Collor

And as a side note...a 14 gauge IV? Must be the size of a garden hose! Ouch!

Also consider day surgery in the hospital. Our hospital day surgery unit is Mon-Fri. No weekends, no holidays, no on-call.

I found that working was way better than being in nursing school. I felt like I was really learning (on the job) and receiving a paycheck felt pretty darn good.Not once did I wish I was back in school!

I competed my BSN with a 3.3 GPA and I have a MSN from WGU. I applied to Gonzaga's post master cert for FNP. They waive the MAT and/or GRE if you have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher. Well they received my transcripts..and they are requiring a MAT or GRE score. I have not taken either of these exams. They are currently stating that since WGU does not have a GPA, I have to take one of the standardized tests. I am pleading my case that I had to receive at least a 3.0 to pass all the courses. Frustrating.

There was a resident that was working at my hospital (circa 1999). He came into a clean utility room that I was in and tried to kiss me! Yuk! I pushed him away..and walked out the door. I never reported him. I found out a few years later that he took a female co-worker out to dinner. She said yes to dinner because he was persistent and thought, "what the heck, dinner can't be too bad". Well he was driving her home and at EVERY red traffic light, he would grab her leg and try to fondle her! In addition to grabbing her head and forcing his disgusting tongue in her mouth. She jumped out the car in the middle of NYC and took a bus home! He really thought if he was persistent, the ladies would just sit back and enjoy his advances. Over the years I have heard more stories of his ridiculous behavior. This dude is a practicing doctor somewhere!!

As part of the training I could see them asking you to shadow an MA for a day since you will most likely be working side-by-side with them (paid at an NP rate). This may give you insight on their day-to-day responsibilities. Having said that, please do not work as an MA or work for $25.00/hr--both are ridiculous and you are worth a real NP salary.

I would say yes...however, Portland is having an explosion of construction/building. Prices are soaring for rents and buying homes.

It has been a really long time since I've taken my boards but I remember feeling the same way. I passed all the pre-tests but still felt like I didn't know everything. I took the boards feeling unprepared and had 75 questions. Although I was not super confident I passed, I was super confident that I knew more than I didn't. Ended up passing on the first try. The boards were really knowing how to answer questions. I would say keep doing practice questions until you are sick of doing them--

Is it possible the nurse documented "not given" because 158 didn't need to be treated? I know I have documented "held" when patient had a BP of 161/88 and I didn't give IV BP med that had a parameter of SBP greater than 160.

I work for Legacy, but Providence, OHSU and Kaiser are also great health systems. The word on the street is Kaiser has awesome benefits. We lost a few great nurses to Kaiser.

Every department in Nursing will have someone that you do not like. Such is life. I work in surgical services and the doctors I come in contact with most are anesthesiologists. I must say, we (nurses) have a great working relationship with the doctors. Mutual respect, patient focused care, and friendly conversations are part of our everyday work flow. Perhaps you need a change but it may not be leaving nursing. Think about it.

I had a clinical instructor that was HORRID. She would degrade doctors--but not to their face! Only to the nursing students during class time. It was ridiculous. She also had her "favorite" student nurses. Again--it was obvious and annoying. She would not teach but rather use class time to talk about her experiences when she was a nurse (and ample time to degrade the doctors she use to work with). She would tear apart nursing care plans of the students she didn't like--in front of the entire clinical group. I was in the "not favorite group" and was nervous about even passing clinical because she always found something to criticize. She especially loved ripping apart my care plans. In all honestly, I felt like my care plans were actually quite good...but not according to her. Well I passed. And then...got her again for my next clinical rotation! Ugh...I went into the clinical dreading the thought of having to deal with her yet again. To my surprise, she kinda changed her tune about me. Quickly I became one of her favorites (not sure how that happened). She would use my care plans as examples to follow. (truth be told, I re-used some of my care plans from the previous term..the same ones she tore apart were now considered excellent). She still degraded doctors and spoke poorly of other medical staff but I was no longer dreading clinical. My advice, put 100% into your work and you will come out on top.

How did the NICU interview go?

I worked as a tech in the ICU. It was not a huge unit, so I floated to just about every speciality. Med/Surg, Step down respiratory, Mother Baby, ED. Highly recommend getting something in a hospital setting. The students that worked as tech's in this particular hospital were ALL offered RN positions upon graduation. Plus the experience really made a bunch of us stand out in clinical.

I would ask if job offer #1 can extend their offer time. Just be honest, let them know you are very interested but want to make an informed decision.

Browse through Legacy health jobs. Multiple hospitals, various job openings.

You need to be an RN before applying to NP school. Most school want you to have a few years experience as an RN before applying to NP school. So Associates degree in nursing is 2 years, Bsn degree is 4 years. Then Masters (NP) depends on where you go...is easily another 2+ years. It sounds like you are putting the cart before the horse. If this is really the route you want to take focus first on getting your RN license.

Some medication calculations do not even require a formula to get the answer. 100ml/hr...so in 1 hour 100mls will infuse. You only have 50mls so it will only take half the time to infuse because it is half the amount. If you were infusing 100ml the infusion would end at 830, 50 mls is half that amount of time=8am. Don't over think some of these ;-)

If you are named and sued, you have malpractice that will pay. However, if the plaintiff gets more $$ than you are covered for, than you have to pay the difference.

Yes, getting a residency is awesome! You do not need to defend your choice, but if you want to..... nursing residencies decrease nursing turnover. The hospital is investing in you. The hospital I work at has a nurse residency program.. (although, it's only 20 weeks) and retains most of the nurses within the hospital 5 years post residency. I wonder how many of your so called friends will still be happy 2 years from now?

One experience may not be better than the other. Having said that, I would go with choice #2. I say that because I work in a hospital and that experience can open doors in working in OR, PACU,Pre-OP, Ambulatory Surgery, Sedation, etc. LTC is not my gig, but it may be yours.

You are going to be just fine at dialysis. 1 year of experience.....then figure out where you really want to be. Don't be afraid of hard work. Everyone deterred me from ever going to ER...and I loved it! Experience is experience.

As a new grad I think any first new job is going to feel stressful on some level. What is your 5 year goal? If you see yourself in a hospital setting I would say go for the dialysis job. That type of experience will carry you further and will open more doors. The aesthetic job sounds interesting, but a week of paid training? That would be barely enough for an experienced nurse and would scare me away.

My first thought is surgical post-op position would give you great experience with surgical patients that you will take care of in PACU. Having said that, these two RN positions are very different. Med/surg vs critical care. (IMHO): Being in a float pool you may miss the opportunity to really connect with a specific unit and the staff. Being at the hospital 5 days a week can feel like all you do is work. And rotating shifts can be downright exhausting. Starting in PACU as a new grad will be tough but not impossible. Having a set unit is a plus. Having a set shift is also a plus. 12 hours can feel long (especially if you are having a bad day..) I wish you the best in making a decision :-)

I remember when I was in nursing school (many moons ago) our community health class required us to find a "community" issue and work towards solving it. While most of the class picked big issues (teen pregnancy, HIV testing, etc.) my group stuck with a simple problem involving an unsafe playground in a low socio-ecomonic neighborhood. We addressed it by posting warning signs on equipment and writing a letter of concern to town supervisor. So perhaps think about a small thing that you may have contributed to....the small stuff matters, too!