MEINstudent

At my very large level 1 trauma center, clinic nurses start at $5 less per hour than bedside/OR/ED nurses.

I moved to the OR and while it's very different from bedside nursing, it feels more exciting than stressful. Pre-op is a decent environment, especially in the same day surgery environment, where nurses take turns staying later in the evening when surgeries run late, but don't work any weekends or holidays. PACU requires ACLS, and here at least, we do have occasional codes and other emergencies there. You could also try endoscopy or an outpatient surgery center.

I always bring a grapefruit to eat when I work at night. It takes a while to eat, is super hydrating, low calorie. I buy a big container of roasted, unsalted cashews, and keep a few small containers (those little Ziploc square plastic ones) in my bag. A greek yogurt, with another small container filled with paleo granola to mix in. I try to keep my food intake at night light, healthy, hydrating and protein-filled.

You are extremely lucky you did not harm her. It's good that this is staying with you. It will make you a safer nurse. You could let it get the better of you, but the adult thing to do is to remember it and move forward so that you are extra careful from now on, with everything you do in nursing. The fact is, that nurses can harm or even kill patients through mistakes. But the best nurses remain aware of that, and they use that fear of doing harm, to make their practice as safe as possible.

I could see giving a muscle relaxant med ordered for TID PRN, closer together than 8 hours. Say, the patient takes one when he wakes up, but then likes an additional dose prior to physical therapy. But if a patient asked for a second dose less than 8 hours from the first, I would page the provider to verify it's ok to give that close together. If the patient will be in the hospital for a while, and this is his habit, then I would suggest to the provider to add or amend the med orders to say it's ok to give close together for PT. Otherwise, I would page every day to confirm it's ok, just to cover my butt. If you had other patients assigned to you, you shouldn't have left the floor to follow the escaping patient. You should just notify the charge nurse, call security. I'm not sure it's ok even for the CNA to follow alone. Your hospital should have policies and training on that. Safety first.

I agree with above comments that it takes years to be comfortable and confident. I would say actually, about 10 years, personally. But... you should not be making med errors or any serious errors. That is carelessness and not paying close attention. Focus on your doing your job well. If you have questions, or any doubt about something you are doing or a med you are giving, ask a peer for advice and help. Don't worry about someone watching you and reporting back to management. Use that person as a resource to learn. Did you just get off orientation? I went through 12 weeks of orientation on a basic med-surg floor as a new nurse. It's not right if facilities are not giving a decent orientation to new nurses and then are critical if their performance is sub-par afterward.

University of Connecticut. But there are other places that have a better program in my opinion. The way the UConn program was set up, you pass the NClex but you don’t actually learn a whole lot. It’s too much too fast. And I graduated with a very high GPA that did not reflect at all my actual learning. Just being honest

No. I have a first degree in Liberal Arts - Literature. I went back and did a one year BSN program that was designed for people with degrees in prior fields, and intended for second career (i.e. older) people. There were about ten of us at the information session I went to before enrolling. Guess what 8/10 of those people had? A bachelors in psychology. And they had all just graduated in the prior year and realized there wasn't much they could do with the degree without going on for a doctorate. If you're only halfway, cut your losses and switch to a BSN program. Considering how expensive college is, you will save yourself a lot of money.

Are you on babycenter? They have an excellent "Family Finances" group that will help you figure this out. There is a budget template where you can figure out how much you need to make. A weekend Baylor shift, where you work 24 but get paid for 36, would be better, as you already have fairly low take home pay. You say you are due soon? The best thing would be to figure out what your take home pay would be, and start living on that now to see if you can do it. Your husband cannot work at all? Will he receive a living stipend for his program? He cannot watch the baby at all to avoid daycare? The Family FInances group on babycenter can help you better than we can.

It's only been 18 months since you left, right? Do you live in an area with a nursing shortage, or where there are plenty of applicants for every job? I don't think you are at a disadvantage; you haven't been out for years and years. You will likely need a good orientation but any decent facility will give that to you anyhow. I would keep your resume brief, like one page, and write a cover letter that humorously covers the events of the past two years.

In response to the highlighted portion above, your logic is flawed. If a healthcare worker is refusing to participate in an objectionable procedure of an LGBT person, it is not discrimination. They are objecting to the procedure, not the person. I realize that there are some people who may abuse this law, but the law is still necessary, and eventually those people out themselves as bigots and racists and get what's coming to them. States are battling over abortion rights. And while you may think it's terrible that one state has passed the heartbeat law, I think it is far, far worse that other states are loosening restrictions way past the point of viability. Try googling "abortion horror stories", and it will pull up a NYT story on late term abortions that includes a woman who legally got an abortion at 30 weeks of a healthy baby because she did not want to be a mother. That is just wrong. Late term abortions don't just happen for fetal anomalies. It's infanticide and killing the most defenseless members of our society.

So I did not read the entire 440 pages of this new rule, but I read a few synopses of it, and it seems like a lot of the hysteria is based on hypotheticals. A lot of "it could mean" or "it could allow". Clinton signed into law the original conscience clause, and Obama rescinded part of it. I did not read carefully the particulars of what Obama rescinded. But there have been abuses also where healthcare providers have been threatened for NOT participating in things like abortion. From what I read, this "new" law intends to protect healthcare workers from being forced to participate in procedures they object to, and does not intend to protect healthcare workers from discriminating against a group of people. There is a big difference between the two. I am an OR nurse, and we do late term abortions in our facility. I object to it, and have signed the form here indicating I won't participate. It hasn't been a problem. This new law doesn't change a thing for me, because I'm at a facility that respects my conscience. Hopefully this new law has a good effect at facilities where the conscience clause for healthcare workers was not respected.

You want to argue that abortion is something not easily chosen. And I have no doubt that it is a painful experience. But statistically, 45% of women who have had abortions, are having more than one. That statistic comes from the Guttmacher Institute, which is pro-choice, and it tells me that abortion is being used as contraception. The pro-choice position can't have it both ways: saying that there is nothing wrong with it, and then saying that it is a difficult choice. What makes it a difficult choice, if it's not the deliberate ending of the most innocent form of human life?

My primary point was that almost all of the responses to OP were outrage over the very restricted access some states are seeking to make law, but in other states, laws are being presented that allow unrestricted access to abortion. So that hypothetically, a 12 year old incest victim in one state may be prevented from aborting, while a 30 year old may be allowed to abort a 39 week fetus. To the best of my knowledge there are at least 7 states that do not stipulate a limit to when a woman can seek an abortion, and the wording of the law is vague (health of the woman? that is a very broad term). All of the reasons you say why a woman cannot be expected to seek out and utilize the services available to help her carry her baby to term, can be used to say why a woman can't be expected to find a means to abort her baby. So the woman who delivers her baby in a bathroom and discards him in the trash in secret, would you excuse her if she used any of the excuses you list above, for why she couldn't have just legally aborted the fetus she clearly did not want? And while we are on the topic of consent, the fetus is not part of the woman's body. When you have a gall bladder removed, you are not whole afterward. When you deliver a body, your body is still wholly intact. A fetus is carried within, attached to and dependent on their mother for a finite period of time.

I am an OR nurse, and we regularly do abortions after 20 weeks, sometimes for no other reason than the woman changed her mind. Perfectly healthy baby. I exercise my right to refrain from participation, and in a huge OR, the truth is that there are only a handful of staff who will participate in them, even though the majority of the staff would probably call themselves pro-choice. I've talked with most of the staff who do them, and even though they are pro-choice, they come of those rooms feeling disturbed. One fellow nurse, who I like and respect, told me she tries not to look at the pieces of fetus, and has to think of it as a specimen in order to get through it. It's illogical to me that a baby in the womb would not be considered a person. And since R vs W, we have learned beyond a doubt that the fetus feels pain. Neonate surgeons speak of having to give anesthetic to fetuses at 18 weeks during surgery. I can tell you beyond a doubt that abortion doctors do not give anesthetic before tearing the fetus apart and removing it by pieces. You can be disturbed by the bills banning abortion, but what about the laws in New York, Vermont, Virginia and elsewhere being passed that ensure abortion up to birth without any restrictions? Seriously, no outrage? What is worse, a law that makes a woman carry a child to birth and then allows to her to give the baby to a loving home who desires a child so badly, or allowing a woman to abort her baby at 39 weeks because she changes her mind or wants to prove a point that it is her body/her choice? For the record, I am pro-life, and pro services for women and children. I hate Donald Trump. I wish there were a pro-life Democrat to vote for because I feel stuck voting Republican because abortion has to be at the top of my voting issues, but on pretty much every other issue I side with Democrat. I am seeking to adopt, but while there are 400,000 children in foster care in this country, the number up for adoption is significantly lower, and babies up for adoption are almost non-existent. I have a 2 year old, and almost all of the children up for adoption in my state are required to go to a home where they are the only child, or the youngest child. Infertility runs in my family, and I have 2 brothers and a sister who are all looking to adopt, and it is near impossible and financially crippling. I hear this same tired argument about people against abortion not caring about the women or babies after birth, but I don't know a single pro-life person like this. The best of us volunteer at pregnancy centers, and financially support facilities that provide housing, education and childcare for woman in need. The one near me allows a woman to live for up to 2 years after she gives birth, and helps her to get a degree so that she can get a job to support herself and her child. You should go to one of those pregnancy centers and ask about services. Then go to Planned Parenthood and ask what they offer to women who want to keep their babies but are poor, alone and afraid. Then come back and tell me who has the agenda.