RNmeee

Thank you. I just wanted to make sure. Her options for answers are also a bit obvious. In contrast, I found APEA Qbank to be a lot more challenging and indepth.

Anybody else preparing for AANP exam found Leik questions in the back of her book relatively easier than other review questions such as APEA and exam edge?

Base pay for neurosurgery is 115K. Thank you all for your suggestions. In many ways, Neuro is a much better option both pay and commute wise. But I decided to take the community healthy because I do not want to go back to school right away and get First assist and acute cert back to back. That is alot of schooling. Second, the direction the consensual model in Washington is taking. Third, I think I will be very happy working for the population that the community health serves. But I also realize based on what you all have suggested, I will probably be miserable due to the commute and from being over worked. Either way, I will be sure to share what my experiences will be like in the future and if I regret my decision :)

Seattle, WA :)

Right! I should be grateful I have these offers. My gut says I will feel very fulfilled working in community health. But I will most likely be miserable due to the commute time. It also says I will most likely be miserable in Neurosurgery trying to keep up with everything I will need to learn. But may be very happy with compensation and commute time. Leaning toward community health at the moment :)

Thank you. You make a great point. I should focus on learning general medicine while given a change. I can always chose specialty down the road.

I was recently offered 104k which is pretty standard for my area. I was told by one of my instructors to not short sell yourself just because they are community health. They still have the revenue. Some of the higher up positions even get bonuses. Benefits offered to me were not so great. I was expecting much more as a provider. The company said no negotiation because everything is standardized and same for all NPs within the company. But I dont see why you can't still negotiate.

Fellow NPs, I am in a predicament as to which job to chose. New grad. FNP trained. Job 1: With community health. 1-1.5 hours travel one way. Pay 104k. Benefits are so so. CME $1500, 7 days. Will have good support. Will see 18 pts/day. Work M-F, 8-5. Job 2: With Neurosurgery team. 15 minutes away from home. Pay, waiting to find out. Benefits are great. CME $2700+, 7 days. Will also have great support. Will be paired with a neurosurgeon. Will have to cover clinic, inpatient, and OR. Work M-F, 7-4. Some weekends and holidays. I have already accepted Job 1. Haven't signed the contract yet. The Same day, I accepted the Job 1, I got the second offer. Another hesitancy with Job 2 is that I am primary care trained. I have neurosurgery experience as an RN only. In some ways, I do not even know what I need to know for this job. But I am positive that I will have great guidance. I will definitely get first assist and acute care cert for Job 2 to stay within the scope, but after starting the job. That's additional 2-3 years of continued training and education + full-time job. I just want to think about all the pro and cons. And I know all of you have some great experiences and insights on this kind of decision making. So, I would love to hear your thoughts.

Nobody here from Greater Seattle area?

I am excited to be getting close to being done with my Family Nurse Practitioner degree in August. I just wanted to check with you all and ask about any scoop on the job market in and around Seattle. I am interested in primary care, urgent care, community health, specialty- Neurology/Neurosurgery. Any suggestions on job hunting would be much appreciated too. Thank you in advance!

I go to Gonzaga online FNP program

Hello everyone, I have exhausted all my resources looking for preceptors for my online FNP program. I have gone as far as paying a company couple of thousands of dollars for finding me a preceptor 4 hours away for Fall. Now I am looking for a preceptor for Spring 2017 and Summer 2017 and I have been looking for almost a year with not a single positive response. Needless to say, I feel exhausted, and frustrated to a point where I even applied to a local brick and mortar school to transfer so that they would find me preceptors, but backed out of it because I would have lost 15+ credit hours I have earned so far. I know I made a huge mistake of choosing online school and not realizing how hard it is to find your own preceptor. As mentioned above, I seriously considered switching school, but I would have lost significant amount of time and money. I only have three more semesters to go. So, I have just trying to make this work somehow. So here I am begging and hoping that someone will hear my plea for help and give me some suggestions or offer me some resources to find a preceptor in and around Seattle area willing to travel 1 hour each way. Please help me!!!

I suggest you do not move. Why? Job market all over the country is BAD. To get a job offer in ICU for a new grad is awesome. You said you want to possibly move to seattle or portland...I am from seattle and I do not have hospital job and yes I came from out of state. There is barely any openings around this area. It is very frustrating. Many new grads are resorting to home health jobs. So I say stay there for couple of years , suck it up, then make your move. All the best to you!

Ok so i need some help from wonderful nurses in AN. I graduated dec 2010. Have a job in home health, but have been desparately looking for acute care settings oppotunity. So I have finally found one possible opportunity in an ICU that will require me to relocate to a small town. I am married, but my husband wont be coming with me if i decide to go because he has a pretty good job in current state. So my dilemma is if i go i'd be gone for atleast a year or two. Pay rate in this hospital is low about $21 Living expense very high. No relocation bonus and i will ppossibly have to fly there for a second interview at my own expense. So i cannot decide if the opportunity and pay is worth the relocation and separation from my husband for 1-2 years. Also do i need to tell them that I am married n that my hubby wont be moving with me if i take the job??? Please share some of your thoughts n suggestions. Should i go if i get hired or look for something closer or better? Thank u all.

I was asked pretty basic questions such as why I chose nursing, why home health, what are my skills or what I have done so far. I was also given 2 different exams. Again pretty basic questions. I was even allowed to look at some books they gave me to answer those questions. In a nutshell, it was a very laid back type of interview. Was offered the job towards the end of the process. So far I love it. I guess it all depends on what kind of people are in the office, but for me the experience has been very good. They have very flexible schedule, lots of CEs, good orientation compared to other home care agencies as well! All the best!

Decisions decisions! Imo if it was about couple of dollars i would have gone for rehad, but $10 cut is too much. I understand your situation because i want to get out of Pdn too. Although i love my pt., i am bored out of my mind. My suggestion, keep looking, smthing better will come up sooner or later. Experince wise rehab wud b better than home care, but taking $2000 cut/per mnth is bit too much my friend :)

Needs some suggestions regarding advance degree in Nursing. Thank you in advance for reading and commenting :) :redbeathe So I am a private duty nurse. Recent BSN graduate. I want to go for Masters in Nursing, but clueless about which specialty to choose. Two degree that I am looking into are Family NP, and CNS. I am not sure with the experience in PDN only, I will be allowed to join CNS? And for FNP, I am not sure what the scopes are. I have done some research about all the different programs, but would love to hear personal opinion of Nurses who know something or anything about these programs. Thank you again! God bless you all.

Only thing that got me was the rains. But you said you love gray days so I think WA will be a perfect fit for you. Awesome places to visit. It probably wont be hard for you to find a job after your 2 years ED experience either. The only other con that I can think of is may be higher tax?? I personally dont have prb with it, but just saying. But then again you dont have to pay state tax, which most of the other states take so that kind of evens out too.

Although I am foreign myself (US educated), I completely understand your point. However, I would like to highlight the point that foreign nurses come to US for work because they can. Meaning US govt. has kept its portal open for such profession citing shortage as a reason. If there are opportunities, people will come. Its a normal way of life. Now keeping current situation in mind where domestic nurses are finding it hard to land a job, we should all question the authority who has hands on passing the Bills like the one you mentioned above. Why do they keep recruiting foreign nurses? Who/what is lobbying for such bills? That being said, respect to all the nurses no matter which country you belong to!

Holly cow! What Nursing Shortage is that Bill talking about? As for my understanding, there is no Nursing Shortage in US so passing a bill to create 20,000 visas is total bogus. And I was thinking your original post is irrelevant for current situation because my understanding is that govt. stopped recruiting foreign nurses few years ago or alteast I thought so. Let alone foreign nurses, nurses who attend school in US who are foreign nationals cannot work in US for more than a year after they graduate. Things used to be different few years back. But there is a serious cut on opportunities for foreign nurses altogether. So ya I do not know how much of it is true that US citizen nurses are not getting job due to foreign nurses. My 2 cents. Peace.

@ R*Star*RN Thank you for the info!!

Welcome to Washington! Do not know much specifics about spokane area, but for WA in general, jobs for new-grads are very sporifice. Like in Omaha, there are too many new grads looking for jobs in hospital. However, hospitals are accepting new grads for residency for July/August/September session. Its about time to apply for them. You should plan on taking NClex soon to qualify for those positions. If you are interested in Private Duty Nursing, I know an agency that takes new grads. Let me know and I can pm you. But basically, you have to have your license before all that. All the best.

Had similar experience in my first nursing semester. Not trying to blame my instructor, but she was intimidating for me and that made things worse. I felt incompetent, worthless, dumb, you name it. It didn't start from the beginning. I felt like first few weeks of my clinicals were awesome, but it just went downhill form then. Don't exactly know why. Moved on to second semester. By then I was getting used to with the clinicals. To my surprise things went smoothly from then on. I even shared my previous experience with my second semester instructor, she told me she did not think I was unsafe or incompetent in anyways and that I was doing great! So the moral of the story, alot of nursing students go through this. Sometimes its just the matter of getting used to things, which most of us will. So have faith in yourself and know that things will definitely be better.

Thats unusual. My school allows all of the specialty granted that the hospital is willing to accommodate students. Anyways, just a piece of advice, choose the floor/specialty where you want to work after you graduate because your experience in preceptorship makes a lot of difference!

Thank you for your response. I was worried thinking there would always be hold feeding order for certain amount of residual like in the acute care settings. I now understand why things are different with home care clients. Still its a relief to hear it from another person who has been doing this for so long. Thank you Ventmommy.