bunky

First of all, Thank you Brian! This is such a wonderful idea! Secondly, I am so happy to see you all here. I miss Canada terribly. JMP I am with you. I left for the same reasons you are considering it, only when I graduated in 1995, even a part time job was not available. Some of my friends from school were reduced to working in minimum wage jobs after gradution. I headed south, and while I do miss Canada, I am doing pretty well here financially, and with two kids to support, that has kept me here. I am looking forward to reading all about what's going on back home in nursing. Privitization scares me. While Canada is having it's healthcare woes, I will always maintain that it is Canada that has the right idea as far as healthcare is concerned. Can it be saved and preserved for future generations?

No Canoehead I am the one who does say no, and I've been threatened with termination several times now due to that fact. I am the so-called "troublemaker" who stops working and calls my agency to report unsafe conditions, and I will continue to do so. I have quit jobs before and am not afraid to do so again if it means keeping my license. I am no one's stooge I can assure you! I didn't feel too unsafe considering the other experienced orientee was a gent with over 20yrs experience.

Thank God I am not the only one having to do this! I am agency staff and have loved the fact that they'd never make me pull charge again. I had been exclusively charge for a few years and loved the break. Well they did put me back in charge even though I am agency, and not only did I do charge with a full pt load, but I had working with me, one experienced RN who is on orientation, and a new grad, as well as an LVN whose pt's I had to validate all her assessments on. From a staffing point of view, I was the only RN for 16 pt's because the other two weren't supposed to be counted. Guess they figured I am made of silly putty and can stretch myself to incredible lengths?

Hi from a fellow canuck Neuro6. I made the move 5 yrs ago from Ontario to Texas due to lack of jobs back home. Why are you wanting to relocate? That's the big question, and when you answer that, we can all provide you with the pros and cons of such a move. If it's for better working conditions, it's bad all over. If it's better wages, realize that you will make less per hour and pay somewhere around $110 per pay and upwards for some really lousy health insurance and will still have out of pocket expenses on top of that insurance premium. Yes the taxes are considerably less but I have learned that you get a LOT more from the Gov't in Canada for your tax dollars. Food and clothing for the most part is much cheaper here, but the H&H bills are really high in this part of the US. Dollar for dollar considering the exchange rate, housing is about the same. Gas for your car is much cheaper here. Answer why you feel that moving to the US would be a good idea and I can get more specific.

I have been reading these and laughing hysterically. I can do trachs, spit, snot, pus, even when the pus (a lovely gray toothpaste like never ending string of it)came from and 8 yr old scrotal cyst that suddenly came to a head when the guy was on abt's for something else and just happened to squeeze it and out it rolled. But the grossest I have to agree is maggots and poop eaters! Once in nsg school a classmate was changing the diaper of a 4mos old who was in with AGE and this student tended to be a mouth breather and the baby shot out a fountain of diarrhea right into my classmates mouth! GROSS!!!!!!!

Hi again Aaron! $29 weekdays, 7a-7p $31 weekend days, and I get $34/hr when I pull charge. Been a nurse for almost 6yrs, Texas

Hi again Aaron! $29 weekdays, 7a-7p $31 weekend days, and I get $34/hr when I pull charge. Been a nurse for almost 6yrs, Texas

Here's another question: Why are pt's being admitted for blood transfusions at all? I work on Med-Surg and those admits can throw your entire day into a tailspin. These pt's come to the floor often times with only a few minutes warning, and we must drop whatever we're doing for our truly ill pt's to give blood and send them home when it's done?! Surely to goodness someone out there can come up with a better place to send these pt's rather than to the floors. People who come in for outpt surgery don't come to the floors so why do people who only need a transfusion come to the floors?

Hi JMP! I am from Ontario, mature student too, currently working in Texas. I hear you loud and clear about the shortage of fulltime jobs in the smaller cities there! I understand that some hospitals there are offering sign on bonuses to recruit us back home but for casual positions. Not too enticing to leave full time jobs here. I have to tell you that in the San Antonio area there is a huge shortage of nurses. But there is a very good reason WHY. The working conditions are horrendous. I disagree strongly with TXERRN on the issue of unions! You DO and will want a union if you come here! It does not take away from the professionalism of nursing, it would create sanity in a system gone insane. If you've ever been unionized and decide to come to the States you will learn this for yourself. You'll also see how the other half lives. We think we had poor people on Welfare in Canada, but you'll see here what poor really is and it's a shocking heartbreaker. On the upside? I make good money here working for an agency, about $30/hr US. The taxes are lower, I get a big refund every year, but I also pay big bucks for healthcare insurance. Houses are cheaper here, as are most groceries and gas. The people for the most part have treated me wonderfully too. When I go home for a visit? I laugh at the fact that everything I buy there is "half price for ME", but I realize how much I miss it there too. It is hot here! Really HOT in the summer. Like you stepped into a sauna when you venture out of the air conditioned areas. Sometimes it feels like we live in a can because everything is air conditioned by necessity. Good luck to you. In the end the decision is yours, but why not look to the larger centers there before you decide to head down south?

Hi Oramar! I'm baaacckkk.... I am seeing something here that I don't like to see, yet it is becoming apparent to me and I wonder, am I losing it or is this for real? I don't know the facility or the exact situation that you replied to Nursedude about but it's not just happening there! It's all over. I have, as you may recall, been working agency for awhile now. The things I have been noticing are blowing me away. Oramar they fire nurses who seem to remember what the old staffing ratios were. And here's what else I notice. You go in and find that today you have 13 patients where yesterday you had 6. You think to yourself "My God this is insane! I can't do this many patients", and by the grace of God you make it thru that day with no one dead. The next day you have 9 patients and consider it a great day. But next week you are at 11 pt's again and still manage because you did 13 before. It seems like we are being conditioned to take on more and more, so that the days when you have 10 pt's become the norm to you. It's like they are slowly but surely trying to build up our tolerance levels to take on more and more, and it's done silently. Those that refuse, or long too loudly for a return to the days of having 6 pt's find themselves without a job. And who cares about replacing them cause they now have the rest conditioned to take up the slack?! Have I been watching too many Oliver Stone movies, or is anyone else seeing this too?

And here's a good trick one of my clinical teachers taught me. When you are starting to feel squeemish, stand straight and go from foot to foot and wiggle your hands. I don't know why but it worked. I too saw cataract surgery and I think the bad part is that it's like YOU can feel it, my eyes kept squinting as I watched thru the microscope. But the worst for me so far? Well two things: Chest tube insertions! The patient looked like a harpooned fish squiriming! I still don't like them but it gets easier. Second, in school we went to a chiropractic college were they use cadavers. These ones were almost totally disected, organs and such all out and in buckets under the tables. They looked like moistened beef jerky. I was hanging in there until they pulled the cadavers face back together! It had been cut in half and folded open and they put it back together for me making it return back to a human being in my mind, and I almost dropped! Had to sit on a stool with my head down for a few minutes. Exposure makes it easier, although I hope not to see the "beef jerky folks" again in my life!

I don't know entirely what your job entails, but here's a word to the rest: Make friends with these people at the hospital as it helps! LOL

I am proud to be a nurse. I don't always feel good about the job due to short staffing but when people ask me what I do, I am proud to say I am an RN.

Count me in as a proud diploma holder, and they are still offering the diploma program in Canada at many community colleges. It was a 3 year program, although there have been a few times where they've lessened it to 2 years when the need arises to crank out some more of us.

Saphie, you should see the stuff we push here even on a med surg floor! They don't use minibags as extensivley here.

I agree. I am pretty certain that BOLUS would mean IV, but always ask.

Yep, except now you don't get tips to supplement the crappy wages!

Mijourney, my nose is SO brown it obstructs my vision some days! The best thing that I find myslef doing a lot more of these days: I see the call light and know "Oh God it's THEM again! I answer it in the worlds most efficient sugar coated voice. Then as I go toward the room, I paste on the biggest stupidest most sickening smile I can, and going down the hall to obey, I repeat "I love my job! I really love my job!" And by the time I get to the room, I am almost laughing at myself, and my co workers are cracking up. Then I can be pleasant and take everything they are saying with a grain of salt. The ones who you just can't please, who you just can't be fast enough for even if you had turbo boosters in your shoes, I document it ALL! I document EVERY negative comment, every complaint, and how I answered them and tried to meet their needs. This came in handy on one occassion when the woman complained the next day to her doctor about lack of pain management, and a long list of her annoyances(home meds Prozac and Xanax, HINT HINT). Of course it was blamed on nights (by day charge nurse) but I just opened up my nurses note and showed them all that she was bitching from the moment I walked in, and that I'd called the doctor on call, etc, etc, and there was nothing they could say. CYA! It works when all else fails.

PPL are Keller and Keller lawyers in your area? Here we have Maloney and Maloney who advertise that sometimes in nursing homes your loved ones are subjected to "Diabolical acts of torture" and Ms. Maloney says this in a voice that sounds like she enjoys this idea a little too much, like she is doing an ad for a 1-900 sex hotline. LOL! And PPL would you just look at Snickers question?! SHE doesn't know what a SURVEY is all about! LOL! See what I MEAN!

I AM a hard stick, three or four times worth. The idea was that "It hurt", but so much of what we do, does hurt! I can't see the logic in including such a thing on a patient survey unless it is dealing with do you feel that the nurses treated your pain, which is an entirely different matter.

Why would a survey include such a ridiculous area of complaint? We are paying megabucks for these consultants to come in and do these surveys. What a waste of money!

Smitty! That makes me puke! Certainly, my pleasure! May I kiss your butt while I'm at it sir? We get these monthly "customer service focus" notes up all over the place and they make me sick! One of them dealt with speed. As in hurry to do everything. Like we don't already run like chickens with our heads cut off? No siree, I had been leisurely strolling, delighting and taking my time and secretly laughing when patients would ring their call bells frantically telling me they needed to go to the bathroom, just seeing how long they could hold their bladders and bowels. Until that memo came out I didn't know there was any need to be quick! Give me a break! And the sickening part is the money that's put into these customer surveys! Why not take that money out of the toilet and spend it on staff! Then you wouldn't need consultants to conduct a survey because you'd know you were doing it right!

Once I told a patient who had this long list of stuff for me to do for him (even though his wife was right there) "Why don't you put this stuff on your list for Santa?". I then laughed my head off but he didn't think it was very funny! Some people!

See?! Exactly what I think too! I get so tired of butt kissing to avoid trouble. Bringing family members this and that, it takes time away from my real patients who are also depending on me and it seems very unfair to have one patient usually in better shape then the rest of them monopolize my time like this. They act like I am their handmaiden. Sometimes having a family member stay the night is more of a huge hinderance than a help. You know if I was staying the night with a family member, I'd be staying to help the person not lie there in a cot to put on the call bell for the person to get the nurse to do things that I am capable of doing. We, one night had this patient who was a frequent flyer, who was able to live at home and function OK, come in and you'd think she was the queen on medicaid no less. Her daughter stayed the night and kept putting on the call bell to have the nurse do things like turn off the lights, ask questions about the next RT tx's, and at one point we were stunned to see the daughter get out of the cot (she actually was able to move) wearing one of our hospital gowns, open at the back, no underwear on!! Does anyone think that maybe this customer service idea has gotten out of hand? Like maybe we shouldn't start restricting visiting more so that we can focus more on our patients? Our patients are so much sicker these days and our staffing doesn't reflect the acuity levels, something has got to change as we are being pulled in so many directions except toward the patients who need us. I get so angry to have my time monopolized by independent people who treat me like a maid and they are always the first to complain too! My favourite though are the families that leave an elderly parent to stay the night with the other elderly patient/parent, and you find out that the visiting one needs more care than the patient. I call this the two for one special. I once had one elderly woman visitor keep coming to the desk and asking if we could give her a laxative. I don't know if she somehow got hold of one but the next thing I know she's got diarrhea all over her all over the floor, and thus you have the two for one special! I even had a patients daughter come in and secretly drop off her two kids to sit with grandma and sneak out to go to work! The kids were young, and at lunch they came to ask us to feed them, which is when we realized that poor sick grandma was BABYSITTING! Then the daughter gets mad when we call her and tell her to come and get her kids. Hasn't this gotten out of hand people?

This is something that I don't see discussed in much detail here, and I am thinking to myself that maybe I am just a b***h, but do you ever get really irritated by your patients and/or their families? Do you ever feel that your hospital should be putting postcards in their patient info packets as these people act like they are on some all inclusive vacation and that the "H" on top of the building stands for Holiday Inn or Hilton? Please respond and let me know that I am not the only "evil" one who thinks this way sometimes.