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.

I graduated from ASU's College of Nursing back in December. The first semester is very difficult. I remember wanting to quit every week. It's all about organization! They throw a ton of notes at you within the first week (this includes stuff for clinicals). You are going to be overwhelmed, but stuff starts to make sense once you actually get in and start doing the work. The professors are great about saying, "We are here to see that you do succeed, not if you are going to succeed." They really care about all of their students. I do not recommend working during the program. The professors made that very clear from the get go. Some girls had to do it because they had bills and rent. They made it through, but I'm sure they lost plenty of sleep because they were up late doing homework. If you make it through the first semester then you will have no problem completing the program. It's a cake-walk after those first three months. They have done a really good job at reorganizing the assignments and throwing the bad ones out. Give them lots of feedback and always ask for help. I definitely recommend bonding with your learning community. I could not have done it without the girls in my group. They were my saviors. Good luck to all and I know that you will all make it!

I graduated from ASU this past December. When I applied I had a 4.0 from Glendale Community College. I think that community college is the way to go for pre-reqs. When I entered the college (in 2002) they didn't use the Net exam. We had a ten question math exam and two essays. Both sections were worth one point that were then added on to your GPA for a max total of 6.0. I definitely think that you can get in with a 3.3. Remember that if you don't get in right away someone else may drop out before the semester starts and you may be able to fill their seat. Keep working hard and it will pay off!

Oh, and BOW stands for Bag of Waters...

I'm pretty sure that GBS stands for Group B Streptococcus. It a very popular thing to test the mothers for prior to delivery (if I remember correctly). Good luck with the rest :)

My father-in-law has been suffering from RA for as long as I can remember. He's a postal worker and has had to miss many days because of extreme pain in his knees and hands. His doctor had him on every med he could think of (none of which worked) and didn't take my father-in-law seriously when he complained of pain and swelling. His exact words were, "I've seen people a lot worse than you." Compassionate, huh? Well finally they put him on Humira, an intramuscular injection that he takes once every two weeks. It has been a miracle drug! My father-in-law is pain free and is able to exercise and lose weight. He feels like a new man and we couldn't be happier for him. Keep your hopes up because there is something out there that WILL work.

I just took care of a pt last night who had an atrial flutter ablation, but did not have a pacemaker put in. We don't see a great deal of ablation patients.

I live and work in Boston. I just graduated from nursing school in December and I make $25/hr on an intermediate cardiac floor. Not bad for being such a fresh face.

I would check with the pharmacist again because of the conflicting stories. My nursing drug book from 2004 does not saying anything about not crushing the pill. You probably need to stay sitting up for a while after taking it because it can cause an upset stomach and probably heart burn if it is not digested properly. It can also cause peptic ulcers and bleeding. It's probably not a good idea to get it caught in your esophagus. I hope this helps.

The tele techs on my floor are responsible for monitoring and recording telemetry on each patient every two hours. This includes the rate, rhythm, and any ectopy that occurs. They also set up tele boxes for new admits, put leads back on when they come off, replace the batteries, etc. Their most important job is to alert the nurse of any red alarms (ie VTach, asystole). I hope this helps!

I got my first "real" paycheck three months ago. My husband and I went out to dinner and just relaxed. I didn't go all out like I wanted to because I needed to save money!