freckles23

Travel RN from NJ. I heard NJ is a pesky state when it comes to health insurance. U get fined for not being covered. Looking for advice for anyone with info on the matter. Everyone always says get private health insurance, but for NJ, you can only get care in NJ (EPOs). So if im traveling out of state and only visit NJ 30 days a year, im paying for health insurance that I cant use on the go and while on assignment. So I've resorted to agency insurance. So when I end a contract and don't have another lined up in a month, I lose the insurance. I understand I can sign up with COBRA but say I become uninsured end of assignment, and need to go to urgent care or see a Dr, do I just pay out of pocket? Will they even look at me if im not insured? It would probably be cheaper than paying for COBRA. And I understand if something castastrophic happens within 60 days of no coverage, its retroactive which then I would pay for cobra but if I don't sign up for cobra, go to the ER for some big event and they ask me about my insurance, do I say im uninsured but that im going to sign up for cobra? How does that work exactly? Im confused!

I am from NJ (tax home, pay parents shared expenses) and have been traveling for year and a half. I found a location I like in WA and coming up on my 1 year. I would like to stay in this area for a few months longer (3-6 months) to make sure its somewhere id want to settle down. I am willing to forgo the stipends and take a taxed assignment but I had some questions on that. 1. If I take taxed assignment, would it be considered local, since im originally from NJ? (All my addresses and licenses from there) 2. If I rent an apartment in WA for a few months, does that change my tax home? Or tax home does not matter in this situation since I wouldnt be receiving stipends? 3. Is there a max amount of time you can work in one location/facility being local or can you keep renewing contract? 4. When would I need to notify of my change in address, licenses, registration if I stay in WA location? If anyone has further information, I would truly appreciate any guidance. I have appt with my tax people this week so I will be asking them this.

I have a place I put small deposit on so its not like im arriving with no where to go. I figured if I start a week later, I can make a vacation out of it. Im not strapped for money currently and can be comfortable for a while before starting to worry. I was wondering about the contract cancellation because I havent started with them yet so its not like they can hold my check or something. But didn't know if id have to pay any fees or penalties because contract cancellation is super wordy. This is all so exhausting and stressful and I don't like the way they have handled the situation at all. I appreciate your valuable insight!

So I signed contract with an agency. I received onboarding info 2/14. Facility deadline is 3/7 and my start date is 3/13. I have called/emailed numerous times my recruiter and compliance on clearance with bare minimal response. I was told there are people with start dates before mine and they will get back to me when its closer. Well its now March 3 and still no word on clearance. Recruiter is supposedly the “top notch” of the company but this hassle proves otherwise. I was going to leave Sunday from east coast and drive 30 hrs away, take 4-5 days to get there and take my time and get settled but not having clearance, it doesnt make me comfortable. My recruiter said don't leave until you have clearance. So then how am I supposed to wait for clearance and arrive for my start date and drive across country in 2-3 days?! This company has been so uncooperative and I just want to cancel at this point. I understand they are busy but to not even respond to my calls/emails is so wrong. There were so many red flags from the jump. This is the cancellation clause and I don't even understand it because its so wordy. Only thing theyve paid for is UDS and labs. What do u guys do when assignment is across country and your waiting for clearance? The cancellation clause is also very wordy and I don't understand penalty if I were to cancel. I attached it below Any advice, input super appreciated!

I am an RN with 5 years tele/med surg experience at a level 1 hospital which is #1 for cardiac and work on a tele floor. I feel stagnant and stuck in my current position and feel like im not learning much anymore. I want to do Cardiac ICU and spoke to my manager regarding going to the CCU since shes manager there as well and its not a guarantee in the future and there are other employees that also want an ICU position. Now I have an interview at a smaller CCU tomorrow within the same healthcare system but its not known for cardiac and all the complicated cardiac patients come from this facility to the one im currently at. If given the opportunity should I take the smaller job for critical care experience and transfer back to the facility im at now? Or should I stay put and who knows when a position would open up and if I would even get it? Need some insight.

Hi everyone. I have been a tele/med-surg nurse for 6 years. I moved to a bigger level 1 hospital 2 years ago from a small community hospital. My dilemma is that I feel im super stagnant in the position im currently in. I want to learn more and do more. My current manager happens to also be manager for CCU. I would like a CCU position but there are no openings right now and there is also a list of staff that would also like to go when positions open up. I really don't want to see myself in the same position a year from now, not learning anything or just going thru the motions. I saw that there are some ICU positions open at the moment. Should I go to ICU and get my critical care experience and then maybe transfer to CCU when/if a slot opens up? I love cardiac but I need to make some career moves. What would you do?

How are food donations being handled at your hospital due to the pandemic? I know some places are setting up gofundmes. I ask this because the other day I had a coworker call a place and ask if we can have food delivered to us for free at the big hospital in town. I actually found it rude to ask for that and figured if they donated, the restaurants do it at their discretion. Thoughts?

In the event a patient is SOB Or distress, would you place a NRB or venti on them without a Dr order? I dont want to overstep my boundary but also dont want the pt in distress.

Nurses will also come up to me during my shift and say hey can I have this person to give report to or that person to give report to when meanwhile I am taking care of my patients and I have not even looked at or worked out the staff assignment yet. Thats what also irks me. I tell them I will try my best but it depends how the assignments lay out. I really try to get everyones input based on acuity and rotate the difficult patients to spread the wealth. Also this one nurse was like im here for 4 days, can u give my assignment to this nurse who is here for 3? It just bothers me because they are thinking way too in advance. They should know that us as charge means we look back in the book at who had what patients so dont tell me what I should do, I know to look back.

I did not sign up to be charge, I just happen to have more experience so they assign depending on whos staffed on that day. The new grads are all young (20s). Mgmt tells us to write emails so they can track down the complaints. We have had face to face meetings but I feel when I go to these meetings, its just a complaint board of everything and I dont want to complain about everything but there is alot not getting done. Also since we are a new unit, alot of policies and procedures have changed and its difficult to get a concrete answer regarding certain things so if a new grad has a question and im not sure of the answer (alot of the time) I try to reach out to someone who can make a better educated decision because I dont know everything. Maybe thats also where the respect thing comes in because maybe they think idk what im talking about since im always deferring the info to someone else higher up to help me make a decision. The new grads arent understanding their assignment changes, no matter how hard I try to tell them. I dont want to be charge anymore but not many options on the unit since there is so little experienced nurses.

I have also written several emails to management regarding certain coworkers not fulfilling their job needs and it seems like they want multiple emails before they even take action of anything. I try not to come off as complaining to management because I am sure they are sick of hearing all of the complaints but I do not feel supported when it comes to working as charge it becomes very difficult. Also many nurses will come to me to complain about somebody not doing their work but they do not want to write the emails to management so they come to me for a resolution but how do they expect me to resolve something that They don’t even want to send an email about? I tell them to write an email to management because nothing will get resolved otherwise. So do not come to me to resolve something if you do not want to resolve it yourself. I am not superwoman.

They complain to all charges. Some might handle it better than others. I hate confrontation so alot of the time I throw my hands up like “i dont know, you figure it out if u want it changed so bad” because its alll the time. U can never make anyone happy. They need to realize nursing is always changing and you will never have the same patient load twice usually with all the admits and discharges daily, although we try our best.

We are a brand new unit so they took us from our 17 bed unit to a 38 bed unit and we have maybe 7 experienced nurses and the majority are the new grads. We get pulled to help the new grads, answer their questions, deal w their patients and issues because they cant handle their assignments or dont know proper protocol. I dont mind helping at all but it all becomes too much when the secretary is calling u to tell u they put 3 patients on the books and to review their orders before we accept the patient, go help the new grad, get vocera’ed for every little thing and then im more prone to lose my train of thought w my patients making it risky for me to make a mistake. They hired all of these new grads and there is barely anyone with experience on the same shift because they try and spread us out throughout the week. It can never be a shift of people knowing what they are doing or handle their own. I have to be in 8 million places at once every shift and in exhaustedddd

Does anybody else feel like nursing is making them jaded? I am a pretty easy-going person and usually get along with everyone but I realize my role as charge nurse has made it very difficult to have relationships with staff. There are people that don’t like their assignments especially the new grads which furiates me because they expect their same assignment even when they have been off for days or they will look at the assignment board and question me on why they have the difficult patient on the floor or why they dont have their same patients. These new grads feel entitled for some reason or feel entitled to change assignments or other things. They honestly dont realize how good they have it. They have max 5 maybe 6 patients. I came from a unit of 9 patients. Also management does not want to give the new grads the difficult patients because they think the more experienced nurses can deal with it better which made me really mad the other day because I said the new grads are just as capable as I am to handle this patient and if they do not learn now when will they learn? So a patient was taken off of my assignment so the new grad could have it , it was someone with a CBI. if you are going to give me such a difficult patient then do not expect me to be charge on top of it with the floor of 38 patients, 5 including my own patients. Somebody has to have these patients and they seem to take it personal and then I start to take it personal because they start questioning me after I’ve had five years of experience and I am also charge. This has led people to not like me. I really try to give everybody their assignments back but our unit is so big that if I were to give everybody their assignment back they would be walking all over the unit and not be in blocks. There are also nursing assistants that give a lot of Push back whenever they are asked to do some thing. People are becoming lazy and do not do what is in their job description which leads to drama because it becomes talked about and work does not get done. I hate being charge nurse we don’t get paid extra for it and I don’t have time to deal with the drama of the nursing assistant and nurses when I have my own patients to handle especially if my assignment is heavy. The reason why our charge nurse has a patient assignment is because our nurse ratio Will go down a nurse so we all decided to keep the nurse and somebody will be charge. I don’t have time for the petty drama, like I did not get this room can you please change that assignment or give me this patient or why am I doing a clip and prep for this patient. We try to divide it up as evenly as possible but sometimes one of the people will get an extra clip and prep based on staffing. This has led me to have a very sour attitude and on edge all the time and I find myself always talking about the issues or complaining about the issues on the floor and this is not who I usually am but it has become too much and I don’t like the person I am becoming. How can I make these situations better? I am 27 and I feel like people do not respect me because I am not older. When people tell me how to do my job as charge nurse I take it personal because it makes me feel like I am not doing things correctly or doing things wrong so it makes me want to make them do the assignments Themselves or fix the other situations. If they want to be charge so bad then be charge I don’t want to be it. I don’t have time for the drama. What can I do? sincerely very frustrated nurse

I have my BSN and work on a TAVR unit. Been a nurse for 6 years. Not sure what direction to take my nursing career. I believe its important to keep educating and getting the highest degree possible to give myself the most options for the future. I want to get a MSN but I dont know what interest I will have and dont want to waste time going to school if its going to be a waste down the line. But I want to get an advanced degree while im still single and have the time to dedicate. I just dont know if its worth it to waste my time now if im really unsure of my path. I figured I would have gained clarity since ive been in the field for quite some time. I was thinking maybe education and become a clinical instructor or work in a facility with nursing students and work as an RN per diem or vice versa. I dont think I have a desire to be an NP because of the struggle people have even finding someone to precept them has me terrified and that I wont find a position since its so overloaded with NPs these days. Also, dont you need to maintain a certain amount of clinical hours as an NP to practice? So say I wanted to teach with my NP, id have to maintain my NP license by my clinical hours (please correct me to clarify). Any advice on either situations? Also, if I get my MSN in education, what are usually the requirements to keep my MSN in education active? Does it become inactive if I dont teach? Need some clarification.