cogath

I an a dietary worker at a hospital and just came back from a shift feeling a bit like this . My day consists of any number of tasks including collecting patient's orders, helping prepare the meal trays, delivering the meal trays, setting up the patient so they can eat, and returning to pick up the finished meal trays and documenting the intake and output on a sheet posted in the patient's room. If any one of these steps goes awry, I also field complaints and manage other matters on nutrition. I consider myself a very reliable, hard-working individual who strives to be polite, and respect the patients as well as other staff. I always leave the room so that nurses and other staff can work with the patients, step out out elevators to allow other staff to utilize them. I am basically at the bottom of the "totem pole" of hospital staff, but it doesn't bother me. I enjoy what I do, and I know that my work is much easier and much less complex then what other staff such as nurses have to do. (I will hopefully graduate with my BSN this May). Most of the nurses, nursing assistants, HUCs, and doctors I encounter are very pleasant and kind. There are some nurses that I know must just be unhappy people because I can be sure that I will be yelled at if I have their patients. However, some nurses and nursing assistants and other staff act annoyed, ignore me, or simply are rude when I am working with the patients. Today I was yelled at twice when going around to clean up my patient's dirty trays. Both times I knocked on the door, introduced myself, and asked if I could take the dirty tray. A nurse glared at me and asked me if I had "two eyes" or could I not see there was anything in the room. If I had not done this, there would surely be a call down to my department complaining that the trays weren't being collected. It just feels like I can't please anyone. What can I do to help? I have a job to do, but it is so hard when there's a lot of others competing for the patient.

Congrats! One week and semester left in my BSN. Can't wait to be in your shoes and hoping that I get there in once piece, fingers crossed. I won't say "when" I graduate I will say "if" I graduate because you are right, 1000 things could go wrong from now until then!!

Clean clean clean. Donate a lot of junk I don't need. Work. Volunteer. Attempt to transfer jobs at the hospital that I work at. Update my resume. Practice NCLEX questions and get prepared for boards this summer. Sleep. Spend time with my boyfriend, family, and friends.

We started with 100 people and have 80 left at this time with one week left in third semester, however I'm sure we will loose about 5-10 after grades are posted.

Congrats!! So jealous, hopeful May grad here!!!

Yes, as well as several of my clinical sites. A few students were car-jacked while parking this semester. As in grand theft auto: Get out of the car or we'll shoot. We are in a big city though and many of our clinical sites are in even worse areas, working with vulnerable populations.

I really enjoyed my Med-Surg classes and am looking forward to Critical Care next semester, which will be my last class to take. I think that I am getting a little bit of senioritis too and becoming antsy to be finished.

I just wondered in anyone else shares these feelings. This class is mostly BS and the material is completely obvious. You could pass the tests without even cracking open a book. What makes this class almost painful are the hoards of pointless, long papers that we have to write, and the care plans, which are boring me to death. The clinicals were also extremely boring and drawn out, and mostly pointless. I have one left and I am agonizing over this care plan, I would rather chew nails then finish it. Sorry for the negative energy, I am just sick of this pointless class

Scholarships pay about 50%. The rest I find in loans and out of pocket. I am 80,000 in debt. Think twice before you choose loans or an expensive school like I did.

Never at work. However, I have plenty of times in nursing school. I need to be active and moving, which is part of the reason I choose nursing as a career. Sitting in a room (often for 3-4 hours at a time) that is hot and in the very early morning (I am a night person), listening to a teacher drone on and on makes it a struggle for me to stay awake. My classmates always tease me about sleeping during class. One day I worked a 3-11:30p on Sunday night and had class at 8a the next morning. We had a test that day, so I stayed up late reviewing. After the test we had 3 hours of lecture. I have no recollection whatsoever of that lecture and no notes at all. It's like I blacked out or something.

Nursing school is such a hyper-regimented environment, and a lot is crammed into such a short period of time. The thought has crossed my mind frequently what would happen if I broke my leg, got into an accident, or had some other incident that resulted in my inability to participate in school and/or clinicals. I'm always worried that this will happen and will set me back by a year or more, when I am very ready to be done. What experiences have people had with this, or thoughts on this?

I am so grateful that I haven't gotten severely ill during school or work so far. This has been my biggest fear. Mono was going around last year and some students missed a week or more of class. I can't image recovering after missing so much. Thankfully I have been very healthy. The last illness I had that really knocked me out was actually the week school ended. I slept a few days straight besides work and then got a bug. This has happened a few times. I figure when I'm constantly busy will school my system is on hyper-drive and is ready to battle whatever comes its way. Then, when I finally get to rest, my body lets its defenses down and that's when I get sick. That's my theory anyway.

If your parents are being so generous I would accept the help. There was and is abuse situation at my parent's house so I moved out during nursing school. Therefore I need to work. Working and going to school is exhausting and drains you. But it can be done. I worked usually between 15-25 hours a week depending on the semester. This semester I will be working about 25 hours a week.

I know exactly how you feel. It's tough when you have to work to pay the bills and your schedule is convoluted. There's also those unspoken days such as clinical prep time that you have to account for too. I also cannot wait until I have a completely free schedule so I can start working full time.

With 4 credit classes, I wouldn't recommend taking more then 12 credits of nursing classes. The most I've taking so far is 12 credits of nursing classes and 4 credits of a nursing pre-req I was finishing, and it was brutal.