jsallen

Good afternoon all, I am 23 years old, almost 2 years experience in the ED. I tried travel nursing for a while because I am so desperate to get out and see some of the world... but I am too anal to live without knowing where my next paycheck is coming from and where I'll be 2 weeks from now... So now I'm back home in boring Illinois and extremely bored. My question, then, is what is life like in the reserves? I have a husband and we just recently bought a house here, so full time active duty isn't possible right now. Plus, my husband and I are really close, and really love to travel together, which I know isn't possible in the reserves, so do you have any other ideas? How often do you have to go to training? What does the physical test involve? Is there a way to get out of deployment and just work around the US? I know I really need to talk to a recruiter, but I want to know first hand from reserve nurses if this is what I want before I even take that step...

I am currently on assignment with AMN in SoCal and NEED out of my contract.. the hospital that I am at is killing people and I will not work here any longer. I have followed all protocol in speaking with my clinical manager, having meetings with my managers from the hospital, etc and was told by the clinical manager at AMN that I can get out of the contract but she said there will be fees for leaving the housing early, however, now they won't tell me what those fees are... anyone ever have this happen? I need to get the ball rolling on getting out of this contract but I need to know what it's going to cost me first.. I still have to pay off my nursing student loans! Help

I am currently on assignment at an unnamed hospital in LA in the ER and from day 1 it has been an absolute disaster! My first day I walked into a code minutes after it had been called overhead and no one was doing anything, no compressions, no ventilation, no meds, nothing! So I started shouting orders and ran the code myself. Then my second week here I looked at the assignment board and noticed I had a new patient - I went to the room and he was ashen gray, diaphoretic, with chest pain and shortness of breath. He was not on a monitor, no ECG was done, no 02 - and he came to me from triage where a nurse had already seen him... Then the cherry on top of it all was Monday night. I had a patient come to my room in SVT - he was diaphoretic and had been in SVT for 24 hours or more. We gave cardizem and adenocard and got him back to sinus after about 15 minutes and dozens of PVCs. Then I walked out to mount my rhythm strips and a staff nurse walked to the nurses station asking where the crash cart was so she could check (it was 7p shift change.) I told her it was in my room still on my patient and she said "okay" then walked away. A minute later I hear screaming from my room - I go check and long story short she "checked" the defib at 150 joules WHILE IT WAS ON MY PATIENT and then lied about it... Now.. the first several incidents scared me but this one absolutely terrified me. Had he gone into a lethal rhythm, I'm sure she would have tried to blame it on me and who do you think they'd believe - their union member or a traveler? So now I'm not sure what to do. I've followed all protocol with my agency by reporting everything, having the appropriate meetings, etc, and they will let me out of the contract without too much hassel because of the "unsafe working conditions" but should I leave because of this? If I do leave, should I stay with my company (who has been pretty much terrible up until this point also) or go with another company? I'm from a level 2 trauma and the hospital I'm at isn't trauma at all... and I started traveling to learn. Another company I'm talking to says that they have openings at UCLA and Childrens which are both Level 1 and the company I'm with says they feel that my current assignment is "too overwhelming" for me. Well.. I'm not overwhelmed by the assignment, I'm overwhelmed by the stupidity... :/ Help??

I went straight from nursing school into ER and I definitely wasn't "ready," but I sure learned my stuff and now I can handle my own without a problem... and my facility has taken several nurses off of tele and brought them to the ER full time as tele nurses are "easier to replace" than ER nurses in terms of training, etc. I would say just go for it; you'll never really be "ready" anyway until you do it. We have had some ICU nurses come down and are absolutely at a loss when their patients can actually talk to them...

I am an RN in Illinois right now and have just over 1 year experience in the ER. I feel like I've learned everything I can from my current position and am ready to start traveling. I have my Cali license and have been working with some recruiters but I'm hitting a few walls. First, my recruiter says that because I only have 1 year, I need to basically take what I can get, which for her means a Kaiser hospital in LA with the following contract: 8hr shift for 13 wks assignment, $500 for travel, $200 for benefits with $15.21/hr pay and $805/week tax exempt stipend. This totals $1322/week which is less than I make here... plus this does not include any kind of housing. I feel like I'm getting ripped off but I've been talking this up to my husband so long I'm pretty sure he'd kill me if we settle for this or if we don't go. I'm working with some other recruiters from other companies but they seem to take forever getting back to me and many other companies say not enough experience. Any advice?

The night of the midwest snowstorm of 2011, my ER had a patient call the ambulance for toe pain x3 weeks. The EMS crew had to drive to the middle of the country in snow 3 ft high to pick him up... then when he got here he said "I was just bored because my cable went out so I figured I'd come here and watch yours." Then, obviously, we couldn't get him a ride home so he got round the clock meals, warm blankets and free cable for the next 2 days until we could get him home. :)

I am an RN BSN with approximately 1.5 years experience in ER/ICU along with a Correctional facility and am looking for some kind of opportunity in Central/South America or in Africa. However, I've been looking for several months and have found absolutely nothing in these areas. Is there anyone that can help me?