psychonurse

Sorry this is the first time that I have seen this post and I am sorry that I didn't see before. We have been having student nurses in our facility off and on for about 3 years. We not only have nurses from the community college ADN program but the state program for BSNs. We let them do a lot of things under the instruction of one of our nurses. We usually have one nurse do the mentoring of the students. They give TB skin tests, insulin, help with the infirmary and watch sick call. When there is time they will even go in and watch the practitioners doing clinic. We also have them spend time with the mental health people so that they know what they do. They sit in on thier counseling sessions and other aspects of that area. I work in a state facility and the nurses really like to work with us. When I was a student we never got to work out there and I would have loved it. I might have started my career with corrections earlier and I could have retired sooner. I had no idea what an interesting area of nursing it can be. I am glad that you enjoyed your time in corrections and I hope that you think about giving us a chance after you graduate in a year after you get some med/surg experience. There is another post somewhere that discusses that. Sonya

Chris.....you are doing a great job.....I would hate to do this job although this year it would have been easy for me as I was off work...but you did great and I am glad that I finally found the post for the list. I got two lists yesterday and I understand why it happened. Thank you again for doing this job for us again. I am mailing out my cards from out of country on Tuesday and if I can find my ink, I will be send some out today but I can't find my black ink anywhere even though I had it at the scrapbook store on Wednesday. There are some that I can do with other colors but I need my black also... And please disregard my post saying that I was going to have my dogs lick the envelops....I didn't even though they were trying to find something fun to do yesterday. I love doing the card exchange and getting cards from all over the country and sometimes the world. And seeing some of the pretty cards is even better.... Sonya :candycane::reef::candle:

Depending on the amount of inmates and how many nurses you have usually determins how many hours that you are there. We have some smaller facilities in our state that only have nurses there for 16 hours a day then someone on call for the last 8 hours. The larger facilities are open 24/7 because there is something going on all the time or you have an infirmary and there has to be a nurse there all the time. And the amount of time the nurses works is different everywhere also. Some places it is totally 8 hours and there is others that work 8's and 10's and then some places use 12 hours. Just depends on the facility and how you set it up. Sonya

I agree totally that you need experience working some med/surg or even ER for a while. You need some time under your belt before you start because you are without a doctor quite a while and while you have nursing protocols, you need some experience before you do things on your own. In our department we never hired nurses until they had at least one year of experience before they applied. Now with the shortage, we take new grads and you can really tell that they haven't had a lot of experience. Find a nice job at a hospital at first and then keep looking for a job in corrections, they come up every once in a while and you will like it a lot better. Sonya

Even though I don't have a lot of posts on here and I have been a member for 8 years I do love the site and I get addicted at times to the site. I use to get on during down times at work and I mostly stayed on the correctional site when at work. I used the time to talk to other correctional nurses and give them information. One day at work I was writing a post on how to get your CCHP (a certification for correctional nurses through the NCCHC). Well one of the other girls at work told my boss that I was in a chat room and even though I told my boss where I was and what I was doing, I am unable to get on this site at work. So I have to get my addiction at home and sometimes there isn't a lot of time to get on here but I try. I love the site and even though I haven't met any of you in real life I feel like I know some of you and consider you my friend. Hope to see you around the site again.:yeah: Sonya

That isn't fair to have someone help you with your cards.....but I guess I could get my puppies to lick the envelopes LOLOLOLOL:D:D:D:)

People are already getting cards and I just found the forum that we are going to have the Christmas list this time....:(. Well maybe the list will come out one more time for little ole me....cause I have a bunch of cards that I would love to send out....they are pretty cute if I say so myself. I have sent an email to chris and to jane to see if the can get me on the list.... Sonya

I have been in corrections for 20 years and I love it totally, you have to mind your ps and qs and be firm, fair and consistent with the inmates and you will do well. You never know what is going to walk through the door in the next minute. You can have a fighter, or an impeding MI or anything. And you have to be able to know when they are giving you a story or if they are really in trouble. The good thing is most of the time you are not usually alone when you work with your clients and just keep your boundaries up, even more than you do workihg in any other form of nursing. A polygraph test??? I didn't have to do that, we just had to have a physical to make sure that we were healthy enough in the job. We didn't even have to take a urine test for drugs which I though was interesting. I hope that you join the ranks of corrections nursing and you enjoy it as much as I have. Sonya

Our state treats latent TB...when they have a positive TB test we question them of contact with active cases, if they have any syptoms and if they have any medical issues. Most of our patients are at high risk to be exposed and we lhave a protocol to treat them. We do a chest xray and do lab work and if there is no contraindications then we start them on 6 months treatment. Sonya

I am in Oregon and we have physician hours depending on the amount of patients that each faciity has. Our smaller facilities have doctors for 4-5 hours one or two days a week. The larger facilities have providers for 8 hours 5 days a week. We have one physician on call every day and we have ambulance response within 5 minutes. If you see something that you know has to go to the hospital when the doctors are not there, you send them and call the doctor later in our faciity. Our correctional staff are certified in CPR and usually they are doing that while we get the IV started, O2 masks on the patient and applying the AED machine to the patient. We use to not hire new grads to work in the facilities but it is getting harder and harder to find nurses to work with us that we are starting to hire them, but we put them with a mentor for a longer period of time. Sonya

In Oregon they move you up the scale according to your experience. It doesn't have anything to do with the union it just has to do with the fact that right now we aren't paying very well and it is the only way to get nurses to come to work for them.. We don't give new nurses a pay raise but experienced nurses do get paid better. The only thing about that is you get to the top of the pay scale faster than the other way. But if you have your union fighting well for you, you can increase the top scale of the pay. I am on the bargaining team for our union and this is the second time that I have been. I fight very hard for our wages and this year I am also going to fight for the state to pay retirees health benefits...will let you know how that goes as the bargaining continues. Sonya

I can remember when this MRSA stuff started and all the inmates were telling us that they got bitten by a spider and it went from there. Well that was many years ago and it is still running rampant in the facilites. We don't always put them on antibiotics unless they get really large and it is after the culture comes back and shows us what it is resistant to. Sometimes we have to use Rochepin but most of the time we are using Doxy. A few years ago we contacted the Convetex company and they came in and did a great demonstration of their dressing supplies and we have been using them with good success. At the beginning we sometimes dress the wounds twice a day when there is a lot of drainage. We have them shower with Hibiclens daily and when they are draining we restrict them from work and activities. We have had quite a bit of success with this although there are some people that you won't be able to get totally clear since their hygiene isn't the best. We have had some of those lesions in the worst places but I really feel sorry for the guys who have the cellmate that have one of these and doesn't do good washing and the other guy ends up with them. Sonya

NurseBean73, I can remember about 24 years ago a girl that I worked with at the hospital left and went to corrections and I thought that she had lost her mind. To leave a great job in the hospital and to take care of INMATES!!!!!:no: I thought that I could never do that....Well a few years later and I found out how much the hospital appreciated me and I went out to the prison and I will never regret my decision. I have learned to appreciate the job and taking care of inmates. I have found that the doctors where I work have much more respect for me than they do for nurses in the hospital. We are the eyes and ears for them 16 hours of the day and they learn to rely on us a lot. The autonomy is great. Today something happened that just showed that to me again. We had an inmate come up as an emergency and he is a Chinese man so I know they can be pretty stoic sometimes. Well he came up and had all the classic signs of a kidney stone. I went to the doctors, told them what was going on and the clinical picture and they told me to send him out even without checking him himself. Well he went to the hospital and was admitted as he has a huge stone and they are going to have to surgically remove it. I think we atone our assesment skills quite a bit because we don't always have a doctor around and we have to be able to know when someone needs more care than we can give and to send to the hospital. I really think that we are just as much a nurse as anyone else and you should be proud to join the ranks. Sonya

It depends on where you live. Oregon is always looking for RN's and LPN's, not only because of the nursing shortage but because we keep building more and more prisons and it isn't going to stop. We have a good retirement program, right now the money isn't good but I am on the bargaining team and we are going to work hard to try to get more money for the nurses. If you are interested into going to God's country just google Oregon Department of Corrections and there is a place to look for jobs, but I know there isn't a prison in the state that isn't looking for nurses right now. We have one opening right now and there are other facilities that have many more holes in the amount of nurses that they need. I have been a correctional nurse for 19 years and I wouldn't trade my job for anything in the world and getting close to retiring now. Sonya:paw::paw:

Woolfpak, I have been in corrections for 19 years and have never had malpractice insurance. I had it when I worked in the hospital and wasn't sure about how well my bosses would cover me in a lawsuit. Well I let it lapse when I started to work corrections. I don't know how it is in California but if an inmate tries to sue you, your lawyer is the attorney general and they will defend you unless you have done something blatent and no insurance company will cover you if you do something really wrong. I think that if you have malpractice insurance, it would just make you more of a target by your clients...I just don't think it is necessary in our area to keep malpractice insurance. I was sued once and it was all taken care of and I never even went to court. Sonya:yeah: