Marnaby

Although it does hurt to put pressure on a groin hematoma it's also VERY necessary. Otherwise your patient will continue to bleed from the artery/vein that was punctured under the skin. Then you get into low Hcts and BPs and no one wants that :nuke:

Sorry to hear about your horrible night w/ that patient. They may also have been able to try doing an Amiodarone bolus w/ a drip. Still can drop the blood pressure, but it's another option. Then they can load the patient on PO amio. Did they think about starting him on PO dilt? Or did they just try the drip?

I work at Beth Israel on a cardiac floor. Started out here in April of 2004 as a new grad at $25.13/hr. I'm up to $28/hr now with my recent raise and market adjustment. The salary thing that they do really confused me when I first started here, but I finally figured the whole thing out. For example if you work 40 hrs a week, you will be paid only for the 40. You don't clock in and out so you don't get overtime unless you tell your boss that you stayed over. Then if you work 36 hours one week and the next week you work 44, you'll only be paid for 40 hours in each paycheck. They do pay overtime and time and a half for holidays. Hope this helps anyone who was looking for a place to work.

I work on a 14 bed cardiac stepdown floor. When we are full at 14 we have 4 nurses at night with 1 aide. Right now the census is only at 7 with one pt filling that "stepdown" criteria (she's on dobutamine). There are three nurses at night for the rest of the weekend. When a nurse on the floor has a "stepdown" pt she/he can only have a 3 pt assignment (days or nights).

I work on a cardiac stepdown unit and a majority of my patients have ICD's and PM's. I actually have taken care of a woman for the past few days who's ICD shocked her 27 times in one day (needless to say that's why she came to the hospital). I say that if the ICD fires once or twice then just monitor the patient and alert the cardiologist of the occurence (could be that the pt had a run of V-tach and the ICD fired). If it happens more than that the patient should go to the hospital (especially if the firings happen one right after the other). The ICD could be malfunctioning or need to be adjusted.

I graduated from ASU in Dec of 2003. I just had a discussion with some nursing friends about the benefit of going to ASU versus a community college. While we agree that the community college students have wonderful practical skills we believe that ASU prepared us well in management, leadership, organization, and critical thinking skills. By the time you graduate you will probably have multiple job offers from any one of the hospitals where you do your clinicals. Arizona is desperate for nurses. Many of the hospitals do externships and you can work with a nurse (and get paid) before you graduate. ASU does not have a job placement program, but like I said you wouldn't need it anyway. The staff is very supportive and they are there to see that you DO succeed not IF you are going to succeed. The instructors are emotionally and physically present. They are willing to do almost anything to help. The program is not a cake walk and believe me we all wanted to quit at some point. However, the program has been redone multiple times since I graduated and I hear that it is much more organized now. I think you would be making a good choice at any college in AZ, but I have to go with my home team and support ASU. I moved to Boston shortly after graduating and I had no problem finding a job with my BSN. It seems to me that many hospitals prefer that you have a BSN these days. I hope this info helps and if I forgot anything please send me a message and I'd be glad to answer any more questions. Good luck :)

GlendaleStudent- That's what I meant to say, but you said if for me. Thanks for clearing up some of the confusion. Good luck to all at GCC! :)

thrashej- Patho was a pre-req that I had to take at GCC before applying to the professional nursing program at ASU. Cullinan use to teach Patho back then. I'm not sure if she does it now. I think that the GCC program includes Patho in their actual nursing program and not in the pre-reqs. They may have changed that though.

If you meet a nurse by the name of Brianna Brady tell her Marnie says hi. We went to nursing school together and we were in the same learning community. Good luck with the rotation! :)

I went to GCC a couple of years ago before transfering to ASU for the nursing program. I had Cullinan for my patho class and she was great. At the time the class was a little overwhelming, but that's patho for you. We took plenty of notes and her tests weren't too bad. She is really nice and is extremely helpful. I'm sure she'll be a good Block I instructor to have. :)

I did my leadership/managment portion of my Senior II semester in the NICU at St. Joe's. I loved it there!!! All of the nurses were very helpful and the environment was fun. They have a Level III trauma NICU (they take the sickest of the sick). I have a friend who works there now and she loves it. I would recommend their NICU to anyone.

I did a rotation in the NICU at St. Joe's and I loved it! All of the nurses were fun and really helpful. I toured the OB floors and watched a couple of c-sections and lady partsl births. The nurses on those floors were great as well. It would be a great place to work!

You are very welcome! If you have any more questions let me know! :)

I can tell you are smart and I haven't even met you! If someone were to drop out it would either be before the semester started, or after about the first month. You would definitely be able to fill a seat before the semester begins. After about a month I would say that they would make you wait until the following semester. Even if they would let you in after 2-3 weeks, I would still wait. Then you would have a fresh start and wouldn't be stressed about catching up. When I was in the program the semesters switched between community and acute care. The first semester is focused on community- you get involved in going to schools and preschools. You do assessment stuff like heights and weights, scoliosis screenings, developmental testing, etc. The first semester is all about assessing your pt. The second semester was focused on acute care (hospitals). At this time you get involved in peds, L/D, med/surg, ortho, and everyone did newborn nursery during the L/D time. The third semester switches back to community. This is the time in which you do lots of outreach stuff like health fairs and home health/hospice. I found this semester to be a breeze! The fourth semester is all critical care and leadership/management. You get to spend time in the ICU, PACU, telemetry, etc. Your leadership/management is the last half of the semester where you choose where you want to do a "rotation". You then have to do a senior teaching project for that specific population of patients. I did the NICU at St. Joe's because NICU is where I would like to be one day. It was the best experience! Getting a job was extremely easy after school. I moved to MA and I got a job on my first RN interview ever! You are not limited to med/surg by any means. I'm on a cardiology stepdown unit (lots of drips, heart failure, arrhythmias). My friends from school are all over the place in AZ. A couple are doing ER, one is in the NICU, one is in Oncology, another is going to the PACU, one is in the OR, and one is in Med/Surg. It's really easy to find a job in AZ because you do your clinicals in a lot of different places and you meet the RNs and the managers. It's an easy in! The always try to recruit you before you even graduate. I hope this helps. Let me know if you have any more questions!

I work at a large teaching hospital (new grad since December '03) at $25/hr.