Bruce_Wayne

Not worth losing my license over. After I retire, who knows what I'll put in my garden.

Sterile water seems pointless because the cup you pour it into isnot sterile and neither will the syringe or funnel, unless you're getting new sterile stuff every time. I save my sterile water for chest tubes.

Propofol, fentanyl, levophed, lovenox, and protonix lol

If you have white collar history I would honestly advise you to stay in your current field or get another white collar job. You might make more money being a McDonald's manager than you would as a CNA

25000 for an lvn program just sounds like a stupid scam. I'd try to find an ADN program that was accredited instead. My ADN cost me 5000 total and my Bsn only cost 6000. I cannot imagine the prices you're getting quoted.

That is quiet the situation. Have you looked into nursing home jobs as well? I know in my area they're absolutely desperate and constantly building new ones. It's kind of an unglamorous job and they don't treat or pay you very well. But it is a start.

Nursing is a hard stressful job. The pay can be good but for what you have to put up with sometimes it doesn't seem worth it. If I had to do it all over again I'd choose physical therapist because they get paid slightly more and they're focused on a more narrowly defined task.

I used to miserable but then I came to terms with expectations vs reality and I just do the best I can with what I have. As a shift lead my process was to give mys of all the biggest baddest cases but that line of thinking was unsubstantiatable. I got a lot of stress from making assignments and having to deal with the complaints and venting from other nurses. It's especially hard when you're understaffed. Sometimes I wished I could just twitch my nose and materialize a nurse. Now on my coping skills are much larger and I don't take things personally anymore. Actually being firm and decisive has made things better for me as people are less likely to question my actions and I try to be as transparent with my thought process as possible. Now people pretty much trust me to be fair and flexible but sometimes nurses get really tough assignments but I do my best to spread the grief around evenly. Personally my biggest stressor isn't the job or personality issues with coworkers it's the culture of choosing quantity over quality of life that I see day after day. Sometimes I feel like a tool of torture more than a nurse as we trach and peg people who's only prognosis is to be in bedridden pain for the rest of their life with tubes in ever orifice until the day that we code them and can't get them back. That's the one thing that keeps me awake at night.

I saw a doctor try an NG once because I couldn't get it. Neither could he and we actually had to consult a surgeon to help. we routinely place NG or OG tubes on our vented pts and have it confirmed by air bolus heard by two RNs. by the time we get around to using it for feeding the patient has had several X-rays

The mentors don't really do anything except talk to you and keep you motivated. Their only purpose is to keep you grounded and set realistic expectations and keep you motivated since you will be working from home. By in large, the learning is self directed and contact with mentors is a formality.

Speaking as somebody promoted to shift lead before I thought I was ready, you do not want to put yourself in that situation. The stress was unbearable and I started smoking. And that's not even on the same level as a unit manager. Do yourself a favor and get some experience.

Our monitor techs are RNs or LPNs with special ekg training. Our portable tele monitors work in all departments so there is no "off unit" considerations. The patients primary RN is responsible for checking the accuracy of the strips and that is part of the chart check. ER and ICU patients are not monitored by the monitor techs but instead by their primary RN. Monitor techs and er and Icu nurses must take a yearly competency ekg class and test. The monitor techs are required to take all breaks including a 30 minute lunch break and 2 fiveteen minute paid breaks outside of the monitor room. This is to prevent fatigue and eye strain and is not considered optional at my facility.

I just use the website version. I don't recall the exact instructions because none of my classes have utilized vitasource yet so I kind of forgot how to do it.

I was looking through this board and naturally like you'd expect it attracts a lot of people that are nervous and a lot of people that are having problems with the test taking. So I thought it would be useful to others to read a positive NCLEX experience. When I took my NCLEX, finding the building the test was in was easy but finding the suite wasn't. I wasn't late but I was nervous pacing around some hallways looking for the right room. I thought the testing center would be rather large but it was really small. I think there were like 6 computers. Your mileage may vary. The questions were straightforward and most of the time the answer seemed obvious. The questions related to real world applications and a few of the things I saw were a little unusual but nothing much that I hadn't heard of in my readings. I'm sure I did miss plenty questions, but there wasn't anything outrageous. The questions I did struggle on or guessed at were fair and really did identify holes in my knowledge. I got tons of select all that apply and a lot of my questions related to care plan meetings. I had exactly two medication questions and zero lab questions. But knowledge about medication and labs helped me answer some other questions in a non-direct kind of way so it was useful knowledge. Overall I feel like it's a really fair test and accurately test for what a brand new nurse should know. Nothing too advanced lots of safety questions. If I was a patient I'd want my nurse to able to pass the NCLEX.

If you get the education, experience and credentials and are willing to relocate you can find something somewhere in management if that's what you want to do. After you get your foot in the door of management you can try to work your way up from there or transfer/relocate as needed to advance.

Fiona59 mentioned fob watches, I can't find any masculine style fob watches that I like. The closest I got was searching on amazon for carabiner watches but on most of them the watch isn't oriented so that you can read it by looking down at your chest.

You didn't become a nurse because you don't care, so don't beat yourself up for being a compassionate human being. You will probably become a little more detached and clinical as you get more experience, but hopefully you'll never lose your compassion.

Probably need to start out with some basic classes like English Composition, etc.

I still highly recommend it. A year of reading from a tablet vs a year of reading from a computer makes it an easy choice in my mind. Reading on the computer screen is just so horrible, or maybe it's just my computer? Maybe a nice mid range computer would have a nicer screen than I have?

My watch is just north of a 100 dollars but it was the cheapest watch I could find that wouldn't breakout my arm, and I usually take it off halfway through the day when I'm done with my assessments and admits because I hate wearing a watch. Then I pull it out PRN.

Tablets for reading not for typing.

You can print things out from vitalsource and the courses if you think that would would work.

After you finish education without boundaries you can access all the courses in your degree plan. So I start working on care of the older adult in June while I was waiting for my term to start in July. So I was ready to take the assessment shortly after the term started but I had to wait for my webcam to come in, which didn't get in until the 15th. Since then I've taken and passed Care of the Older Adult. Also today I finished my last of 5 projects for biochemistry. I've taken the pre-assessment for leadership and still waiting to get an email confirming my proctoring appointment. Next week whenever I'm done with the leadership assignment I plan on writing the paper that goes with the other leadership class and starting on statistics. After I finish statistics, which might take a while, that will pretty much be done with all the courses I was originally put into by my mentor so I'll have her add some more courses to my term.

About the OR thing, I had a patient not long ago who had to take course of antibiotics because somebody's earring fell into the sterile field during the operation (not into the patient though). This increased the cost and time of her stay, so I can see why the OR would forbid extra earrings and non-studs.

Those weren't included before? If I remove myself from the situation a bit and think to myself, "do I think a MSN prepared nurse should have advanced knowledge in patho, pharm, and assessment?" I come up with yes. But still actually taking those classes sounds like a pain.