vickymarie

Try public health! I precepted in public health and went directly into it after graduating with my BSN. It's a vastly different experience, for certain, and won't meet the experience requirements for every position, but you learn a lot of systems level thinking and case management skills, while still using assessment and the nursing process every day.

Come to public health! A lot of people think public health and home health are the same, but they're most definitely not. I started as a new grad right away in public health and have never regretted it. It's great, because there are a lot of different programs that demand different types of skills. It runs a spectrum from preventive home visiting programs to desk-based case management and epidemiology/surveillance. You learn a lot about working closely with interdisciplinary teams, and get a good understanding of what health resources are available in your area. Plus, great work-life balance! I get nights, weekends, and holidays off, I have time to attend grad school classes because they can work with my schedule, and have a healthy pregnancy right now on top of it. Edit: I was wisely advised by my professor and advisor when I was a student wanting to precept in public health - there will be a lot of people who say that you can't be a marketable or complete nurse without "doing your time" on the floor. They are WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. If you know right away that the bedside is not for you, then you are lucky. Trust yourself. You are in no way obligated to do something that will make you burn out quickly in a profession that you worked so hard to enter, if you find another option that better suits you.

For me personally, I don't feel like I'm "missing out" on anything, having skipped floor nursing experience. I came in as a new grad and love public health - though I'm considering maybe in the future moving to a better-paying county. I think that in many programs, bedside nursing experience is helpful of course, but not a dealbreaker by any means. I know that a lot of people think that you should "do your time" in med-surg or something first, but I am against that school of thought.

I went directly into public health from nursing school and never looked back. I'm from Northern California too and I know that my agency is hiring at least two entry level PHN's. I think other nearby counties are recruiting very actively also! There are some nurses in the clinics (not necessarily PHN's, but work in the health/human services department) who do triaging, but I think help/advice line nurses are often through healthcare providers like Kaiser and Sutter.

The work hours normally are M-F, 8 to 5 with an hour lunch at my work, but there are multiple options for "alternative" work schedules where you can work your 4 hours in different permutations. The work days are set M-F for me, but I feel like if anything, it's more flexible than bedside nursing because there's no clock in/clock out environment. You have a set work schedule, but let's say you're a parent and want to make it to an activity at your kid's school, or you have something planned with your spouse for an anniversary. You can almost always just let your supe know you are "flexing" off a couple hours and will make them up by taking a shorter lunch another day or adding a little bit to your other shifts. I work in child welfare services/foster care, and I get to spend time in the field doing assessments or home visits, in the community doing education, and yes, time at the desk doing some "case management" type things such as making sure parents are able to navigate the health systems and access services. Every program in public health is so different, I feel like there could be a program of interest to everyone.

Whenever possible, allow mom (or dad) to hold them while it's happening. If they're old enough to communicate with, feel if they're tensing up around the site where you're going to administer and coax them into breathing until you actually feel the muscle relax. Also, each child is different. Let them feel like they have a little control. Don't order them to look away, or try to show them the needle. Tell them something like, "You can look away. Do you want to look at mommy?". It also helps if the parents are engaged - but they won't always be. Center yourself and breathe before entering the room with the shots - a shot from a shaky hand hurts more, and the kid is more likely to flip out if you're nervous. For babies, you might need to comfort the parent more than the child in some cases - especially new parents. And if it's available at your clinics, offer the FluMist for those that qualify and save yourself the heartache of seeing a sad little face after they get a shot. There's usually more laughing and confusion when you administer the mist because people don't know if they should snort or tilt their head or breathe.

This was something hat always genuinely bothered me when I heard it. A lot of people say that public health nurses "lose their skills". No. Public health nurses have a different skillset that they use on a daily basis, that they work hard to develop. They develop skills in case management, creative assessment techniques, trend identification, teaching, resource-finding - and none of those skills are less important that clinical skills that nurses use at the bedside. Do you tell an ER nurse or an OR nurse that they "lost their skills" because they no longer are proficient in using OB/L&D maneuvers and equipment that they learned about in nursing school? No. Most people would consider that ridiculous. Public health nursing simply expands on different skills, just like any nursing specialty.

It took me months, they didn't really hurry it up until I started going into the office on a weekly basis (I live in the Sacramento area). Phone calls and emails didn't help at all at that time.

Is it a huge pay-cut compared to hospital nursing? Yes. I turned down a job at a VA hospital for my current public health position - I took the lower-paying position because honestly, it was well worth it. The benefits are excellent. The hours are convenient and flexible. I don't ever feel compelled to drag myself to work when I'm sick. I get weekends off, holidays off, and recently, they adjusted my schedule to fit in with my school schedule since I am starting grad school. Public health, besides being the part of nursing I am really passionate about, has a flexibility that other nursing specialties do not. I can set my own pace and look out for my own sanity. Plus, I am not as physically drained. It's mentally a very challenging job, but it is easier on my body. I think the work/life balance is well worth it. Plus, public health comes with immense networking opportunities while on the job, and many times, that's how you move up. Public health has amazing opportunities for upward mobility.

$142 per credit? That's like robbery! The community college I attended for my prerequisites is currently $46 per credit, and when I went to school there about 5 years ago, it was even cheaper. I never looked into the cost of tuition in other states, but I know everyone says everything is more expensive in the San Francisco Bay Area, where I went to school... so I assumed $30-40 was going to be on the expensive end. $140 per unit is practically how much it cost me per semester to attend the university when I do the math.

I was wondering if anyone here was a graduate, current, or prospective student of the Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing through UC Davis. I will be in the MS Leadership (Nursing Science & Healthcare Leadership) program this upcoming fall. Just wanted to connect with anyone in any of the programs, and hear about any experiences!

I'm still struggling with how your tuition costs so much - were there not any cheaper options? When I was in school and before I got married, it was not that my parents held out on me, but that they made too much for me to qualify for grants, and I refused to ask them to provide financial support because I'm the oldest of 4, so there are 3 kids AFTER me who will need to go to school too. I started off in community college when I turned 18. I worked, saved, and transferred to university, then became a nurse. Along the way, yes, I got engaged, got married, and qualified as an independent student, but before that, I knocked out my prerequisites at a community college because that's what I could afford. I'm not sure where GSU is, but I presume that it's a university, which is MUCH more expensive. You can easily save yourself money by going to a community college first.

First of all, don't let anyone tell you that you "need to" be miserable for a while just to be a nurse, or that in order to be a real nurse, you need to pay your dues and work at the bedside. It's always an option, and it's a good way to develop skills, but as my public health instructor told me, there is this belief out there that you need to be at the bedside to be a "whole" nurse, and that's not true. I precepted in public health at the health department and eventually got my first full-time nursing job there. I tuned out the negativity about how I needed to sculpt my career a certain way, and I'm incredibly happy. Public health, to be sure, takes a very different skill set than bedside nursing. There are many different settings out there, even in such a saturated market.

Hi there! I'm a graduate of the Sac State nursing program (Fall 2013) and I thought I would just share a snippet of the text from my admissions decision way back when, to see if it helps clarify some people's questions about alternates and rankings and whatnot.

I agree... that's why I said that I didn't think the petition itself was going to be the agent of change, but that it would be helpful as a sort of community-building and awareness-raising gesture. I think that nurses as a community, especially new grads and new nurses, have still yet to fully come into their own as a community with a collective voice, so that voice is something that needs to be gathered and developed before it can more actively be used in more effective ways to bring about change.