population that are on welfare from cradle to grave. I remember one time in this country it was a source of shame not to work and take care of your kids. Now it is not shameful at all for someone to sit on the steps of their section 8 housing, at the first of the month waiting for the mailman to bring them their check. They feel as entitled to that check as I do my paycheck.

Not sure who your garbled rant was directed toward but if you were asking about MY time in Iraq I was not a $100K a year civilian worker. I was a lowly Navy Seabee, and yes we got an extra $150 a MONTH for being in an imminent Danger Pay Area (Combat Pay). Serving in combat does not make you elgible for early retirement either. "Automation and globalization of white collar jobs are the big culprits and our infrastructure is so old and crumbling." This is the cause of the health care crisis or unemployment in America? Say what? Automation may be the cause of some lost jobs, but the rest of what you said? When does the economy belong to Obama? It has been 3 years and all he has done is spend money we don't have with The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act with no improvement at all, and he is asking Congress for another Trillion dollars. All of those "shovel ready" jobs apparently were missing the shovels. HIPPA? Not sure who said they didn't like HIPPA. When the gov't controls your medical care it will have all of your medical records just like the IRS has your tax records. All information will be centralized. We all know how safe stuff is that the gov't controls (Wikileaks). Yes, some of those programs will save money, but when you spend more than you save that is not a good deal. Explain how adding 30 Million people onto insurance will save money. Especially when the vast majority of them do not have the money to pay the premiums, so someone else will have to pay. I don't have a clue what you were talking about with the Walmart statement. Over the years my taxes have DECREASED with the lower tax rate, more money allowed for child credits, home improvement tax credits, cash for clunkers, etc. The liberals and Obama are so fixated on Bush they still refer to the tax extension as the Bush tax cuts. Obama has signed it into law twice giving ALL Americans the tax credits. Shouldn't they be called the Obama tax credits by now? I would bet the rich people you mentioned pay more in taxes in one month than you have paid in your entire life. What percentage of their money do you feel you are entitled to?

Also all of the big unions getting waivers does not sit well with people. If it is such a grand plan that the unions were backing why did they feel the need to be exempted? I also don't believe there is a fix for our health care system that would satisfy the majority, even a Canadian style system. From my understanding everyone in Canada pays into their Federal Gov't which funds their system. Unlike us who have millions that do not contribute. For us it would essentially be about half the country supporting the entire country. That is not financially sustainable, especially after the majority of the baby boomers become retired.

Have already taken Sociology. Even before taking it I knew all cultures have the well-off, the poor, the hard working, and the lazy. I live and work in one of the three "poorest" states you mentioned. Trust me, we are not so ignorant that we have to turn to manufacturing illegal drugs in order to survive. You may want to believe it is the young father or the single mother that has turned to processing meth in order to feed their kids. The vast majority of the time it is some guy in his 20's that wants to make quick easy money. He would rather do that than leave the drugs alone and get a job. I doubt there is little of use I could learn from these people. You are correct, this is a professional nursing forum. Justifying the manufacture, distribution, and/or use of illegal drugs is not very professional. Especially when you have the superior attitude of, they live in certain states so they really don't know any better or they don't have any other choice.