cdibley

Mine was from Sharlotte Crawford

I got it at 3:56, hopefully that means you're in! í ½í¸€ thanks, I'm really sad and it stings but I know God has his plans that are the best ultimately so I'll be okay. Keep me posted!

Well, letters are out, I unfortunately did not get in, hope you all did!

I'm just over here checking my email Q5 min anyone else? í ½í¸¬

Totally agree! I just keep praying that I get in! My first interview was awesome and the second was just ok. Everyone was really really nice and that makes it even harder if I don't get in. I got asked a few clinical questions after I brought up my unit and all that we do, but they weren't bad. The current students were also awesome to talk to and made me feel more at ease.

Congrats!!!

If you're willing to commute to Dallas, check with Parkland and their observation program, A lot of paperwork but my shadowing experiences were amazing. You can find all the info on their website.

YES! I just had my interview on Tuesday and its ALL I can think about! I just want it so badly and I keep dissecting the interview and driving myself crazy, it's definitely much easier said than done to distract myself. Good luck and hoping you and I both get into our programs. :)

I think your stats look great and you'll get an interview. I would say go ahead and get your CSC, not a hard test if you're in CV and have already taken the CCRN, just study the $10 packet from the AACN and whatever CV stuff you studied for CCRN and you should be golden. Also might consider CMC, I feel having both of these certs will far outweigh your GRE score (actually the same as mine, other than I got a 4 on the writing), but I applied to a school that didn't care too much about the GRE.

HOLY COW 312 on the GRE?! Great job Zach!

Hey everyone! Somehow I stopped getting notifications for this thread. Got my interview email. August 28th! gahhh so excited. Now to find a really nice suit cause ya know look good feel good. Congrats to everyone that got an interview and those who didn't just remember there's a reason for everything and you will find your right place.

Hi everyone! Thanks cowboymedic for telling me about this thread. This is my first time applying, taking the GRE Sunday í ½í¹ˆ, really not looking forward to it. Stats: 3 years CVICU (lvads, ecmo, lots of fresh hearts), 1 year SICU, 3.68 gpa, CCRN-CSC. I've got everything submitted except my GRE.

Hi CRNAs! I would really love to shadow you! If you're in the DFW area even far out, I will make it work. I work for a Baylor facility that only employs MDAs unfortunately and really want to shadow a CRNA so I can talk about schooling, how your experience prepared you, the politics etc. I plan on shadowing the MDAs at my hospital but I just won't feel comfortable making this career leap without chatting with some CRNAs. I promise not to be a waste of your time and will totally buy you lunch, coffee, WHATEVER! Thanks!

OMG I love this!!! Each line I just got more and more excited. I keep trying to get a really good idea of what CRNAs do and this really helps. Thank You! It's so exciting to have someone crashing, who you get to help save and then seeing them stable so fast!

Hi everyone, I am looking at my grad school options and something that appeals to me is CRNA, however I want to REALLY see what they do and hopefully do many shadowing experiences to ensure this is the right move for me. I've done tons of research, but to me, just as with being an ICU nurse, you never know what it's like until you experience it first hand. I work at a specialty CV hospital and we only have anesthesiologists no CRNAs, anyone set up a shadow experience somewhere other than their hospital? How did you go about it? I called my local anesthesia staffing group but never heard back. TIA!

Hi everyone, So I recently oriented to lumbar drains, we really don't do very many in my CVICU. I have a question about the HOB, is it true that the patient must always remain flat and not even move their lower extremities at all? I understand that when you are actually draining this is necessary but it doesn't seem like it should be when it is clamped and only measuring. The nurses I oriented with seem so anxious whenever the patient moves and it's only monitoring the ICP and not open and draining. I would think it would be okay for the patient to assist with turns and move their legs a little as long as I am not draining anything. thoughts? Also any tidbits on lumbar drains, I'd love to hear! TIA!

Since there is nothing standard about an ECMO patient I don't think any of that should apply! So annoying that people can't see that if you didn't do that you would just be enacted acls and be giving meds that way. I'm guessing the hospital can fix this by adding this to the standard Ecmo protocol order set. Maybe something along the lines of, in the setting of impending code, may increase pressors and notify physician immediately. í ½í¹„ So annoying that this is even an issue, so sorry, totally would've done the same thing. I mean when you have really sick patients you don't always have time for the doc to call you back to give fluid or increase gtts.

I am SO excited for this new opportunity and will be dealing with Neuro, Trauma, Burn, General, and Cardiac ICUs. I have experience with SICU, little MICU, and a lot of CVICU, but really want to know what I should study up on for Neuro, Trauma, and Burn? TIA!

Totally see how this a gray area for you and something you are unsure about. Sorry about some peeps above being kinda snarky, they were rude and condescending, you were just asking for advice. They could have just said they personally don't see what you would be reporting and go from there. Wording is everything. So I agree that you were concerned about him operating, but I agree if he and the anesthesiologist felt like he was okay to do surgery, he probably was. Risky though. Now I understand he could have had some type of pathogen that could have been passed to the patient, yes even with the mask, there is that risk, however proving to the medical board that he caused harm would lead nowhere. I probably would let it go, unless something during surgery went wrong due to his inability to operate and I NEVER fear retaliation, I have to do what's right or my heart feels too heavy. I'd honestly rather be out of a job and broke than not do what I feel is right, especially for patients that don't have an ability to speak for themselves. You should never fear writing an incident report, just think what's the worst that happen? your fired? not likely, and so what if the hospital is unethical? But of course there's lots of jobs where I live.

also vented spikes are awesome! my old facility didn't have them and we had to use a needle.

250ml bottle: Vented spike, gravity tubing, sometimes gravity blood tubing helps because you can squeeze the ball and make sure it all goes in. (usually for someone with low BP and needs it fast) 50ml bottle: on a pump through secondary tubing (to help with diuresis) then Lasix after

Hi all! So I had the strangest thing happen to one of my patients this past week, she was a 30 year old post op day 1 from a MV repair, so I work in a CVICU and we rarely get patients this young and she was also really healthy, many times if they are young there are a mountain of co-morbid conditions that I believe lessens their reserves and ability to "bounce back". So onto what happened. Got report with pressures in the 90s-100s MAP>60, urine output okay 30-50ml/hr, but definitely a decrease as she had put out 1500ml the last shift, also required Cardene overnight but for the last few hours hadn't and got 3 Albumins, I have her another, really no improvement. Patient nauseous and in a bit of pain, gave Fent, no change in BP but pain relieved. Patient overall looked good. Family and patient states she normally has a low BP. CVP = 8 1 hour later, patient says she having a hard time breathing and doesn't feel well, has history of anxiety, calm her, listen to breath sounds, o2 sat good, put her on a little O2 for comfort. THEN her BP starts dipping to the 80s then back to 90s and so I grab the NP in the hall let her know what's going on that the patient just doesn't seem OK. Upon coming back to the room BP now 70s, then 60s (very fast) like in less than a minute from 90s to 60s, cuff pressure correlates, open up saline bolus that I already had hanging, give another albumin too. Looks like she's 2 seconds from coding call for more help. Run Istat, see CO2 is 13! Do ABG patient has metabolic acidosis with a BE of -15!!!! I've never see a base deficit that high in a patient that up until 2 seconds ago, looked good. Thank God she was fine, gave fluids, Bicarb, trended lactates and they improved, no kidney dysfunction which is also crazy to me! Like seriously no bump at all, Thank God!!! After many amps of bicarb, fluids, a little Levoped, patient felt much better and looked great. So my question is, is this normal for younger patients? It was so weird that it happened so fast and all it was a fluid issue (no tamponade) which is what I thought. MD said that sometimes younger patients are more leaky and the fluid just goes out into the tissues. Any comments are much appreciated. In hindsight I wish I had given her fluid earlier based on the UO decreases by half, but we don't normally do that we are okay with 30ml/hr. Even the NP and surgeon saw her 10 minutes before this all happened.

yikes! s there a specific reason why? Have you worked for them in the past or just heard things? Thanks!

That's kinda what I was thinking, hopefully since it's a relatively small hospital float pool, I will be able to prove myself and they'll get to know me over time.

I need to clarify, of course I would never pick a job based on a charting system, but it does add to my cons list. The things you mentioned Wolf are much more important to me, thanks for all the info. Are you frequently tripled in their ICUs? Their growth is really what is intriguing to me, I am willing to put up with some growing pains, if it means I'll be more fulfilled in my career later. I am really interested in becoming a critical care nurse educator and want to expand my knowledge and go somewhere that I will see a lot and not have to drive to Dallas.