nurseLori

I graduated from SWOCC in 2003 and am currently working in Community Based Care and Per Diem agency nursing...

I am not sure when those last posts were, been a while since I have been on the net..... I went to Southwestern Community College, and I am working in Coos Bay. I got my notification that I passed on the internet, can't remember how the official letter was addressed. I am now looking into doing some travel nursing (more local to this area vs. real traveling) I am going to try and find some posts related to that to get a better feel.:)

Yes, that is what it is. They still have it. We don't have many students but come visit our facility when you are in the area!

My class was also shocked when they said, "ok, time for you to plan your pinning." We had to plan it, and do it all ourselves, and purchase our own pins. There were many of us who were sad that caps were not avialable as well. We felt let down. It was like, ok you made your big achievment, now throw your own graduation, if you want. Our local hospital gives out little caps, you can fold up and wear, to the children that come and it says "future nurse on one side". I took one, turned it inside out so it was all white, and put my pin on it, and it is proudly displayed on a shelf in my living room. Soon after, everyone in my class followed. Our teacher talked about when she graduated, and I wanted to cry when she described a large ceremony with the stripes, and each school had a unique cap and a pin. I would never wear one on the job, but I like the ceremonial stuff!

Well congrats! I graduated only a year ago, but it is still very fresh in my mind. I think I will remember the day I found out for the rest of my life! I'm sure you will be able to find something, if I wanted to move, almost every larger city has 3 or 4 hospitals with sign a sign on bonus, will train, and some will even move you out there! I am not where I thought I would be. I was positive I would be on an ortho or surg unit, and wouldn't hear of anything but that. I am loving it now, and have had two jobs, niether were even close to where I thought I would be. It's like magic, you fall into where you ought to go. :)

I work in an assisted living facility, and one of our resident's only daughters swears that happened to her as well. :stone I first met the daughter when I was admitting to the facility. She was also heavy set, and at the time I didn't think to myself "gosh, she looks pregnant" just a normal larger lady. About two days later the resident told me she was a new grandma. I said "I didn't know your daughter was pregnant?!" and she replied "none of us did, not even her" the daughter says she didn't have any insurance, and had been to a doctor for abdominal discomfort about 6 moths ago, he ran every test in the book, but not a pregnancy test, becuase she tought she was in menopause. He had told her she had a small tumor. Well then she was having horrible pains, and finally went to the ER, where she found out she was in labor! When she finally came in with the baby, sure enough whe was no longer a larger lady, but a thin lady. I never would have guessed she was pregnant looking back on it, she had a large mid section and some rolls, but not a big beach ball belly like most. They still swear that no one new she was pregnant, and in fact they were not only celebrating the new life, but that the daghter didn't have a tumor after all! You never know these days!:chuckle

I am so happy to hear there are others out there! I started at my facility on contract in November when their full time nurse up and left, due to some personal problems. I had not had experience in this before, and found it fun and challenging. They soon hired my on full time in January, and I am learning the ropes little by little. The training I did get:o , was from the lead med-aide, and it was minimal to say the least. I feel much more confident now, but It would be so nice to have others to ask questions to! I don't know what SALSA stands for..... We have four levels of care. Each ADL is broke up into a category, and depending on how much assist they need, they get a point score. No assist would be 0, assist occasionally would be 5 points, assist most of the time would be 10 and so on..then the total depicts what level care. I think my bigest challenge is educating others, family, doctors, home health etc. on how assisted livng "actually works".

they sound very similar. i do all the stuff you listed as well. what type of facility is it? i work m-f 8-5, :) and i can wear whatever i want. i usually just wear nice clothes, or with a nurses jacket, but every now and then i wear scrubs when i want to be comfy. i usually do not do any patient care, but i do assessments, i'll do a dressing change to see a wound's progress, or i talk with residents that have concerns. most of our caregivers have been doing it for a long time, and are very good, but every now and then they do something that surprises me, and the ones who have not been doing it a long time....i have to keep that in mind sometimes. btw, you aren't being nosy.:chuckle

I was a CNA for 3 years before becoming an RN. At first I looked at it as what I had to do, to get through it to become a nurse. I started in a nursing home, and didn't last long there. I threw up my first day, after an advanced MS patient threw up, and I was thrown in there to clean her up on my own. I had a real hard time in the beginning dealing with the "dirty" stuff.:imbar I soon tried very hard to get on at the local hospital. After a few months of submitting application after application, I finally got on to the night shift. It was a piece of cake compared to how I was running my buns off at the nursing home. A lot of the nurses were rude and demanding at first, but I kinda earned their friendship as I went. Before I knew it, none of the what I used to think of as "dirty" stuff bothered me anymore, and I started to love my job. Now that I'm a nurse, and in charge of caregivers, we really get along well, and they have said to me they look up to me becuase I have "been there" and I am not afraid to jump in and help out. I don't ask them to do anything I would not want to do. It grows on you, or it doesn't...some are not made for it, but give it a chance. you definately have to "find your place" or find a place you can feel good about what you do. I know the nursing home was not for me, but some are really good at it, and like it.:)

Thank you! I have a friend flying to new york today. She is a model. I have always wanted to go, the farthest east I have been is chicago. I love it there, in the summer or spring only, I am afraid of more than a foot of snow! What type of nursing are you doing now? I am trying out LTC for a while. So far so good.....but every now and then I get some one who tries to make me feel like I am not " a real nurse " because I'm not at a hospital. I try not to let it bother me.

the last part of the nursing program you precept on an assingned unit, following an rn, and then she follows you. i was on med/surg, and liked it a lot. now they offer a program after graduating, the apprentice program. you basiclly do some more classes "what they didn't teach in school" and then you start out slow on the floor with one or two patients. you get paid for it all, and the pay is higher than normal beginning wage. you get to work days/eve only, and usually m-f. but each week you have an assignment, and you still have to report to a mentour all the time. they say right from the beginning "do not attempt to apply if you need any time off at all" so a honeymoon would have been out of the question, and possibly not able to get the day of my wedding off. you have to get a bunch of letters of reccomendation and jump through a lot of hoops. after just getting out of school, the pay and days sounded good, but it is very similar to "school continued" anyways.......enough of that i love my job in assisted living (alf) my official tittle is facility nurse, but other places call it theirs nurse consultants. i make sure the facility is in compliance with the state regs, oversee the cargiving staff, and "assist in managing the resident's health conditions" i get aggrivated with the caregivers at times. coming from places where you always have cna's, most of these people are off the street, with no official training, doing way more than a cna or even a cma would be allowed to do. most of it, i love!:)

Everywhere I have worked before has paid for the CPR certification, and paid me my hourly wage as well for time spent taking the class. I would look close at policies and procedures, and your state regulations. Some times the company will have put it in their policy to pay for it, but try to get away with not paying. I guess they aren't smart enough to read their own manual:chuckle

I am an RN working in an Assisted Living Facility interested networking with other people in ALF's. Write back and let me know!

No, that teacher retired a couple years before I took A&P, but a lot of people ask about him. They have gone through a couple teachers since, they like to fire people! I really liked the teacher I took A&P from as well. I would be at BAH working, but I wasn't able to do the apprenticship program because I was planning my wedding. So to punish everyone who didn't get in to the apprenticship, they would only place them on graveyard. I had worked that shift for a year as a CNA, and worked my way up. On NOCS I was tired and sick all the time. They were giving other off the street people better shifts than I would have gotten. So I went to work at what used to be St.Catherines on the sub-acute unit. About 6 months later I was offered a great job at an assisted living facility, and here I am!

Thank you! How long ago did you work at Bay Area Hospital? I started as a nurse tech there while going to school, I don't work there anymore either, but I would like to if I had the time.