Jabramac

How much of what you don't like about nursing would be improved if you were a DNP?

Living in MN I hate our winters, but I would rather take the MN winters then the hot summers of those further south.

The thing people fail to see is that we already all pay for all this care. Some pay more then others, but we all pay. We pay in co-pays, taxes, we pay in by purchasing products from companies that supplement their employees. The real travesty is that we pay more because we need to finance all those insurance companies, and we pay more because those with our insurance wait longer to go in, get sicker, can't be seen at the clinic because they can't pay, then end up in the ER with more complications and problems. What would have been better for us to pay- the $100 clinic visit when the illness started, or the $3000 ER and admission bill when the illness went unchecked for too long?

:banghead::banghead:

I think when people die around us, it is human nature to try to find justification. It's a coping mechanism. When we think about the truth, that death can be very random, that people who do everything right in their lives can have really bad things happen, we get really scared. It's easier, and more comforting to find fault. I remember one case when a 2 year old drowned in the bath tub, the childs older sibling was in the tub as well. Mom left the room to get a towel, and came back to find the child face down. Staff commented how irrisponsible the mother was to leave the child. But the truth was, we were all scared it could have been our child. When MVC victims come in, we want to know if there was ETOH, if there was then there is a sense that it couldn't happen to me. We had a teen die in an MVC and the medics reported he wasn't wearing a seat belt. I think that comforted us. Later on we found out the vehicle he colided with clipped the side of his car off and the seat belt went with it.

I think there must be a lot of variability that would make it hard to compare one to one. Cost of living has a huge range in the US, so just comparing one US city to another can be difficult. But comparing the whole US to Sweden has a lot more variables. Who pays health insurance, retirement/pension/social security, how many days off are earned, how much sick time is granted. How much is taken for income tax, sales tax, property tax, and what services do your taxes cover... My perception is that in Sweden people may be payed less, taxed highly, but are well taken care of by the government.

Our ER volunteers are not allowed to participate in any activity that might expose them. Not even changing linens. They can put clean linens on a clean bed, but can't take dirty linens off or clean the matress. That said, I'm not sure the type of pants effects infection control at all.

Interesting topic. In the last 5 years or so politicians have been discussing instituting the draft again (although, some congressman who have tried to push through the draft have admitted the reason they sponsored the bill was to get a reaction-- if other congressman thought their children might be drafted perhaps they would be more opposed to war). check out http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c108:s.89: "To provide for the common defense by requiring that all young persons in the United States, including women, perform a period of military service or a period of civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security, and for other purposes." I have heard politicians discuss that civilian services would be an option, and inpaticular, health care would be an option. From what I heard about the civilian service portion is that people would have a choice in what they wanted to do, clean parks, teach kids, work in a nursing home... It would be unlikely that nursing would be a choice as the education would cost the government too much, and the time in service would be eaten away in class. But, nursing assistants and what not might be an option. My understanding is that it would be like joining Americorps, only mandatory. Also, just to mention, we our country has had military drafts during peace time. The entire period from WWII to 1973 included the draft. Even further back in our nations history states and local govermnets were responsible for militias that often included "all able bodied men"even in times of peace.

We get a bonus of $300 a year for CEN, plus we get invited to a special dinner. Aftet taking and passing the CEN test they will reimburse us the cost of it as well. No other pay for any other ceritification.

This happens once in a while in the ER I work at as it is a small town. More often then seeing family is seeing friends and neighbors. Everyone I work with understands if we need to change assignments, swap pts, or maybe just have another nurse do a procedure when somehting like this comes up. I don't know of a specific policy on this, I see it as more situational. Taking care of a neighbor child with a cut finger was no problem, but a friend in with psych issues, I stay as far away as possible. Would I hook up and administer an IV med to my MIL? I would probably be comfortable with that. Would I give my MIL an enema? NEVER!

I read an article a while ago (I'v been searching to find it to post a link, but of course I can't find it again) that talked about the younger generation that is entering the work world now and how there is a feeling of entitelement. The author went on to explain that this is how we have raised our children- to believe they are worth the best, they deserve the best, not to put up with things that are sub par. We have taught them to find better jobs then we had. They have been told that family and friends are the most important things in this world, secondary to work. As a result, they don't want work to take up too much of their lives. They have been taught to say no to 60 hour work weeks and mandatory overtime. On top of that, there is also a feeling that parents can act as a safety net by allowing them to move back in if things really got bad. As a result, as this generation has been taught, don't be afraid to say no at your work, because if you loose your job you can move back in with Mom and Dad for a little while. The article ended reinforcing that this is how we raised our kids, now they are working with us and we have to learn how to deal with how we raised them.

I graduated before there was a service learning requirement, I think that must have come with the next round of grads. FHCHS is a Seventh Day Advitist school, but the religious componant is pretty minimal. Many chat sessions begin with a short prayer. The religious classes I was required to take included "Lessons on Living," which was really a fascinating bible study course. We would read some passages from the bible and then discuss what meanings might we be able apply to our lives. Specifically, I remember discussing the "golden rule." "Do unto others as you would have them do to you." Our instructor emphasised that the passage tells us to DO something, do good, it does not tell us to "Don't do unto others what you don't want them to do to you." Part of this class involved a project, I chose to attend an AA meeting and found it very valuable and eye opening. We also had to take a world religions class. I loved this class. I really enjoyed studying about Hinduism and Buddhism. The whole religion componant concerned me to start with, but there was never any suggestion of converting people, and a strong emphasis was placed on learning about other religions and cultures.

I graduated from FHCHS in April 07. I loved it. Be there no doubt, it is a lot of work, but doable. I continued to work full time and had my first child while in the program. I was sent down to Mississippi to help with hurricane relief for 2 weeks and the instructors were so accomodating with that interuption. I earned an A in almose every class. My impression was that the school really wanted us to succeed and would bend over backwards to make sure we did. A few classes were ridiculously easy, and required little time commitment, but then others were horrid and I found my self locked in my room studying fo the entire 8 weeks or so of the course. Statistics was acutally one of the easier ones. There was a health and well being that was really easy. Right now I can't think specifically which classes were really hard for me (I think I really need to go to bed). I remember thinking in the advanced assessment class that I must be doing the work expected of a grad student. And keep in mind that an online program is really heavy on the writing, lots and lots of writing. Many formal papers, lots of less formal discussion, but lots of writing. We also had narrated power point lectures, and in a couple of classes DVD's of filmed lectures. One thing that surprised me with this program is that it was a lot more interactive then I ever thought an online class would be. With the chat sessions and the discussion boards there is a lot of open communication between the students and the instructors really do read the responses and give good feed back. In a classroom setting you can sometimes sit in the back of the class and hide out. Not online, you have to contribute. I really liked that the classes were 8 weeks long. When I went they generally only offered one class at a time, which was nice for me to be able to really focus on just one, and before you knew it, it was over. This did mean that bigger projects moved fast and you had to be on top of them or fall behind quickly. But, after 8 weeks it was over and on to the next class. Now they have changed the format, I believe, and they offer more then one course every session. I had the same problem with the sales reps from pretty much every school hounding me. Heck, I still get e-mails and mailing even now, three years afterdoing the research. Congrats on continuing your education. I enjoyed the learning so much I am planning to start a masters program in the fall.

I applaude you for considering the long term financial aspects of these careers. I think what is most important for you is to consider which job you will enjoy doing the best. Interestingly, I have know many teachers who have become nurses, and many nurses who have become teachers. Since you clearly are an excellent planner, and you are keeping the long term goals in mind, I have no doubt that no matter which field you end up in you will develop your own plan for retirement. What about being a school nurse? Some districts (at least where I live) include school nurses on the teachers contract.

Fascinating and humerous. Interestingly, though, in school I wrote a research paper on blood letting based primarily on an article written in the late 1700's by Benjamin Rush, a notable physician at the time. Some interesting perspectives of blood letting is that there was research at the time demonstrating specific criteria that it was helpful for and contraindications. The biggest problem was that not all physicians went to reputable medical schools, and some didn't go to any school, and thus were not taught the methods researched that showed effective results with SMALL levels of blood removed. The result was many poorly trained Drs. thinking "if taking a little out helps, then lets take out a lot." Most intersting to me, though, is that we still perform blood letting, but we do it for labratory testing. Think of it, the sicker the pt, the more blood we take! A pt might get two sets of blood cultures, and 5-6 tubes full of blood. Sometimes this is repeated daily. If you think about using leeches, the method of blood letting used way, way back, we are actually taking out more blood then would have been removed with a few leeches.