Dana1969

Wildnurse, the only motive I have is to relate the horrible experience I had at HNU. There were 110 students in my section, without even enough chairs for everyone. I had to sit on the floor, and take notes on my lap (and there were two other satellite sites which we had to accommodate by moving into/out of the tele-classroom). The assessment class had one instructor and a group of third/fourth semester FNP student volunteers teaching each section of the review of systems. I wanted nothing more than to find a nurturing environment where I could learn and grow from an RN into an NP. But instead I found a program in complete disarray, and scant resources devoted to the program. If you had a different experience, then good on you. But for me, when it comes to HNU...buyer beware.

The Magnet designation is pure fiction. I work at a Magnet hospital in the East SF Bay, and the only way we got Magnet was by buying it. No sooner had the Magnet surveyors left, then Management went back to understaffing the floors, starving us for supplies, ignoring patient needs, while being paid HUGE bonuses. My hospital has gone from Magnet into the mud in three years, and nursing staff are being run into the ground. And those plum committee slots go to junior RNs who are related to senior management so they can be groomed for advancement. Payroll fraud is rampant (i.e. forcing RNs to work off of the clock), training fraud is rampant (forcing RNs to sign off on training they have not received), anyone who doesn't "go with the program" is threatened with counseling for time management/negative attitude. Hospitals are business, and cr@p rolls downhill, where it drowns bedside nurses.

At my hospital, certain nurses enjoy privileges like enhanced promotability and better access to training by virtue of membership in a vertically integrated ethnic group. It sucks, but it's reality. I try to be friends with everyone and help out whenever. But at the end of the day, I'm on the outside looking in, and the positions always seem to go to favored few.

Broken...the CEO just posted an Executive Memorandum stating that we are going to have to "do a lot more with a lot less." So broken, can't sleep anymore. The years go by and I watch young women get promoted up the ladder while I do four jobs and get passed over. But when the 400lb Meth Head goes postal who do they call? Or when the computers go down and IT is unavailable, who do they call, or when it's time to do incontinence care on the 768lb (yes...for real) COPD patient who do they call, or when they can't get a line into the long-term dialysis patient whose veins are sclerosed into non-functionality, who do they call. They don't call this week's poster child from whatever person is the accelerated promotion flavor of the month. I don't have an Auntie mentoring me up the ladder. I'm just Plain Jane white as a ghost and twice as invisible. I know twice as much about being an RN as these well connected Baby Nurses, but I can't get any recognition for the work that I do. And they call me to clean up their messes. This is just reality. My broken reality.

Let me give an actual example, PCEA (Patient Controlled Epidural Analgesia). A patient comes from PACU with a PCEA after a hip/knee replacement. Specialty RNs assigned to the hip/knee unit are given 10-14 days training on the care of there patients. Failure of something is simple as improper positioning in bed can cause the analgesia (fentanyl/bupivacaine?) to migrate up the spine and adversely affect the respiratory center. Our med-surg unit started taking these patients, and instead of two weeks training, we received ONE DAY WITH FIVE PATIENTS!. In the span of two weeks, I saw TWO patients go into respiratory arrest, have to be dosed with narcan and transferred to ICU for mechanical ventilation. The primary RN was suspended for 90 days without pay, the patients survived, and it was quietly covered up. But it all comes down to budget. Every dollar saved on training, is one more dollar available for administrator compensation (like our CEOs new Lexus every three years, $1.1M in 2013 compensation, six weeks paid vacation a year, and free lifetime auto/life/health insurance for administrators and their families). I can't get the medical supplies and training I need to be a safe, competent professional RN. But my CEO can donate $200,000 of hospital funds to a charity that her husband has a paid board position with. That's my MAGNET EXPERIENCE. The senior executives distract the public with this "GREAT MAGNET ACCOMPLISHMENT" while stealing everything which isn't nailed down.

I am broken I have been overrun, under-supported, and run into the ground. The patient's on my unit are so heavy, and we are so understaffed that my objective each day is to just keep them alive and unharmed. I can't get supplies, administrative support, training, time off, anything. Everywhere I look, the system at my hospital is failing and falling apart. Management doesn't care about anything. All they do is sing the same old song about the hospital losing money. While the local newspapers document the outrageous pay and benefit packages of Senior Management, the practice of "donating hospital funds to local charities on which their spouses just happen to have paid board positions", the bottomless budget for hiring of Assistant/Associate Administrators (six in the last two years). Every time there is a failure somewhere further up in the supply chain, which results in less than adequate care being given to a patient, it falls to the bedside nurse to fix it. I have all of the responsibility, with no authority, no power, and no support. I have fought this battle for more than seven years, and it has left me bereft of hope, and broken in spirit. I'm done.

For preceptor placement, you are completely on your own. They stress this from the first day of orientation. They strongly advise you to begin your preceptor search upon enrolling, as failure to obtain a satisfactory preceptor placement by the deadline is grounds for dismissal from the program. They had a placement coordinator, but she had at least three other titles (secretary, admin asst to Vice President X, Associate Administrator of Dept Y, just empty titles, she was never on campus and didn't return calls). Then she left and a replacement was not hired (perhaps due to budget constraints?). I was two months in when the department chair announced that she was leaving to pursue other opportunities. It was already looking like the program was close to folding (under-staffed, under-funded). Then, it was in the news that HNU's graduate nursing program was being reviewed by an outside accreditation agency. I know two people who have completed the HNU FNP program, and both have told me that the program has changed into something they can't recommend. Last I heard, they only had two full-time instructors devoted to the FNP program, with the holes being filled by unpaid second year FNP student volunteers. How can a program charge $800-1000 per unit, and not be able to hire staff, provide adequate classroom space, or administrative support? Where is the money going? HNU is running the FNP program like they are trying to wring the last dollar out of students, before they are shutdown. Enroll at your own peril.

I applied and was accepted to HNU's FNP program but was floored by what I saw there during orientation. Inadequate staffing and facilities, the books weren't even available in the bookstore even though the term had started. MBA2RN's comments are right on target. It's only a matter of time before the CA BON closes this diploma mill down.

The training never takes place. We are notified of a change to policy/proceddure, then given a link to an internal website, which discusses the policy/procedure in step by step in detail. Sure, if its just a change like you say "to the official butt-wiping policy which now requires six squares be used instead of four.." then that's just policy. But there are thousands of these documents on this site. We are so overloaded at work that no one has time to access the site and learn the procedures in question. From the start of shift until end, we run to answer call-lights and bed alarms, while passing meds and doing incontinence care on five patients. I run from one fire drill to the next for my entire shift. Sit-down and read something? Yeah, maybe I'll ride to work on unicorn too.

I work at a government run Magnet hospital in the East SF Bay area, with a group of wonderful RNs. The problem is, Management is pressuring RNs to sign off on training which they haven't received. This is how it works. Our Nursing Education department, sends out an email to the floor RNs, saying that there is a new policy (or protocol, or procedure, etc.) and that it is the "Nurses Responsibility" to conform to policy. Then Management sends senior RNs (aka Staff Nurse 3s and 4s), to each unit to with blank training forms which they ask you to sign to "update your training records." Regardless of which senior RN is assigned to you, they all use the same key words saying " expects you to sign this form." That's the implied threat. If you don't sign, you will be reported to your unit manager as a malcontent. Last year, a Staff Nurse 3 harassed me for nine months, to sign-off on training and I finally caved in and signed. A while later, one of my coworkers had a patient go bad, and she was suspended without pay, and then had to go through a probationary period where she was closely monitored. When she filed a union grievance, Management produced her training record, with all this training signed off as completed by her. I'm a single parent, and I need my job. I'm just so afraid that a patient will go bad, and I'll be the next one to be thrown under a bus.

I gotta say I'm with RNsRWe on this one. The manager fired you for a reason. If you think four years and a new degree change anything, it doesn't. Having a new shiny new BSN isn't going to change that reason. Move on and find something better. Good Luck, and don't stop believing that your new RN job is just one more day away. You'll get there. And when you do...it'll be grand:)

B52 = Benadryl 50mg + Haldol 2mg Depth Charge = Prune Juice + Milk of Mag @ss-Cannon = Go-Lytely or Mag Citrate Twist & Shout = Q2Hours Turn Orders (at Night) Code Brown/Chili Bed = BM Vitamin H = Haldol Vitamin A = Ativan Walkie - Talkie = A Self-Care Pt Zombie = Any RN pulling a double shift Golden Moment = Inserting a foley on a pt with urinary retention Gas Passer = Anesthesiologist/CRNA Drive By Docs = AM/PM 30 Second MD Rounders Oscar = Pt Thank You Card Night Crawler = Pt trying to go AMA at night Day Walker = Dayshift RN Night Fighter = Nightshift RN

Here in CA, Kaiser is in a hiring freeze, Sutter is striking, Muir is laying off, St Rose (in Hayward) is just swirling around the bowl before the final flush, the local VA is in complete retreat...cities in CA are declaring bankruptcy (three in the last few weeks)...it's like stories my grandparents used to tell about the Great Depression. Or maybe it's like that scene in Ghostbusters where Bill Murray declares..." Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes! The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria..." Let's put this ghost to rest shall we There is no nursing shortage in California! And there hasn't been for a long, long time. There are lots of sick people in CA, and lots of unemployed people in CA, and LOTS of unemployed sick people in CA, who come to the hospital and are unable to pay anything for the care they receive. They come from all over the world, and they get the finest care we can provide...then they leave without paying a cent. THERE ARE NO MORE NURSING JOBS IN CALIFORNIA! The wheels have fallen off the wagon people. The system is falling apart. I wouldn't be surprised if my ER was over-run by zombies during the next full moon (joke). Really, will the last RN to leave California, please remember to turn the call-lights off.

Having an MSN will make absolutely no difference in hiring. Washington tried an all MSN new grad class once, and it did not end well. I doubt if they will make THAT mistake again. An ADN/BSN/MSN with no bedside nursing experience is still just a new grad RN with no experience. IMO it takes more than just the much lamented "One Year of Med-Surg Experience" to produce a safe, professional RN. The Fall 2012 New Grad class HAS BEEN CANCELED/POSTPONED/SUSPENDED/CUT. However you wish to label it, it isn't going to happen. Not this year, and probably not for a long time. Washington Hospital will shortly follow the example of other area hospitals (like Sutter and Muir), in announcing staff cuts to be made up of voluntary retirements for senior nurses, and LAYOFFS for junior nurses. They have already (quietly) started layoffs in some departments. Perhaps it's the financial strain of helping to keep St Rose Hospital in Hayward afloat (millions given in loans...). Or maybe it's just the enormous numbers of uninsured (coming from all over the world) who have made Washington their prefered (and free) provider. BUT THE PARTY IS OVER! Washington Hospital is in Code Blue status!

Washington Hospital has CANCELED its Fall 2012 New Grad program!