nursing81student

I know, I am aware of this, it's common sense. However, I didn't know about the policy until the day after. Obviously if I knew that they were a nicotine testing facility I wouldn't have done it. I am just looking for information since I couldn't find clear information on Google and I thought maybe someone on here would be more informed than me.

Okay, I feel very silly posting this but it's something that is on my mind and Google is surprisingly no help for me on this...so maybe someone out there can give me some information or lead me in the right direction. I am a BSN student, a PCT, and in the process of transferring into a Nurse Tech role. I have accepted one job offer and will be starting soon. However, I recently interviewed for my dream position with a different health system...a Nurse Tech in the ED of an urban city hospital near where I live known for having the most trauma in the state. The interview went well, and I am hoping I will getting the offer soon...fingers crossed! Anyway, a lot of hospitals in my area are going nicotine free and testing new hires. I just noticed on this particular health system's website today that they will be starting this policy in the beginning of July...the first I have heard of this. Now, I do not smoke, but randomly yesterday my friend bought clove cigars..and I was curious and took approximately 3-4 puffs without inhaling. I have read that nicotine metabolites can be present in urine even after 30 days, and the testing accounts for low levels of nicotine d/t secondhand smoke... but did my 3-4 puffs of a cigar just ruin my chances of getting hired? I am a worry wart and this will bother me until I find more information. Thank you!

Agree with the other posters...Where I go it is 1 year of prereqs, 3 years of nursing school. Most schools in my area are 2 years of prereqs and 2 years of nursing school.

I would call HR. Just be honest and say you want to touch base, let them know you are still very interested and did they make a decision yet? I just accepted a job offer as a Nurse Tech after PCTing for a few years. I applied to 20+ jobs online and received one interview...luckily it was for the job I received and also wanted the most. Try to contact the nurse manager if you can. This was very helpful in getting a straight answer. They would reply quickly. I found that a good portion of the jobs I applied for were either posted incorrectly or not needed due to the positions being filled internally. These things take time, especially if it is a large hospital. I applied, scheduled an interview for a couple weeks after....2nd interview a few weeks after that....got the call a few weeks after that.....received the offer letter via email a week after that.....appointment with HR a week from now....and around and around it goes. The whole process from applying to getting the job was 3 months. Good luck with your search! Stay patient and don't get discouraged.

I would take Organic Chem and A&P II in the fall semester, and then Micro and Statistics in the spring. A&P and Micro are probably the hardest classes out of the 4 (well, were for me) and you will want to take those separately.

Email the nursing manager of the unit you wish to work. Explain you are aware that there are no positions available right now, but you are interested in working on that type of unit if a position opens up. Send her your resume and letters of recommendation from your clinical nursing instructors or perhaps a nurse you work with currently. Talk to the staffing office or nurse supervisor at your hospital and let them know of your interests...let them know you would love to float to the NICU, LDRP, etc if there is ever a need. You can also put this on future resumes once you are out of school. As for your manager, as long as you act professionally there is no reason for her to hold a grudge or somehow prevent you from getting a different job.

I have used older editions of books many times. Definitely email your professor to see if it would be okay. If your syllabus has readings listed as page numbers, then it will be very tedious to figure out which pages match up to your edition. However, if they are listed by chapter, I have found they are usually the same. If your teachers use the same powerpoints semester to semester...your edition may match up exactly to the diagrams and specific page numbers in the powerpoint your teacher wants you to review. This has happened to me a lot, and my professor will say "oh, those are pages from the old edition so look at pages xyz instead..." lol

If you have the time and money, then get the BSN. You never know where life will lead and having a BSN will always give you an edge over a nurse with an ADN. Many ADN nurses I have encountered who are working full time and completing classes for their BSN degree have said they they regret not doing it from the beginning.

Any experience that you can get (with any type of patient) will help you IMMENSELY with nursing school. I have a PCT hospital job and I can not say enough how grateful I am to have had this job before I started school. It makes everything so much easier. It also is a great way to start your nursing career because you would be starting from the ground up. I think what you have seen around this site regarding hospitals "not counting" nursing home experience involves RN experience and not CNA experience.

We had one "off-unit" experience in our first med surg clinical...I chose the OR, and I saw a CABG with a vein harvest. It was such a cool experience. The surgeon let me stand right at the head of the bed so I saw everything about 3 ft from my face.

Step 1: Buy a puppy Step 2: Pay off student loans

The things you can do with a Nursing degree seem infinite, especially if you are in a BSN program. Just stick it out, see where life takes you. I have had multiple nurses at work tell me, "You don't learn anything until you start working at your first job, and then everything you learn starts to CLICK." New grad residencies are MONTHS long and noone expects you to be an expert nurse right out of the gate. You obviously are doing something right since you are able to keep high grades throughout the program. Get your year of experience in, and then the opportunities are endless. I just got done googling the career of Legal Nurse Consultant...they work with law firms assissting the lawyers with the medical end of cases and can make up to 200 dollars an hour!

Hi, I just wanted to note that it would be a lot longer than 4 years to become a practicing CRNA. You would need to take about 2 full time semesters of prereqs, apply to a 4 year (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) program, not a 2 year program, and then complete nursing school. If you complete nursing school, you wouldn't be able to just get right into a CRNA program. Most grad programs require 1-2 years of full time work in a critical care setting (Intensive Care Unit). So at this point you are already looking at a commitment of around 6 years....say you get accepted into a CRNA program, then you would be looking at another 2 years of full time, intense schooling...most programs don't even allow you to work. To put it bluntly, you should probably stick with being a lawyer, especially if your main goal is to spend more time with your children. Nursing school is hard, rigorous, ridiculously time consuming, and demanding.

Never mind...just performed a search and found plenty of answers...should have done that to begin with

After this coming semester I will have my medsurg clinical completed. In the hospital system I currently work for, this means I can apply to become a nurse tech which from my understanding is the same as what other systems call a nurse extern. Right now, I am a PCT that floats to the different hospitals within a particular health system. As of today, emergency is where I have my eyes set on obtaining a nurse tech position. My questions is this: Has anyone had any luck obtaining a position they desire by e-mailing their resume/cover letter directly to the nurse manager of that floor? And if any nurse managers are reading this...would you give an extra thought to someone who directly contacts you through e-mail? I know a nurse who works in the department I want to work in and when the time comes I am going to ask her for the contact information of her nurse manager. Unfortunately for whatever reason, this particular emergency department is not one I have floated to ever, so I have not have the opportunity to network there. I am hoping that my e-mail combined with my experience is enough to get my foot in the door. Thank you :heartbeat

question: I learned in school to use a needle in the port but that was in a video from the 1980s and I can't recall if the instructor mentioned anything...nowadays just a syringe is used?

Let us know what they say :)

Thank you for the quick reply. I can't help but wonder why this is the norm why I work. hm. I have been educated on all this at school but I guess I am just on "auto-pilot" at work and so used to getting it from the bag. Well I work the next few days, if I have to get a specimen I think I will use a syringe!

Although P&P say otherwise in my facility, I have only seen people (and I do the same) collect urine specimens out of the foley BAG and not use a syringe in the port. Personally, I empty the bag, then collect the specimen from the urine that collects after. I/others do this for Culture and Sensitivity also. I learned in school it should be collected from the port. I float to 5 different hospitals and I have always seen it this way. I am just curious what the norm is in other facilities... (I am aware that I should not do something just because it is the "norm" or because "that is the way it's always been done"...I am merely just curious and for some reason never really gave this much thought until now...) Thanks

I am almost to the halfway point in nursing school, and I have come to realize that a lot of it is just jumping through hoops and just doing what you gotta do to get through. It is great you have experience working as a CNA. I am so grateful for my hospital job. I am sure you see that hospital nursing is completely different than the way nursing school is. As for test taking-there are a lot of discussions on here already about test taking tips, I would perform a search to find them. When I took patho, I just read read read the book and did well, although I actually enjoyed the class. It's disappointing to hear that your teacher is not helpful. Is there another faculty member you could go to for help? Good luck with everything :)

A lot of nurses I work with will work Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues to have 8 day stretches off.....

http://www.cdc.gov/HAI/pdfs/ppe/PPEslides6-29-04.pdf Look @ the slide 5th from the bottom...re: giving a bed bath AGAIN...OBVIOUSLY it's wise to wear gloves when bathing a patient, but TECHNICALLY it's not required unless you anticipate coming into contact with bodily fluids, which of course is almost always. That's all. Okay I have to go study :)

Hm...I don't know why I have never thought about this before...I feel dumb lol.

If you do not anticipate coming into contact with any bodily secretions during a bath, then technically you do not need to don gloves. I was just making a point. Obviously this is rarely the case... I am aware of standard and universal precautions.

This is surprising to me. A lot of the times the nurses will give me much detail when telling me about their patients. Or maybe it seems that way to me and they really aren't. I am also in school, so I like to go through the charts and try to take advantage of learning opportunities when I am working.