cariad

I was amazed when I heard this on the local news. I preceptor student nurses and none of them ever have any hopes about being employed. Their attitude is that there is no point in applying until after they take their boards, and will take any position just to get into obtaining that magical "one year's experience neccessary" for every job that is posted...

Can see that all the posts on here are old, but going to catch up anyway, as none of the UK posts pertain to me anymore......all about UK information, That I am now so far behind with. Its been a long time since I have even posted anything on AllNurses. I got put off a couple of years ago when the site was changed and my favourite part....the journals were not posted on the main page, so they were harder to find and even harder for newbies to read and even know they existed. So I return and find out that the journals are not even here anymore, which is a bit sad as they gave me a history of my life in America. Anyway...please catch up with whats new or old with everyone who is still here ??????

dont want to give personal details on here, and havent been able to reply to my thread before this, but as a nurse a long way from home and a personal tragedy like this it has been hard. my nephew was declared clinically brain dead 10 days after the accident and his parents had the strength to donate his organs, 7 people had a second chance at life because he lost his. so i did fly home to be with my family, even although for a short time as i took 2 days to get there, because of weather delays, but it was something i needed to do. we do get very acclimatised to our job, and i wont say that this has opened my eyes but it has certainly given me more insight as to the grief that happens after we move onto another patient in our job. its a grief that is going to take a while, and the old saying of time is a healer is certainly true. so prayers for his family are still needed as they continue with their lives without their son.

thanks for the support, you didnt need to post for me to know that we all care about each other, its just part of being a nurse. the latest update is that he has had the neck brace removed and they are saying there is no spinal injuries. still trying to reduce the pressure from his brain, have been told that they are reducing all his vital signs to preserve brain function, i know that we do that here with trauma and stroke victims if they meet criteria, they literally keep the body in a state of hypothermia while the body recovers, so dont know if thats what they are using. his parents are stil only allowed to look at him through glass, and are still not allowed to speak to him, so they feel useless, but obviously feel the need to be there. so we will continue to pray for him.

no news yet, apart from the family are not even allowed to speak to him, obviously vented etc and all my brother knows is that they are trying to remove the pressure from his brain, thye have been told to fear the worst even if he survives. so will update as i hear, it is so difficult being so far away and of course, the privacy laws means that there is no point trying to call to get the correct information. so just keep praying.

i am experiencing what it is like to be on the other side of the profession today. my nephew is in cardiff critically ill after a crash on a bike, serious injuries, maybe brain and spinal, you know the scenario...on a vent with tubes everywhere including a concern with the pressures in his brain, of course i am getting the information from my dad who is getting it from his mum who is at the bedside and is not a medical person, but doesnt really understand what exactly is going on. so prayers and thoughts are with them all, so please pray for a good outcome to such a young person. its hard to be on the other side of the atlantic when things are wrong.

pjliz, where is your husband's business going to be? because obviously that is where you will have to look for employment. and that will depend on whether a hospital will help you get a green card, places with plenty of nurses and especially new grads would not be interested in helping you, but then there are places for experienced nurses although not a lot. back to the university, i dont know enough about it, but our last lecturer on the rn-bsn, was an rn with a masters in education, so would be worth finding out what they would accept. clinical instructors for the adn course, only have to be bsn's.

you would have to prove your education to be employed by the universities, but they dont pay very well, so they are always looking for nursing lecturers. with an msn you cann teach the bsn and rn-bsn courses. as for the green card, dont know what your position would be as regards being sponsored, maybe even a university would sponsor you, at least you wil be over here and able to work and gain experience.

well life goes on for the nurses that are like me and already stateside, lots of ups and downs, getting cancelled---with no pay, because there arent enough patients and then a week later, they call and ask you to work as they havent enough staff to cover. very different from anywhere else i have ever worked. although arizona does have its own problems, too many hospitals and too many nursing schools churning out lots of nurses, the majority of them now have no jobs.. the majority of hospitals arent hiring and especially not hiring new nurses. but at least the place doesnt change, wonderful weather, and of course the pool to cool off in, something we would never have had back home, so life goes on !

you dont know how lucky you are in the nhs, over here, its not sick time its earned time which has to be used for sick and vacation, if you work 52 weeks without getting sick or cancelled by the hospital, (not enough patients so they cancel you without poy), then you earn 4 weeks, or 12 shifts whichever way you look at it, there is short term disability, which will give you 2/3d's of your pay after being made to use 32 hrs of earned time. if you call in too often then they fire you. you can get 12 weeks time off protection by fmla.a government, family, medical leave act, after being sick for more than 12 wks they dont keep your job open, so they fire you or tell you to re-apply anywhere in the hospital they have openings. if you have an illness or an ill member of the family, you can apply for fmla, so that if you need to take time off they wont fire you, but if you say you are ill, they may not keep you employed as you are supposed to be 100% fit, and if you take fmla for a relative then they dont pay you at all. i do agree that when i worked in the uk, there were certain members of staff who you knew werent sick when they called in, or the smoker with asthma who always had lung problems, but they always got paid for it. its something that i think is very backward in america, and i am amazed that the american nurses think that its ok.

anyone who wants to come to the usa has to apply because of the long wait, the usual agencies who used to sign every nurse that they could are now backing off, and only taking those nurses who are already a long ay throuhgt he process, they are only interested in taking nurses who want to go to the middle east for assignments. retgrogresion is affecting everyone, american nurses dont even know anything about it and still think that hospitals are importing foreign nurses to steal their jobs. it doesnt matter how old you are, but obviously the older you are the quicker you should get the application under way.

the american health system is very hard to understand, but where i work and everywhere eles, you can choose to work without paying for benefits, usually because your other half carries the cover, but the pay is then higher, some nurses choose to earn the higher pay, and pay for their own cover, but some people choose to work and dont pay for medical cover and hope they dont get sick, or do a deal with the hospital and have a cheaper bill for cash if they do. as for the car accident and following health issues that we have had, we did have good cover, as madwife had already had a car crash and advised us to take extra cover which we did, because i was a travel nurse at the time, the medical cover wasnt very good, we paid for 30% of most bills, and even more for physical therapy, it was 50% and limited to how many times we could use them. then when i was unable to work because of having surgery the insurance cover that we had to pay was astronomical, (called cobra), the co-pay for my surgery was $1,000 which i had to pay or they wouldnt operate, and we are still paying bills, eventually our car insurance company will pay us an amount of money, but it wont be a huge amount and we have to pay back the insurance compnies for any medical bills that they have paid, but none of it will compensate for me having a bad arm, that is not fully recovered after 2 surgeries, or for dh's loss of a normal life. i more or less have to do most things in the house due to his lack of mobility and fatigue, and thats not including the chest pains and flutters that he continues to get. we are trying to get on with our lives as best as we can, theres nothing we can do to change anything, although dh is going to have his lumbar spine operated on this year some time. we now have good medical cover, but we still have to pay monthly prescriptions and any bills that come from everywhere, the latest one is from the radiologist who read the stress tests that he had done, and thats another $264.

well we are in america and my dh had to wait a year after stent placement for back surgery, so he now has cardiac clearance, we called the orthopedic surgeon for an appointment and we cant get to see him for more than 8 weeks. probably about the same as in the uk, sometimes less. not that we are complaining, because we are patient people nd we have already waited for a year anyway.

why do you think that you have to pay more taxes, in the uk the tax rate is 23%, and a social security payment, much like your medicare payment that comes out of our wages, but then on top of that you pay health care benefits out of your wages, so if these payments honestly went into a health system and not into the health insurance companies profits then you would have a working health system for everyone, if you have a lot of money like your politicians then bills dont matter, if you have no money, then they done matter if you are old then its paid for, but if you are one of the many working people who pay health insurance, then try getting sick and see how many bills you get, even with good coverage, the system that is in america only works for the working person if you dont get sick and have to take time off work, try calling socialised medicine something else, oh i forgot you already do its called insurance companies who control it all.

told you the american system is confusing, the people who dont pay are the ones with nothing,,,,,no homes no car no money no work, if i chose not to pay my medical bills insured or not then they would come after me and take away everything i owned and leave me destitute, and i work in a small hospital and although we have equipment it is not always manned, our sister hospital is trauma level one which means they have 24 hour care for everything as they take all the acute care and traumas. yes some things are better, i always say that, but the bills for medical care are not better for anyone, well except if you have so much money that bills dont matter. but to joe public who work its only a good system if you can stay fit and stay free from illness, dont forget without a job, you dont have medical insurance. and any hospital will hunt you down and make you pay, whether not for profit or not, and thats from experience.

i am aways amazes at the attitude of american nurses who state that we are better off than others who are employed. as if that means we shouldnt better ourselves by wanting to be treated well and appreciated. just because our benfits are good and we have short term disability and can earn days off if we constantly work, doesnt mean that there is no better way to get adavncement in these conditions. i was sick for 12 weeks and didnt earn any time, as the word means you have to earn it. why can we not look at other countries where they give you 8 weeks paid vacation a year, and thats without earning it, 6 month's paid sick time, and not fear every day in case you make a minor mistake and they will sack you, or if you pick up a bug from the floor, or a cold, you still come to work, and spread the illness, because you dont want to use your paid time off, as it leaves you with no time for any vacations. the ward that comes to mind when i think of the terms of my employment are "archaic", and i have an employer who supposedly is one of the best.

it really is hard to give insights to either system as they are both open to good and bad care. i have been going to physical therapy since last august after my shoulder surgery, it normally costs me about $20 a visit, my part of the insurance coverage that i have to pay, just got a bill for over $200 and when i asked why, its because its the start of a new year and you have to pay bigger out of pocket expenses, and thats just for 5 visits, thats the biggest difference for me between the 2 countries, that if you do have to have any kind of medical treatment, even with good health care insurance, it costs money, and quite a lot of it. theres always an ongoing fear for getting sick, because it can cost you money, cost you your job, if you are sick for longer than 12 weeks, and cost you everything if you lose your job and your medical cover, those kind of things dont happen everyday in the uk but they do happen here.

billy shears- are you posting these links to bad health care in the uk as some sort of "look how bad the health care is in the uk". because i could post many more links to bad health care in the us. if you have seen the film sicko then you will know what i mean, as patient i could relate bad experiences, when i went for right shoulder surgery i woke up with abrasions on my left cornea, my dh went for a year with a misdiagnosed cervical bone compressing his spinal column, my dh had a major drug error occur, which could have blocked his brand new cardiac stents, and these are just personal experiences, so post as many links as you like, it still doesnt make either system better than the other.

after working in both systems and being a brit who never had to pay a penny for health care until i came to the states, i think i have an insight as to how they both work, compsratively, i pay the same out of my wages for taxes, health cover etc as i did in the uk, the difference in the usa is that when you do become ill, and you cannot work and you have no income and you depend on your spouse to work and support you, the big difference is that whenever the person with health problems becomes ill, we have ongoing bills, unlike the uk, where there are no bills, each time we have a hospital admission, see a doctor or a consultant we pay, each month we pay around $250 for prescriptions, health insurance in the usa does not mean that they are paying all the bills when you become ill. the stress of having no money to pay the bills exacerbates some peoples health, and of course i do know some people who have lost everything because of medical bills, and i mean their homes and lifestyles because they become ill and cannot afford the healthcare, because dont forget when you lose your job you lose you health insurance coverage. my dh and i have lived in both systems and as i repeatedly say there is good and bad in both systems, there is no point americans saying our system is better when they have never lived in the uk, or the brits saying that it is better of they nave never experienced the us, and i mean being ill and needing the treatment for an ongoing illness, not just a quick visit to the doctor occasionally.

thanks zippy for that link, we pay social security and medicare out of our wages over here, and they vary the same as the national insurance payments, what i said was that the americans think that any other system that has socialised medicine is very heavily taxed, they think that the lowest tax is about 40-50% to pay for the system, we choose how much to pay from our wages because each year we have to file our taxes,,,in other words tell them how much we earned, how much we paid on our mortgage and how much we have in the bank and if we have enough to make any interest, and then they give you money back,,,especially if you have children or you end up owing them money, but the average tax payment is 25%, and then you pay for health care out of your wages on top of those payments and its not cheap, especially if you have a family to pay for.

i agree that the nhs is not without its problems, but then have worked both sides of the atlantic to be able to compare as a nurse and as a patient and a dh who has continuing health problems. but state of the art equipment and being able to have every test known to man doesnt make the american system better, just different, the point i was making was that all uk workers pay into the system but americans can choose not to pay even when working and then get the same health care as everyone else, but normal everyday working people like nurses, still pay into the system and still get bills for our care, something that doesnt happen in the uk. my dh has cardiac problems which were probably exacerbated by worrying about how to pay medical bills after a car crash, and hasnt been able to get a penny from anywhere since then, something else that doesnt happen in the uk. like i always say, good and bad both sides of the pond.

in the uk everyone who works pays towards their health care even if they choose to go and get private treatment and choose to pay for that. so if the americans had a health system where you paid out of what you earned, towards your health care, then all workers would pay, there would be no choice. my point is that those of us who do work and pay health benefits in the usa, the profit from that goes into the companies pockets, the profits from what you pay from your wages in the uk, go back into the health care system. the uk has the same problems as the usa people who dont work, dont pay into the system but still get the treatment for free. the only people who suffer in the usa are the workers who do pay and then still get stung after the treatment, with medical bills. in the uk you still get the same treatment without the medical bills, and please ask someone in the uk what rate of tax they pay, as usually americans think that everybody pays 40% or more,,,,the real rate is 23%, but then it may even differ from that as i am not in the uk anymore.

i heard that the reason the ccu job was opened was because the jcl have cancelled the pool nurses so often in the last few months, that a lot of them have gone elsewhere to work, so the jcl is back to using registry again, after saying they wouldnt be using them, so its cheaper to get a staff nurse than to use registry.

retrogression is biting hard for the uk nurses waiting to come here, right now in arizona there is a hiring freeze, they have laid nurses off from my hospital, so maybe its just as well that any hopital sponsored nurses have not been able to get here right now, they reckon that outside large hospitals saturated areas there are jobs to be had, but mostly rural areas, but they do still need nurses, so hopefully everyone who wants to come here will eventually be allowed. its not a good situation for anyone right now.

as a brit, who has now been in the us for 5 years, we misunderstood how the american health care system worked, we foolishly thought that we had health insurance so when we had to access the treatment after a car crash we didnt know what the bills were that arrived daily from all sorts of medical providers, we werent aware that even with health cover , we still had to pay part of the bills. i ask my american co-workers how the system works, and even they dont understand it. i work in the hospital and my dh still has medical problems, as an outsider it looks to me that there is plenty of socialised medicine here, in az its called achss, which is for people with nothing or not very much money, medicare for the elderly and of course insurance companies that control the american health system...the only difference i see, is that when i lived in the uk, i paid for my free medical care through payments taken from my wages, over here, i pay for my medical care through payments that go to a private health company, any profits they make go into someones pocket, any money that is paid in the uk goes into the health system. there is good and bad both sides of the atlantic, but speaking from experience my ex- just had open heart surgery in the uk, after going to the er, he was admitted, had the surgery 3 weeks later, of which time he remained in the hospital, he is now home going through cardiac rehabilitation, and has no money worries as there is no cost involved, he lives in wales and doesnt pay for any prescriptions and while he is off work he gets sick pay from his company. compared to the treatment for my dh's cardiac problems, we may have had next day treatment, but then the bills arrive and when he has no income he has the worry about paying for them, plus the high cost of our monthly prescriptions, and as sharrie says, its not the government who makes decisions about health care its the staff who work for them, much the same people who make the decisions over here.