Swgfan

Rapides Regional in Alexandria, La. is starting at $22.10 base, $3 extra for nights, and 15% extra for weekends. Christus St. Frances Cabrini in Alexandria is paying $22.25 base, $3 nights, $3 weekends. After 3 months you have an option of signing a contract to work all weekends for 6 months and you'll get an extra $4 an hour added to base pay. She said during that 6 month contract you do get to choose one weekend off but you must work all the rest to get the extra $4 an hour. So during that contract you'll earn $32.25 per hour which ain't bad if you are a new grad and got some bills to pay off. She also said you have the option of taking some extra shifts if they are available, but only after you been working for 3 months. (that means you can get some overtime which is paid at time and a half, possibly $48.37 an hour during OT which is a whopping $580.50 for a 12 hour shift, lol). Man you could pay off some bills quick if you willing to bust your butt a couple extra shifts a week. Also my wife was offered her choice of ICU, med/surge, etc. but she chose to work the step down unit for the first 3-6 months. They don't offer ICU to every new grad though, only those with high GPA and good reviews from the Professors. Otherwise they said they have a 6 month program that lets you start in med/surge or another floor and gradually trains you to move up to ICU after the 6 months. My wife chose stepdown where all the bypass patients are because she did most of her clinicals there in school and she got to be friends with a lot of nurses on that floor. She said she will probably move up to ICU after she gets comfortable with all the hospital procedures and signs her 6 month weekend contract.

Louisiana is an Awesome choice!! We have one of the most diverse and rich cultures of any state. Our Cajun food/cuisine is legendary and we have French, Spanish and Creole roots. Louisiana is known as the Sportsman's paradise because we have so many opportunities for fishing, hunting, boating, and many other outdoor activities. There are numerous land preserves throughout the state where you can go biking, hiking, ATV riding, etc. The Bayous and swamps are really beautiful and there is always something to see along the banks like deer, beaver, otters, ducks, alligators and more. We have long summers and usually mild winters compared to a lot of Northern states. This is good because here in Louisiana we have a lot of festivals, fairs, and public celebrations throughout our summer. Here near central/middle Louisiana we have the Pecan Festival, Cochon De lait Festiva(Pig Roast), Corn Festival, Smoked meat Festival, several Crawfish Festivals, and in other parts of the state we have: Blues Festival, Arts and Craft Fairs, Taste of Louisiana, Zydeco Festival, New Orleans Jazz festival, Festival of Lights in Natchitoches(one of the oldest cities in Louisiana), and soooo many more. We have over 400 Festivals making us the Festival Capitol of America!! You will never find yourself bored if your an active person :) Now let me tell you the bad about Louisiana to be honest with you. In the summer we have humidity that makes the air feel a bit sticky on your skin. If your used to being outdoors a lot it probably won't bother you. If your a little overweight it can make you feel a lot hotter than it is. Also, Louisiana typically has lower pay/salaries than a lot of other states because we have had some poor Government over the years. However, it is also cheaper to buy a house here or land than a lot of other places. I know firsthand because I have traveled extensively throughout the United States. My previous job made me travel everyday for 7 years and I have lived in Houston Texas, Chicago, Illinois, Memphis Tennessee, and Waycross Georgia. An acre of land here in Louisiana is about $10-15 thousand dollars in my area. About $20,000 a little farther North. Typical houses range from $65,000 in the country to $100-150 thousand in the city. My house cost $65,000 and it is a nice 3 bedroom brick home with an acre of land. The backyard is fenced and I live on a dead end street. We did buy it off a foreclosure list from the bank so it would of cost about $89,000 if you bought it from a realtor. We have 2 big local hospitals here, a women's hospital and lots and lots of doctors offices, nursing homes etc. The one hospital starts new grad nurses out at $22.10 per hour, $3 extra for nights and 15% extra for weekends. The other hospital I just found out is paying $22.25 per hour, $3 extra a night, and $3 extra on the weekend. After 3 months on the job they will let you sign a contract to agree to work all weekends for 6 months and they give you an extra $4 an hour on top of everything.(so you'd make $32.25 an hour if you work weekends). I think you also get a $2 raise after 6 months there so in 6 months if you work weekends you'd make $34.25 and that is if your just a new grad!! In Louisiana that is considered good money especially for the area I live in. I used to date a girl from Scotland who went to St. Andrews University. She loved Louisiana and Texas too, so I think you'd love it as well. I got 2 extra rooms and if you move here I'd be glad to have you stay here while you get a job and find you a place to live. I live right on the edge of Alexandria, Louisiana. Cabrini Hospital and Rapides General Hospital hire a lot of nurses. PM me if you want to talk about possibly staying here when you come to the states. Me and my wife are just country people and we are not too crazy!! Here is a website that talks about how to go from the UK to the USA as a nurse: Nursing in the USA

Hey all, my wife graduates in August!! Only about 4 months left and she is still undecided but she is getting closer to a decision. She is considering working ICU or Med/Surge for the first year. If she goes back to college to specialize, we noticed a lot of schools prefer at least a year of experience in one of those areas. Also rest assured I am NOT gonna push her into any direction, I took your advice and will let her decide. After all, I'm not the one who has to go to work in that profession every day. I fully love and support my wife in all that she does and I always will. I'm still not keen on the palliative care profession as I've seen a lot of death already in my lifetime and I personally have problems with dealing with it so I try to avoid those situations. My wife is made of a different substance so she has always been able to handle it better. In fact she feels good when she helps someone who is sick and dying and knows in her heart that she is giving them some level of comfort. She has also been talking lately about working at a VA hospital for the first year. She is gonna do some rotations there during her final semester and see if she likes it. They have some good benefits and we do plan on moving away from Louisiana eventually so with the VA, she'd have the ability to transfer to any other VA in the country as long as they have an opening and there are a lot of VA hospitals. About 1700 of them I think I read, lol I'll let you know what she decides soon, I told her with only 4 moths left, she really needs to think it over but I also told her she could just work in a hospital for a year and then see what she wants to specialize in. Also, on one other note, I know my story was not factually correct but it wasn't really meant to be. It's just my imagination running wild that I jot down. I'll keep you informed, she's graduating from Northwestern here in Louisiana!!

Hello, I graduate in August here in Louisiana and I need to start deciding on where I want to start my career. Many of my fellow students are graduating and immediately moving to Dallas and Houston Texas because the hospital recruiters there are very persuasive in our area. They come here to the job fairs and offer things like $3000 sign on bonuses, pay to move to Texas, free daycare for your children, etc. While the 2 major hospitals here where I live can't fill all their positions. The problem with Louisiana is that they just don't pay very well for most professions. The 2 hospitals here, Rapides Regional and Christus St. Frances Cabrini, pay from what I understand around $18/19 for new grad nurses. You do get some extra for working nights/weekends but that's still low compared to the $24-28 per hour some of the recruiters are offering, plus the sign on bonuses, the free day care, tuition reimbursement, etc. Would love to stay in Louisiana but I worked my butt off for years to get a degree that would allow me to make better money to give my family the things they need and provide a better life. I am in the top of my class, Deans list/Presidents list etc. I also plan on going back to college after a year of working at a hospital. Thinking of possible CRNA. Again, I'm in it to help people but also for the plain old money. I know that sounds bad as most nurses are compassionate first and money second, but I study hard and work hard to get top grades because I do want to make top dollar one day. I'm considering a move to Florida immediately out of school because of the sheer amount of nursing jobs there. I need ICU experience as well as some med/surge to be able to get into a good CRNA program later on. I need to also pay my family bills and maintain a decent quality of life in the meantime. I work as a caregiver while going to school, taking care of mentally handicapped kids in a group home. I make $15 an hour right now, so you can see how disappointed I am to find out after 4 years of college that the hospitals here don't wanna pay much more than that. I am willing to move almost anywhere to secure a great job as a new grad. I know a lot of new grads are having a hard time finding a job, but I think most are not as willing to move or relocate anywhere like I am. What part of the country would you recommend I look at? Is Florida as a good stepping stone? I would move to any state except California, New York, or Jersey.

My mother always raved about my writing and at one time I did have the ambition, but as life would have it, God had other plans for me. I do enjoy the occasional short story once in a while and as my wife is now in the final year of nursing school at NSU I am learning all about the specialties a nurse can enter into after graduation. One particular field of study that she was considering was Palliative care. Once I researched it to find out more I was honestly against the idea. I could imagine how heart wrenching it would be to go to work everyday and work with people who are dying. It takes a special person to do such a job and it inspired me to write a short story about such a profession. I am trying to steer my wife towards anesthesiology At LSU upon graduation and she informed me this week that she is also considering Psychiatric Nursing as well. Either one would suit me far more than Palliative care, although I am sure it is a rewarding career for the right person. Here is my short story dedicated to Mom, who always encouraged me to write. Hope you enjoy, and remember, all names, situations, etc are make believe and come only from my imagination of the profession. I saw that look on Judys face again tonight, she is worried. Not about the kids or the rent payment, nor the bad tire on the car or the larger note on the boat we just purchased. No, she is worried about Mrs. Fuentes, a person not even related to our family and one that was virtually unknown to us 2 weeks ago. It has now encompassed our lives it seems even though my wife tries to act like everything is ok and she forces that big smile when I look at her and asks me how my day went. We've seen this look in my wife before, in fact it happens many times throughout the year as she moves from patient to patient. It gets really bad when she juggles 2 at a time which is technically not supposed to happen but with shortages at hospitals and budget cuts it happens from time to time. You see Mrs. Fuentes is a patient at the Hospice center where my wife works and my wife is the assigned RN or should I say ACHPN which stands for Advanced Care Hospice and Palliative Nurse. A designation she went back to school to earn and was so excited to recieve. We were excited too on that day as we had no idea on just how hard her life would be in the future. We actually thought life was getting easier now that all the schooling was finsihed and the money was gonna come pouring in. Oh how we needed that extra money as we had 2 kids reaching the teenage years and getting into all sorts of activities that require extra money like football, dancing, baseball, and of course just going out with friends to the mall. Seems every time I turn around one of the kids has got their hand out, "I need $20 bucks dad for the movies", "I need $10 for a lab fee at school", "I need $75 for a field trip and $55 for new athletic shoes." I think you get the picture, we were relying on her boost in income to cover the gaps in life and hopefully make our lives better in the long run. It's been a long day and my wife is out of the bathroom and ready for bed. A longer day tomorrow and I kiss her goodnight and reach to turn out the light. In the darkness I settle in under the warm covers and place my hand on her hips to give her a gentle caress and tell her I love her. I slip my arm around her and just hold her tight and wait for the sleep to envelop me but it doesn't happen. I can feel her tension and I can tell something is bothering her as she keeps moving every minute or so like she is trying to get comfortable. She can't sleep and that makes me alert and sleepless as well. The thing is I need to sleep as I have 2 different construction jobs going on this week and I can't afford to botch either one. I'm already behind schedule on the Lalanne house and the Petermans offered me a bonus if I can get their bathroom finsihed by the weekend. A bonus we could definatly use with all the school loans and such. But the mental state of my wife worries me more than anything as she is my soul mate and the reason I take every breath. She is the foundation of our household and keeps this band of pirates together and on the straight and narrow. Without her, chaos would ensue and we'd all fall apart. I'd be an empty shell just going through the daily motions. So it is important to me, to try and comfort her in anyway I can. In the darkness I tell her I know something is wrong and she of course says it's nothing. Trying to hide her work from us and protect us from the gloomy environment she drives to everyday, but she should know we see it in her eyes when she gets home and we feel it in her unattentiveness. I ask her if it's Mrs. Fuentes again and she sighs a big long sigh and turns slowly over in my arms. She finally opens up and tells me about her day. Mrs Fuentes is dying of course, as is all of her patients she is assigned to. Also, like many of her patients the family has a big involvement in what's going on and are usually at the hospital 24 hours a day. They have set visiting hours in the patient room but towards the end they move them to a special living facility where my wife works and the family are allowed to basically stay around the clock. They do limit 2 in the room at a time but that is a rule rarely enforced. The problem isn't Mrs. Fuentes she explains, but her daughter and the stepdad. They don't like each other and they tend to get in arguements a lot which upsets the rest of the family there. It's got to the point where some of the family is now taking sides and it's very disturbing to the nurses and Doctors trying to care for the patient. The daughter thinks the stepfather who has only been married to Mrs Fuentes for 6 months, was so demanding and hard on her, that he drove her to the weakened physical state that she is in and thus caused her medical problems. Her stepfather is 20 years younger than her mom and she feels as if he only married her for her money. Like every story there are two sides to this. The stepfather thinks that the daughter and other family members who had little contact with Mrs. Fuentes over the years, are only now coming around and taking an interest in her life because they are seeing dollar signs. It got so bad today that apparently the 2 divided groups of family started shouting as my wife was in the room trying to turn Mrs Fuentes on her side so she would be comfortable and not develop bed sores. They got loud and then started talking about getting lawyers involved and sueing each other. My wife who had been caring for this patient for 3 months had grown to really like her and been one of the last people to speak to her before she got so bad that she could not talk anymore. Mrs. Fuentes had told her many stories of her life and childhood and had always been nice to my wife when she entered the room. Even at times when my wife was coming in to take more blood or switch meds and Mrs. Fuentes was already feeling bad and knew it wasn't going to be pleasant. She still maintained a smile and and always had a kind word for her. The staff and nurses were amazed at her stoic spirit and will to fight all the way to the end. Now, here these greedy and selfish family members were ignoring their sick loved one altogether and bickering right next to her bed. It was all my wife could take and she burst out and told them they ought to be ashamed of themselves. She went on to describe how she had cared for her for the last 3 months and she told them about her stories and how she said she loved her family. She described her will to fight and keep a smile on her face even as it got down to the end and she was losing her ability to function. She told them even though she could not speak she might be able to still hear them fighting. It shamed the family of course and they stopped and looked guilty. Several shuffled out of the room and my wife went about her duties. Later that day, she got called to the Director of Nurses office, but she thought it was just something routine. Although when she got there, she found not only the head nurse there but the Doctor assigned to Mrs Fuentes, the Physcologist on the Palliative care team, and the Grief Counselor. It immediately occured to her that something was wrong, and that was confirmed as the Doctor asked her to have a seat and she saw in his hands her personell file. She was then informed that a couple of the family members had lodged a complaint against her. Basically saying that she had screamed at them and interrupted them as they discussed family business. They asked to have her removed from caring for their loved one and went so far as to ask if there was a procedure for lodging a formal complaint. This complaint was to be reviewed by the team assembled here and she was being given a chance to explain herself. She told them exactly what had been going on and the reason she finally was pushed to say something that day. She insisted that she cared for Mrs. Fuentes and had only her best interests at heart. In the end however, she was somewhat scolded by the Head Nurse and Doctor and informed that her job was to care for the patient and adhere to the familys needs, but to never ever give an opinion on their ideas or problems. If she thought they were being unruly or putting undue stress upon the patient then she should have gone to her supervisor and let them know. This way the decision on how to proceed from that point would not have come back on her shoulders as it is now. A formal complaint had been lodged and they had no choice but to put a copy in her file along with their findings and disciplinary actions. They wrote in the complaint that they did not think she acted with any malice or ill will towards the family or the patient, but that she did fail to notify supervisors or the care team as to any potential problems. As a result she was also being re-assigned to another patient at the far end of the floor to prevent as much as possible any future contact with Mrs Fuentes or her family. My wife is one of the most loveable souls you'll ever meet and this crushed her spirit and broke her heart. She truly cares for these patients and wants nothing but the best for them as they take their last journey in this life and go on to the next. She really felt that the family was out of line but in the end it came back to bite her because she was the only person brave enough to say something. Other nurses, techs, and staff had come into the room from time to time and observed the same things but no one had a backbone to take up for the patient. Sadly this is just one bump in the long road with the career my wife chose. This is not the first time a family has gotten her upset with their selfishness and lack of caring for their own family member but it is the first and probably the last time she will ever stand up and say anything about it. I hold her tightly in my arms and kiss her on the forehead and I tell her, that I think she did the right thing, no matter what the Doctor and Head nurse said. I was proud of her for standing up for this dying lady, that I personally have never even met, but I had learned to care for through the stories she told my wife and her repeating them to me late at night as we lay in bed. She meets her new patient in the morning, a Mr Jack Eland, 57 years old, and in the late stages of brain cancer, according to the file she was given this afternoon to read over. As I kiss her goodnight and tell her everything will be o.k. and how tomorrow will be a better day, I turn over and wonder what Mr. Elands family will be like and what stories he will tell my wife of his life, before he loses his ability to speak. I guess I'll find out soon enough, and before I drift off to sleep I say a silent prayer for my wife and I also ask God to watch over Mrs. Fuentes as she comes to join him soon.