Aeterna

Trust me, you won't need statistics like that in deciding a nursing program. You're overthinking it The CRNE is not purely an academic exam that tests your knowledge of things like pathophysiology, pharmacology, etc. There are a few questions that requre rote memorization in such subjects, but look up a few CRNE practice questions and you'll quickly realize it's more to do with situational responses (i.e. "As a nurse, what would you do if your patient __________") and the like. It's not really things that a teacher will stand up in front of a classroom and teach you about. If you understand the basic principles behind these concepts and can apply them in various ways, then you should do fine. To choose a nursing program, there are many things to think about but CRNE pass rates shouldn't be one of those things.

Tell that to my manager! It's honestly an on-going problem on my unit and a big reason why RNs are leaving in droves.

I can't tell you the amount of times I've had patients expect me to fix their TVs or get them TVs. Once, on a very busy day, a patient was ringing his call bell constantly because he hadn't received his TV yet. I had to tell him that us nurses don't bring the TVs, the TV people do that and they don't usually round on our floor until dinnertime at the earliest. He was very upset about that, kept ranting at me about poor service and "How am I supposed to be entertained around here?" and such...I just threw up my hands in the air and left the room.

I'm almost 100% certain it affects everyone in the union, not just the new hires. I was hired in 2010 and was around for the 2011 increase, and I'm pretty sure my hourly wage was automatically adjusted to the new pay scale.

I'm not entirely sure myself. I'm not interested in certain specialties, which I've already listed. However, I'm pretty open to anything else related to acute care nursing. I was thinking either something surgical or cardiac related, since surgical isn't something I've done a whole lot of and I've always been interested in the cardiovascular realm but haven't really gotten in-depth with it.

Yes, unfortunately for immigrants, a little Canadian experience is often considered better than a lot of foreign experience in the eyes of a lot of employers (including but not limited to hospitals!) Even having Canadian education is an asset. If you're not too picky, I'd take whatever you can just to get a little experience here. Good luck to you, too! I think that will my next steps - look around at smaller hospitals in the surrounding areas. It is not what I was hoping for but I'll take anything closer to my hometown, to be honest. I realized, too, that a lot of positions are in specialty/critical care areas when I was browsing job openings. I'm still not entirely sure what I want to branch into - I just want something a little bit different than what I'm doing now. I know that OR, ER, psych, L&D, and mat-child are not interests of mine at all. The only "specialty" I can claim experience in is oncology but I kind of want a break from it (and there are few positions out there in the field, I find). I'd love to take specialty courses but they are expensive, and if I'm not going to work in an area that will make use of that knowledge/skills, then I'm hesitant to jump into it. Also, there's the adage, "If you don't use it, you lose it!" I've been looking for nearly 3 months now, I think, although I haven't sent any new applications in the last couple of weeks due to other things going on in life. It's not like I'm out of a job and need a new job ASAP to pay the bills. Still, I just want something different and I'm starting to feel burned out where I am now. You are right, though - nursing is a relatively easy profession to move around in. I know people who struggle to find any kind of job. My friend was also in journalism (including an English degree) but never found a job in the field after about a year of looking.

Thanks for the insight! I'm feeling not quite so bad about the complete lack of responses. As much as I was hoping to get a job closer to my hometown (within the GTA), I may have to expand outwards. Right now, I'm a several-hours drive away from Toronto and anything closer would be great. I'm not really feeling any sort of love for agency nursing. A daughter of one of my mom's friends did that and it doesn't sound like my cup of tea. I'm the type of person that takes a while to settle into a new place and get comfortable with the people and the geography, so I prefer to be hired onto a single unit rather than get bounced around several places. I have a friend who has some connections in Toronto and she got an interview just by asking her friend. Must be nice to have those kinds of connections I've got none so I've got to hunt for jobs the traditional way and keep at it!

Morale is incredibly low where I am now. It is frankly scary the amount of nurses who are leaving or are applying to other places. If I added up those two groups, I'd probably list about a third of the total RN staff. It's mostly because of our new manager, who fails to listen to our concerns about the unit. He doesn't understand the meaning of acuity and proper staffing, but he understands perfectly what our budget constraints are. I understand there needs to be a good balance, but when you are willing to sacrifice patient safety and nursing licences just to save money, then it's no good at all. It is especially frustrating because we have multiple management staff on our unit. If they eliminated just one of those roles, they'd cut our unit's deficit by over half.

I've been applying to several hospitals in and around the GTA (think the Golden Horshoe, mostly) and have had no luck - not a single call back. I posted my resume in the Resume Help section and got some feedback, but overall it didn't seem like I had any glaring issues with it. I have 2.5 years of medical/oncology experience and have a wide skill set due to the nature of the unit I work on. I'm wondering: what's the job market like in the area I'm applying to? When I graduated in 2010, the economy had taken a turn for the worse and a lot of hospitals in the GTA had hiring freezes, making it quite competitive. Is it still about the same or is it something on my end that I'm doing wrong or not doing enough of? I'm starting to feel rather inadequate. For the record, I'm an RN and want to stay in an acute care setting. Any insight would be fabulous!

Thanks for the pointers :) As for my BScN, I don't necessarily have to emphasize it. Here in Ontario, nursing diplomas are extinct now, and even before I started nursing school, Ontario hospitals were already placing BScN requirements for entry-level nurses (i.e. if you're already a diploma nurse and have been working, you can still apply for the job; but if you are just starting out, you need your degree). Because I've graduated within the last few years, it's pretty much an automatic thing that I'll have my four-year degree rather than a diploma. And yes, Non-Violent Crisis Intervention and Gentle Persuasive Approach are certifications. In fact, I should probably go for the re-cert courses now that I think about it, but I do have them. And no, I do not plan on moving to the U.S. any time soon. When I first graduated, I considered it but I'd like to stick close to home (which is part of why I want to switch jobs - to be closer to my hometown/family), so removing chest tubes and managing epidurals are within my scope here - even if they aren't wherever I'm applying to, I can at least say I have those skills/competencies, no? Maybe I will bump up my clinical skills over my certifications and maybe come up with a different name for "certifications"?

Throwing my resume up for critique because I can't seem to get any call backs - I've sent perhaps about a dozen job applications over the past couple of months and nothing! As a bit of background, I'm an RN living in Ontario, Canada. I've been applying to other hospitals in a variety of med-surg settings. Obviously, all personal information was removed and the formatting didn't translate too well from Microsoft Word to here so I've edited the formatting/font/sizes a bit to give you the gist of what's emphasized (such as headings/subheadings). Altogether, it fits into a single page. -------------------------------------------------------------------- [h=1][NAME][/h] [Contact information] Objective: To obtain a position as a registered nurse in an acute medical-surgical setting. Work Experience: Registered Nurse, Medical-Oncology unit, [Hospital Name], [City], Ontario, July 2010-present Provided care and appropriate nursing interventions for clients with a wide variety of medical diagnoses, such as cancer, acute and chronic renal failure, complications of diabetes, complex wounds, and more. Health Care Aide, [LTC Facility Name], [City], Ontario, April 2008-August 2008 & April 2009-November 2009 Assisted residents in performing activities of daily living. Certifications: Registered Nurse of good standing with the College of Nurses of Ontario Basic Cardiac Life Support (BCLS) Non-Violent Crisis Intervention Gentle Persuasive Approach Chemotherapy administration Clinical Skills: Administration of blood products (packed red blood cells, platelets, albumin, IVIg) Management and access of venous access devices, including peripheral IVs, PICCs, Hickman catheters, and Port-a-Caths Management and removal of chest tubes Complex wound care Pain management, including patient-controlled analgesia (PCA) and epidurals Total parenteral nutrition (TPN) and NG/PEG tube feeds Administration of oral and parenteral chemotherapy Education: [university], [City], Ontario, class of 2010 Obtained Bachelor's of Nursing Science degree summa cum laude Dean's Honour List, 2006-2007 & 2008-2009 [High School], [City], Ontario, class of 2006 References available upon request.

It depends on the facility's policies and the patient himself/the family. I did not know that some facilities require bed alarms. In my unit, there are no bed alarms at all! Literally, they do not even exist. However, it seems like bed alarms are not mandatory in OP's workplace, so let's assume that. Any patient, if they are competent, can accept or refuse any treatment or intervention. If the patient is not competent, then their POA can accept or refuse any treatment or intervention. If this man, the patient, was alert and oriented, did he refuse the alarm? What was his opinion of it? If he was not competent, however, why did the family/POA not want the alarm? If I were the admitting nurse, I'd ask the patient/family why they did not want the alarm. I'd explain the risks of not having the alarm on, as well as the rationale for using it in the first place. However, if they insist on refusing the alarm, then I'd document something along the lines of, "Patient/family refusing alarm. Nurse explained rationale of alarm and risks of not having alarm on. Patient/family continues to refuse despite education, therefore alarm left off." That way, if they ever take you to court, you have your documentation to back up the fact that you provided the necessary education to help the patient/family make an informed decision, but despite your advice, they continued to refuse the alarm. I'd also document what other precautions were put into place to prevent falls from happening, such as routine checks, side rails, etc. Bed alarms, after all, are not the only precautions you can put into place - like I said, my hospital unit has no bed alarms at all!

My unit is crazy - it's high acuity, very fast-paced, constantly underfunded (seemingly compared to other similar floors), and chaotic. It's difficult to recruit new staff to our floor because it has a bad reputation for being crazy busy. However, a common thing you hear amongst the staff is, "I stay here because of the people I work with." Basically, the only reason why we're not all leaving in droves is because of our co-workers! Basically, we all realize we work in an extremely stressful environment, but even so, we do our best to laugh and have fun. Last Christmas, we had some down time - a lot of patients go on day passes, leaving most of us nurses with some free time. So, a few of us went out onto the patio and made snowmen - the snow was perfect for it! The patients and families who could see us through the windows loved it, and of course we had a lot of fun, too. Or, there was the one night shift where one of the nurses brought in a whoopy cushion from home. We played around with it in our nursing station, but when that got old, we started pranking the other two medical floors! The nurses on the receiving end of those telephone calls had a blast, too. And yes, there are some nurses who are lazy and sit around while their colleagues drown, but for the most part, there are plenty of nurses who will do everything they can to help. We also have some amazing charge nurses, who do a better job of looking out for their staff and patients than the management does. Our current manager is trying to cut down on paying out overtime, so one of the charge nurses got in trouble with him for calling in a nurse for overtime to cover a sick call. Her response was basically along the lines of: "The floor is heavy. The nurses are drowning. It's not safe for the patients. So, I don't care if I get in trouble if it means no one is drowning in work."

To err is human! We all make mistakes at some point in our careers. Any nurse who says she/he has never made a mistake is either lying or isn't aware of it! We all miss something or another. We are expected to juggle multiple things at once, so it's almost inevitable that, one day, we will miss one thing. Once, I missed an order for a stat magnesium bolus! I hadn't realized the doctor had come in at around 6pm (less than 2 hours before the end of my shift!) and wrote that order; and, at the same time, I was dealing with a new admission who needed a stat blood transfusion, and then who developed a fever shortly into the transfusion, while at the same time, transferring one of my other patients to palliative care! And, no, I was not fired for it. Someone called me the next day to make me aware of the missed order. I explained what had happened during that time frame, apologized profusely, felt bad for a little while, but got over it. Live and learn!

"Mosby's Manual of Diagnostic and Laboratory Tests" by Pagana and Pagana. I have the 3rd edition. I'm not sure if there are others or what they're like.