Halke

Has anyone used the Online Connecticut League for Nursing refresher course? I have been out of nursing for 2.5 years with my last job working in Hospice. Before that I had worked in a nursing home. My license is still active. I am wanting to return to nursing (not Hospice) but feel like I have lost all of my skills and since I really haven't worked in a hospital setting I am very unsure of myself. I thought this course would be helpful but before I put the money into it I wanted to see if anyone had any experience using this course. Any advice would be appreciated!

I love my job as a nursing home RN. I absolutely love my residents and want to give them the best care I can because they are like family to me. You grow such strong bonds with residents because you work with them day in an day out. That being said however....It is getting more and more difficult as we are being spread too thin with the government budget cuts. There isn't much room to grow in LTC unless you want to go into administrative duties. I would not recommend a nursing home to a new grad however. One reason is that most of the time you get hired into night shift or evening shift and if it is a smaller facility you are the only nurse there. Who are you gong to turn to when you have questions? There is quite a bit of experience in a nursing home but not the same as you would get in a hospital. One recommendation I have is that if you take a hospital job make sure you get plenty of training (most hospital train well but some lack) Proper training is the only way you are going to learn. If you get a good set of base skills you will be set to learn much much more. I kind of went off topic there lol....I just want to put on here that I wish people wouldn't put down nursing home nurses. Hospital nurses look down at us but I don't think they realize how difficult and how many patients I care for each day. More and more acute cases are coming into long term for the rehab stay. I care for 25 to 50 residents at a time and have to be everywhere at once.