KNMRN83

I am an RN in Salt Lake City at the University of Utah Hospital and when I moved here last year from Portland, Oregon my hourly wage went from about $34/hr to a little over $22/hr. To say I was shocked is an understatement. My opinion on why nurses get paid so little here is that most of the new graduates in this area have no desire to leave Utah and therefore hospitals know they don't need to entice them with a big salary, they know they can pretty much pay them a little as they want and the nurses will still stay here because they grew up here, have families here, etc. My other opinion on why the hourly wages are so low is that is has to do with the culture here and that vocations such as nursing or teaching are primarily viewed as "women's work" therefore they pay less. I'm not stating that I agree with these opinions, I'm just stating opinions I have formed from working here over the past years and talking with co-workers. The wage here has nothing to do with cost of living, living here isn't that cheap.

Survey questions regarding mechanically ventilated critically ill adults receiving temporary enteral nutritional therapy (applies to intensive care registered nurses, nurse practitioners, or physician assistants): Select all that apply RN____X____ NP_________ PA_________ OTHER (Please specify)_____________________________ 1.) Does your intensive care unit have a specific guideline or protocol regarding enteral nutritional therapy in critically ill mechanically ventilated adults? c. No 2.) In your practice, do you routinely insert a nasal or oral gastric tube in the critically ill mechanically ventilated patient? d. The purpose of the tube drives my decision (for the purposes of draining or feeding) 3.) In your facility, for the purpose of temporary enteral nutritional therapy, what type of feeding tube is most often initiated? a. Salem Sump (gastric) 4.) After enteral nutritional therapy has been ordered, what assessment criteria drives your decision that the critically ill mechanically ventilated patient is ready for enteral nutritional therapy to be initiated? d) The therapy has been ordered so there is no other criteria necessary 5.) What rate do you currently initiate your enteral nutritional therapy in the critically ill mechanically ventilated patient? a. 10 milliliters an hour and advance to goal as tolerated 6.) What monitoring criteria do you employ when caring for a patient receiving enteral nutrition therapy d. All of the above 7.) What assessment criterion currently drives your decision that the patient will tolerate an increased rate of enteral nutrition therapy e. Other: lack of tube feeds or tube feed-like material coming back out of an NGT or OGT 8.) After initiation of enteral nutritional therapy, how often do you assess gastric residual volumes? e. Other: it depends on the pt, and usually our pts have OGT or NGT hooked up to wall suction and that is how we assess if the pt is tolerating rather than checking residuals 9.) What amount of gastric residual volumes would you consider acceptable to advance your feeding rate? d. I do not use gastric residual volumes as an assessment criteria to determine patient tolerance to enteral nutritional therapy 10.) When assessing gastric residual volumes, what amount would you consider "High volumes" which would cause you to "hold" the patient's feedings. b. Greater than 250 cc in a four hour period regardless of the rate 11.) When assessing gastric residual volumes, how much do you consider an acceptable amount to return to the patient? b. I return all gastric contents 12.) How often do you flush your feeding tubes? d. After administering medications

I just passed the CCRN last week, and I agree that the Kaplan book was not really helpful at all and the Pass CCRN! book itself was way too detailed. However, the CD that came with Pass CCRN! was a great resource and the questions on that CD are for the most part harder than the questions on the actual exam. The Laura Gasparis Vonfrolio CD's were great too, I took notes on them and I found that she did a great job highlighting important parts of the exam. Also, it is probably most important to focus on pulmonary and cardiac as those two subjects make up over half the test. For everything else, just know highlights.