Mec_Happens

At my facility in CA RN's place IUPC's and FSE's. We have to be signed off on 3 of each by another competent RN.

At my facility it is our policy that nurses don't hold legs...and I don't. I will support a leg and help my pt's with epidurals grab their legs, but I will not hold it for them.

Me! Me!! I get that excited. I'm fortunate in that I have the option of NOT using PTO when I stay home on-call, so I take advantage of it whenever I can. I LOVE getting that phone call. Unfortunately our census has been REALLY high lately so it's been quite some time since I've gotten that call

Ditto! Congratulations! Sharp is not the best paying employer in San Diego, however I have worked for a couple of different Sharp entities, and I feel that they truly care about their employees' satisfaction and I always feel supported and that I have all the resources available to do my job effectively and efficiently. Memorial is a beautiful hospital - I think you'll love it there.

At my hospital formula is charged to the patient.

Since I work in OB all of our patients provide a Urine specimen when they check in. We have a questionnaire to screen for Domestic Violence that we leave for them to fill out while they are alone in the bathroom.

This is how it is done on my unit as well. Once our laboring patients are in active labor they become a 1:1 assignment (sometimes we'll carry 2 laboring patients if they both have an epidural and stable, but the assignment is split as soon as possible. There is another nurse present in the room for delivery just in case the baby needs resuscitation, otherwise baby goes directly on mom's chest skin-to-skin and stays there undisturbed for an hour or so. We also have NICU nurses that will come to delivery if there are any risks that warrant having them present for delivery (ex - any time there is mec or a crappy strip or a vacuum delivery we always have them present for delivery), but most of the time the baby is vigorous at delivery and they are dismissed. So, most of the time with a normal uncomplicated delivery it is the L&D RN recovering mom and assessing and admitting the baby. Sometimes on the rare occasion that there is a free RN with nothing to do they will help out with the baby assessment/admission. Once mom is recovered and baby is admitted they go up to post partum together :)

Is your intent to keep track of your growth as an L&D nurse? Rather than a log, what about a journal that you could write in after your shift once you get home to reflect on your own performance as a nurse. When I was a new grad I kept a journal for the first 5 or 6 months and it was really helpful to go back and read to see how much I had grown in that short period of time. I didn't really record any pertinent information about my patients, nor did I include names of staff or physicians I was working with - just my own reflections of my own performance in different situations.

In CA the LVN's and RN's are governed by 2 separate boards, so if an employer were to verify an LVN license, the RN license would not show up - they would have to check with the RN board as well. For the record, I let my LVN license lapse.

Our induction pit is the same concentration (10units/500 ml) as our post partum pit (20units/1L), but we still d/c the induction pit after delivery and only run the post partum pit - and we don't bolus it anymore unless a doctor specifies orders different from our unit standard which is 250 ml/hr x 2 hours, then 125 ml/hr x 4 hours.

There's no train that goes to Grossmont. There are busses, but unfortunately I don't think San Diego is the easiest city to get around with public transportation. East county is a great place to live, but you have to be careful about certain areas of El Cajon. If you want a short commute to campus I'd look in La Mesa, Santee, San Carlos, or Mt Helix area. Congratulations and good luck.

In addition to Hale, LactMed is an excellent resource from NIH - there's even a free app for your phone: http://toxnet.nlm.nih.gov/cgi-bin/sis/htmlgen?LACT On a side note - I personally love Toradol. I was discussing Toradol with an OB I work with this week and he told me about Sprix - it's a Toradol Nasal spray that is available by prescription. This is very exciting to me, as I hope it means that I may be able to avoid visits to Urgent Care for shots of Toradol for my migraines :)

I went to Grossmont and I thought the quality of the instructors was great. I don't really know anything about Mira Costa, nor do I know anyone who actually went to Mira Costa. I had a great experience at Grossmont and I felt well-prepared for my first job after graduation. Also, Grossmont recently opened their state-of-the-art health sciences classrooms and sim labs. I got a chance to take a look at the new facility, and I would have loved to attend classes there. What is the reason you have your heart set on Mira Costa vs. Grossmont. Sounds like it would be really inconvenient for you to commute to school. Whichever school you end up at, best of luck to you.

sometimes my "monthly migraine" lasts 3 or 4 days It's not pleasant at all.

If you already have a spot in the Generic program starting this spring, I say go ahead and start this spring. After you complete your LVN program it still takes FOREVER to get your LVN license (which I don't understand, but that's the way it is). So, you can't even submit your application for the bridge program until you have your LVN license. At that point you'll almost be finished with your first semester of the generic program. Going the bridge route only saves you one semester of school but you realistically wouldn't even be able to start until at least a year after you would start the generic program; so by my calculation, you'll complete your RN faster if you go ahead and start the generic program rather than wait and apply for the bridge program. Just my Best of luck to you.