CRNAorBust

Would be beneficial if there was one for nurses who need help staying i nursing. I'm sure there's a good percentage of nurses who are floundering for one reason or another. Perhaps a forum for their issues would be helpful.

Dear First NUrsing job, I'm very sorry you had such a lousy first job but , and I hate to say it, welcome to real world nursing. I am 57 yrs old and I have had 3 jobs so far and none of them have taken.....the longest one was 2.5 yrs and now I'm out on my can as well. What you need to do is take a couple of days or so and regroup yourself. You can't possibly understand anything that went on in total when you're so upset. It never feels good to get let go but when it does you have to look at the bright side of things and say to yourself the next job will be better...........and it could very well be. I started after graduation in an ICU residency which had me on the floor in 6 months when I tought it was going to be for a whole year of training. I made one mistake and boom out i went in 6 months. Then I was on a med surg floor and for whatever the reason I could not tell precisely when a pt was going bad. Plus i had a host of other poor critical thinking issues. So that one lasted 10 months. Then I figured well if I can't manage people who we're trying to make better maybe I could manage those who were dying....well that took the 2.5 yrs before it just ended today. So you see, for some of us newbies we have to do trial by fire before we can understand where we belong. So after your two days of getting over the shock sit down and start a journal or talk with some people or even a therapist or career counselor (I'm doing the counselor thing). This will help you figure out your strengths and weaknesses and then at some point you'll be ready to figure out what challlenge to try next. Think of it as a learning lesson. You picked up some knowledge, you certainly got dumped on from the sounds of it. So now you have an understanding of what questions to ask if you were to decide to try the same type of nursing. If you feel it really didn't suit you then you need to figure out what might work better for you. Its all about knowing who you are and what might work best for you. Hang in there and I wish us both the best :)..........SMILE cause its only a job....NOT your entire life.....be glad you're not still in such a stressful place that's constantly sapping your energy and making you sick. LIfe is about balance.....go find your balance..... All the best.....

when I was in nursing school and doing so well I thought for sure this would be my career to retire from........but it hasn't turned out that way.....I'm still looking for that career....

Well obviously we all have our ups and downs. And when I posted my initial statement I was feeling pretty down. I actualy went to sign up for possible per diem homecare work and I received a call from a school to possibly do some teaching to LPNs. So things are moving but still not quite in a direction that makes me feel totally comfortable. I do keep plugging and I actually thougt about reading one or more of the type of book you're recommending. I know its been quite awhile since I looked at that (I am an ex Psych grad). So perhap I might see things differently now. I was just hoping by posting something here that someone might have had a similar circumstance in terms of career development and moved into a sub field that I might not have thought of. Thank you for taking the time to reply.....

I have been a nurse since 2005, I started in a critical care resdency program and crashed and burned. Then went to med surg and did same. Then went to hospice floor......no good, then finally hospice homecare and currently on verge of being let go.........I'm feeling pretty down about nursing and have no sense of what I should be doing now. Feeling stuck....I'm 57 and feel I will soon be homeless if I can't figure a new direction that makes any sense. Any Ideas who i should be talking to? Seems I can't do pt care well enough, and any other specialties require previous experience.....I'm not seeing a way out........Any ideas would be very appreciated........TIA....

Ever since I got out of nursing school I have not been able to do well in a hospital setting. I've tried critical care, I've tried med/surg, hospice.....nothing seems to be working. Can anyone suggest another type of nursing that I might be able to try? I'm afraid nursing may not have been a good choice for me in spite of having done well in school. ..... Thanks........

I'm looking to change jobs and am looking for recommendations for which agencies would be the best to deal with. I'm looking to find out which ones are the most reputable and best at finding the type of position you want. Thanks in advance.

No I don't have any stats. It was based on what I was recently reading online here. Seems that many who don't have to get certified won't. It's expensive, and it may not contribute much especially to those who've been a hospice nurse for some time. Just my opinion.....

Hi everyone, I need to study and pass the cert exam (RN) since we are union nurses and my salary grade depends on having that cert. We also get reimbursed for the test plus we get a bonus of about 400 dollars the first time we take the exam. So recently I've heard that studying the question guide that the association sells will be useless since now you won't be seeing exam questions that are similar to that guide. I'm wondering what others might be using (tho it seems not many of you are being required to take the exam). Any tips anyone might have heard about would be very welcomed.... Thanks.....

Just thought i'd share my situation. I graduated in 2005, thought I'd try critical care in an ICU residency program that was suppose to be 1 yr long. Well nites were not for me, I made a mistake and that was the end of that. Had to move out of state to get a job since the nursing shortage didn't apply to new nurses in the state i was in. Found a job on a medical floor and was there for 10 months. Found out I didn't do well recognizing when people were emergent situations. So was told to leave that. Found a job on a hospice floor and that didn't work and then found one in a hospice homecare position. Well that has finally taken. But if I can move further out of floor care I will do that. The moral is if you can hang in there.......if you are not making mistakes and being warned about them, then you are not doing as bad as you might think. It might be stressful but as others have pointed out you can't move freeling between jobs in nursing till you have two to three years of experience. People bounce around in nursing till they get lucky enough to find the position that works for them. For me I was about to leave the hospice floor but someone on the hospice homecare team believed I'd do better in home hospice. Good things happen when you wind up being at the right place at the right time. And all that takes......is TIME..... All the best......

I too was like you to some degree. I was in the computer field. The jobs were drying up badly just before 9/11. I needed a new career and chose nursing thinking I could do Nursing with computers or even Psych since I had a psych degree prior. But this has NOT panned out as I thought it would originally. School was NOT the problem. The actual work environment....the culture, the harshness of the need to be near perfect, and in some cases the backstabbing of other nurses WERE the problems. Additionally, today's nurses are at times overworked and walk a very tight line. Are you a perfectionist? You need to follow rules to the letter? In my short history so far the best nurses are anal. Is this YOU? And finally realize as someone else has already pointed out that to move around alot in nursing from one specialty to another won't be allowed to happen till you've got about 3 to 5 yrs of experience under your belt. All the best in your decision......

I've been a med surg nurse for a year and a half, and now i moved to hospice. Thinking about working a few hours extra a month but doing something other than hospice or med surg. Curious what other nurses are doing to make an extra buck in these hard times. Thanks.....

HiThere! I know exactly how you're feeling. i had the same issues when i first started. In fact I'm still dealing with them. It's not always easy to know when you're patient is in trouble. But here's some tips I've picked up so far. NEVER leave your patient once you feel they're in trouble. Ring the call buzzer and tell the secretary to get another nurse or the charge nurse in there with you. And then always make sure to take vital signs to see how bad the patient is really doing. If they are complaining they can't breathe, yes you can put them on O2 but be sure to monitor their O2 sats till they stop feeling scared and are able to breathe better on their own. You can also ask another nurse to pull out a Neb treatment for the patient if they are allowed to have that. If the O2 sats are going down instead of being stable again get a neb tx but make sure another nurse is in the room to monitor the patient. And if the patient is not feeling better and or the O2 sats are still not up there call RRT (Rapid Response Team). This will also get a doctor on the floor in a hurry. Tell everyone what went down (try to remember TIMES) and if the patient happens to get worse from there you have experienced people there to help. And then YOU can go call the doctor and or the RRT person will tell you that maybe this patient needs to be in a critical unit. In the case of a patient whose mental status has changed this can be a little bit trickier. Why is the patient there? Do they have liver problems? Encephalopathy? That would change their mental status.....Call the doctor! Are they diabetic? Check the finger stick! Do this FIRST! if its low and the patient doesn't have an order for D50 ampules, go into the pyxis and pull it out by selecting Override! BUT check to make sure the patient has an IV. If they don't then THIS becomes the priority and get help from another nurse, either the manager or the charge. two people need to try for a line so whoever gets it first can put the d50 in. I had a patient who had BS of 29 and they were fading fast. Had several people trying for a line and RRT had already been called. If its lower than 50 and the patient is very symptomatic call RRT right away. Push the D50 slowly because it can blow an IV easily. And you don't need a complete line put in and have it looking pretty either. Just get that hub in and push the D50. Next case. What if your patient isn't responding to you. If they're history says they're cardiac, get vitals ASAP, if they they are on finger sticks, get one ASAP. If the vitals show low BP call RRT WHILE you are staying with the patient. Keep taking vitals and call for another nurse. You'll need someone to get you a couple of liter bags of NS in case someone wants to put in a bolus 500cc of fluids. Always be able to tell someone if the patient is DNR/DNI, and what happened to make you call. Hope some of this helps. IT takes a while to get your legs about this stuff. I have had problems myself in the beginning. Being 50 as a new nurse seems to have given me a bias as to when to call for help. So I have had issues with this and I'm still trying to deal with them. Hang in there if this get to hairy try different departments that use RRT less than say a med surg floor does. I am moving to Hospice myself at this point to try and minimize my exposure to such situations. All the best....

Hello everyone! I've just changed jobs from med surg to hospice and will be starting on Oct 15th. It's in a hospital setting (very clean compared to med surg!), will have 4 patient load, with a mix of hospice, palliative, and med surg. I've already seen the reading list posted and will be starting my readings soon. I don't have a handbook for med surg so if anyone knows of a good one for that please share. Any advice you care to share will also be appreciated. Thanks and I look forward to sharing my experiences here in the future.

I'm about to go to the hospital today to see what's going to happen to me after having given a patient someone else's meds. The patient was not injured (thank heavens) but there's a definite possibility I may lose the job and or be liable legally. I"m wondering what recourse i have in terms of insurance now that this has already occurred. NSO's website says no coverage for an existing incident. I'm presuming this is universally true. If not what are my options..... Any other tips on what to do or not do (no i won't be signing anything).....would be extremely helpful. Thanks