nursemelyn

When I worked at Huntsman Cancer Center, the majority of my co-workers weren't LDS. I am, but I think that the manager was very fair and that the University Hospital was a great organization to work for.

In my own opinion, HCA is not a great organization to work for. I've transitioned to Bon Secours and they're awesome.

I was one of two people in my class of 90 students that loves psych! The look is pretty common, but like others have said, it's followed by, "wow! I could never do that!"

Keys, pen, sharpies, highlighter, pen-light, clip-board with notes. That's it!

I've asked the nurse manager if I could come see the unit, and I've turned my application in so I'm hoping to hear back from her soon! I think the unit is mostly adolescents. My husband has seen the unit (he's in med school, interested in psychiatry) and said they assessed mostly teens. I really want to like it!

A resume isn't a legal document, so you can leave it off it you want to. On your future job applications, however, you are legally required to list that job.

I currently only have experience in acute adult pscyh and geropsych. However, an awesome opportunity just opened up at the nearby teaching hospital for a 23 bed acute child and adolescent psych unit. Who has worked in child psych previously and did you enjoy it? I've heard lots of different opinions. I've never ever worked with children before except for clinicals in nursing school. I consider myself to be good with children and psych patients. I'm just worried about switching jobs and not liking it. I've asked the clinical coordinator to let me tour the unit and she hasn't gotten back to me yet. Anyway...your opinions? Is child and adolescent psych a great field?

Hey, don't freak out. Maybe this nurse is required to fill out these incident reports. I used to work in a nursing home/rehab facility and was required to fill out incident reports for every skin tear and bruise I found. And I found a lot - and filled out the incident reports for fear of getting in trouble if I didn't fill them out.

And remember that there are medical psych floors out there. They do exist :)

I agree that there are better jobs out there than working in nursing homes and assisted living facilities, but you may have to take one of these jobs first. A lot of hospital jobs require you to have experience as an RN. I experienced this right out of nursing school - I applied to over 50 jobs in hospitals and didn't hear back from any of them (and had experience working in a hospital as a CNA and nursing student intern) and applied to one job at a nursing home and immediately got the job. You will learn SO much working in a nursing home: time management, how to deal with people, medications, and charting skills. I ended up leaving the nursing home for something better, but I had to put my time in so I got the experience for my resume.

The night before I work I go to sleep at a normal time (like 2300 or 2330) and then sleep in as late as I can the day I work. Then the whole day that I work, I just stay up and sleep when I get home. It is pulling a whole 24 hours sometimes, but I'm able to get a lot more done this way than if I stayed up late. I used to work nights every weekend during nursing school and would stay up, but it wore me out!

Thanks for your advice. I just got this job a couple months ago and really don't want to go through the whole job search again. Hopefully it will get better!

We do taped report and the nurses leave while we're listening, so I don't know they've left until I come out of the room with the recorder. I've spoken with almost all of my coworkers, and they all agree that something needs to be done, but they don't want to do much for fear of getting in trouble. The CEO is above the CNO. There is a HR, but I'm getting advice before I take any action. Thanks for your opinion! :redbeathe

I really, really, really need some advice guys. I'm very, very frustrated with the people I work with. The actual patient load is great, and I love this kind of nursing. But the people...ugh. Let me tell you. The unit manager (UM) is supposed to be in charge, and the unit coordinator (UC) does the schedule and other stuff that I don't know about. The UC was hired a couple years ago, and has basically taken over the UM's job. The UM constantly defers to the UC's ideas. That's the first problem. The UM doesn't do her job. The UC has some major, deep-set issues. She seems like she has a chip on her shoulder. She is friends or family with about 6 or 7 of the staff, and constantly gives them preferential treatment over everyone else. She lets them work whenever the heck they want, lets them come into work or leave work whenever the heck they want, lies to administration to cover for them (this has been witnessed by several employees), and is a brat to everyone that she's not friends with. She has a major chip on her shoulder about her position and her dominance over the UM. Almost all the staff members have made complaints about this woman and her behavior to the UM, but obviously since the UM does whatever the UC wants, the complaints go nowhere. They have also complained to the Chief Nursing Officer (CNO), and there have been some investigations, but this woman and the UM have been given chance after chance to shape up and no real action has been taken. The UC is supposed to make out the unit schedule, and as truly horrifying as it sounds, the schedule is only ever made out a week in advance. And even then, there are holes in the schedule so that some of the units don't even have enough coverage. The UC has been offered help with this aspect of her job. One RN even made out the schedule for this week and had all holes filled, and the UC went back and changed it, making tons of empty spaces. She doesn't utilize her part-time staff to help fill in the holes, and lets her best friends work whenever they want, so there are obvious issues there. She doesn't allow people who aren't part of the clique to work any overtime, but lets her friends work 56 hours a week. Not only is this not fair to staff members, but it's unsafe for patient care as well. If the unit is not appropriately staffed, and there are multiple psychotic patients, one of the patients or staff members could get hurt, leading to multiple legal issues against the nurses and the hospital. For example: Every other week I work on the unit with only 8 beds. The other nurse who usually works with me is the UC's sister, so she comes in almost every day TWO hours late!!! This makes the nurse from the previous shift have to stay so that the unit is staffed appropriately. But, if the nurse decides to leave (not right) then it's just me waiting two hours. If a patient decided to freak out and kill or seriously injure me, no help would be available for two hours. This is SERIOUS. We're dealing with people's lives! There are a couple things I could do. 1. Quit, find another job. 2. Don't say anything, wait for it to get better. 3. Voice my concerns with the CNO and maybe even the CEO to get some action, and consequently get in trouble with the UM and UC. 4. Find another job part-time and stay here full-time. Transition to full time at the other job if this one doesn't improve. I really don't know what to do. Please, please help me.

This totally reminded me - we had to pack this poor woman's lady parts after hysterectomy and that was the most AWFUL smell ever! Good thing she had her legs bent up so she couldn't see my face!