Dray11

I use jensecrubs.com when I buy greys anatomy scrubs.

My suggestion is not for everyone - but I had bought a Vera Bradley bag my first year of nursing school that works perfectly for me. If you want something cheaper but stylish - back to school is coming up which should offer plenty of options.

Try looking at Target, walmart, Kohls or JC Penney. I have went through several watches since I started school. And after a year each working as an assistant and as an RN - I have probably had three watches each year. I have dropped them, run them into walls, anything you can do to watches I have done to mine. And you don't even want to get me started on what gross stuff has been on my watches... Sometimes all the cleaning in the world won't make it seem cleaner. "bigger" banded and faced watches are popular right now so that should help you. Hope this helps you some.

I graduated last year and was licensed in Ohio. It was painstakingly slow waiting around all summer. I didn't get my ATT until August after having completed the registration with OBN and Pearson Vue in April. I called OBN several times in July and got literally nowhere - they never answered. Until I was good and fed up and called in August and lo and behold, the lady who answered the phone said my information was in the pile she was working on that day. The individual I spoke with said that there were a lot of RN applicants and that since it was a renewal year for RN licenses in Ohio that slowed the process down. Anyhow, by August there was less availability for testing slots I looked at driving to Cleveland or Cincinnati (lived in Columbus at the time) but chose a date on a Saturday and waited about 2 weeks for the date. Saturday wasn't bad - Friday would be worse. That is in the sense of waiting around over the weekend for results. In Ohio (last summer) it seemed if you'd passed then your license would be issued the next business day.

I worked at KDMC for 4 months as a new grad. I left because of things my "experienced" coworkers were doing. And that my manager did nothing to fix it. My nurse educator's answer was "let's see if anything changes...". Not cool. Telemetry was a joke - most of the staff on that unit would blatantly ignore the telemetry monitor - silencing critical alarms and nobody checking patients or anything. Carrying six patients with no assistant is not cool. Especially when you have totals and feeders. KDMC was understaffed when I worked there and I would imagine its worse since this round of layoffs. There is talk here in Ashland of another round of layoffs. One day at work in January and I am not kidding - a coworker who'd started on our unit in August and myself (October) were the "experienced nurses" on our unit. With four others in their first week off orientation and we had a float charge nurse who had no experience in our specialty. That day sucked completely and totally. I took a job elsewhere in the region as a floor nurse and the difference is huge. I'm leaving that position for an OR internship closer to my family but while stressful its so much better than life at KDMC.

I graduated last year and began working my first job on a neuro unit. There was a lot to learn but my coworkers are superb resources. I think it depends on the facility - I work in a facility that is the level 1 trauma center/big hospital with all the specialties in a state where many hospitals are regional hospitals or critical access hospitals. We get a lot of transfers from smaller facilities for rule out CVA, TIA or other disorders. My unit is neurology and neurosurgery and we share the floor our unit is located on with NSICU, we handle step down and general acuity patients. We take general med surg patients too depending on housewide census. Gen post surg patients are great - I had one last week readmitted with questionable infection in their incision - all I did for that patient was pass meds, control pain, do accuchecks and check in on them - they walked to the bathroom just fine, fed themselves etc. We are a tele unit and our units monitor tech watches the monitor for two other floors. A lot of neuro patients have cardiac issues too. Many of my patients are q2 neuro checks and q2 vitals. Lots of CVA patients are out on one side or have major deficits so there is a lot we do for them. Then again though, I have had patients with a history of stroke and you can barely discern any lingering deficits. Lot of managing tube feeds/NGs/PEGs, lot of central line management, sleep apnea management (CPAP, BiPAP). Lots of our patients come on with increased confusion or CVA or TIA but they already have some form of impaired cognition or dementia. Some get combative. Because we get transfers for rule out brain mass we see a lot of inoperable brain tumors and palliative care patients. There are a lot of comorbidities to consider - patients with chronic kidney problems, on dialysis, patients with CHF, diabetes, COPD and actually a lot d patients with problems caused by polysubstance abuse. We have some frequent fliers that provide entertainment for the unit staff. I had to have emergency surgery myself in April and had to take at least 4 weeks off work because of the amount of work we do with our patients. I just now (5 weeks after returning to work) feel like I'm not over exerting myself at work daily.