snowfreeze BSN, RN

after 14 years of nursing i am changing jobs again. i began my medical career as an adrenaline junkie (paramedic), attended a community college for my adn and my first nursing job was in med/surg then moved on to icu then flight team within 4 years....

The unit I am working on has currently 3 new nurses off orientation and we have 7 more coming on in the next 3 months. It is wonderful that there are nurses to fill the slots, but a lot of new nurses in a short period of time. I like all of the new...

I worked at a facility that did simular, often the admitting doc for the nursing home was the one who wrote the discharge instructions from the hospital. We would call doc to let them know patient arrived and repeat discharge/admit orders along with...

Do you like finding out first hand what stupid human trick was attempted (work ER) or do you like fixing the problem after the labs and tests have confirmed the trick was successful(work ICU)?

In general as a nurse in the USA I am respected by patients, families and doctors.

Yes you may be fired for sleeping on the job. Making personal calls during work hours is not usually acceptable, you are working not socializing. What type of license do you have? Not giving medications because you were too tired isn't acceptable, ...

Make sure you filled out the application correctly and had references with phone numbers. A nice resume also helps a lot. 1 to 2 weeks after submitting application and resume, call to see if it was received. If you don't hear from them in another ...

SBP less than 90 does not mean poor perfusion, look at the Mean Arterial Pressure. Assess your patient. If this was an automatic pressure, check a manual one. Ask your patient if they are light headed, do they have a headache, do they feel dizzy o...

Travel RN, on 3rd contract with this awesome facility in Maryland. Type of Hospital: Community Type of Unit: med/surg/cardiac telemetry Number of beds: 24 Number of patients each RN has: 1:3 or 1:4 only 3 patients if you have a ventilator patient. Do...

The average person who is basically healthy will have 3 to 7 days/year when they are sick. Most of those are stress related not actual infectious related. If your work environment also adds to the sickness level with extra stress and exposure to in...

There are two routes, take the small hospital and semi specialize in everything for a rewarding career at the low level or work really hard for a while (teaching facility environments can be stressful) and work in some specialty units and get some aw...

Good luck, I did some time in LTC and understand your frustration. You never see someone get better, it can be depressing. You do have time management skills that could be sold on E-Bay, lol. I am sure any unit hiring you will be blessed with your...

Debriefing helps a lot, talk to someone about this. The chat after a traumatic event is a defusing, a few days after is a debriefing. These are helpful to most people, going over the details with someone else who was there and seeing their view he...

As far as passing boards, I suggest test questions by yourself or with a group which ever you have access to. As far as being an orientee nurse, listen to your preceptor. Your orientation is very generic so ask questions and make suggestions as to w...

htrn has good advice, talk to the manager. Suggest giving the complainers the job of finding a solution. Staff that complains about a problem needs the opportunity to be on a committee to fix the issue that is bothering them and others. Allowing th...

I was pregnant during my first year of nursing school and had to take time off due to a c-section mid August. I returned the following year and completed nursing school and passed boards the first time. My daughter will turn 18 this coming week!!! ...

Injecting through anything could cause an abcess, a small piece of fiber could be embedded in the flesh and this could cause a nasty infection.

Humm, a facility that has you caring for vent patients and has not oriented you to that yet? Sounds liike a place that runs on a shoestring. If you like the job (place, hours etc) then maybe you could get involved in fixing some of the problems you...

I worked at UPMC in Pittsburgh for 2 years.

Try working all your night requirements in a row, that way you can sleep daytime and work nights. Yes your social life will be non-existant but you will get your hours in and be back to normal for the next week. I could never do the switch back and...

My first experience with a not so nice doc was with a pulmonologist who had a reputation for being verbal. I was orienting in ICU at the time and this was my first assist with a swan placement. I was methodically getting my things together and gett...

When you stop having nightmares about work stuff that is simple like meds given, forgetting patients etc. Your mind will tell you when you are there. Oh geeze, I had a dream about med passes two nights ago. I have 16 years experience and am now a t...

I worked with some refresher nurse students last month. This program took them through the whole facility. I worked with one student for 8 hours in a telemetry unit and she was very much into doing hands on so we worked as a team through my shift. ...

Humm, what a refreshing idea. I would love to be backed by the administration for this. Screen play for JACHO training film. Doc sits down and starts softly cussing and tossing charts. nurse "Hey doc, might we discuss this in the report room?" Cus...

We all fear the unknown. You will do fine, you care. The more you learn and experience the less you will worry. Except during nursing school when you seem to develop the symptoms of every disease you learn about at the same time you learn about the...