Cold Stethoscope

What would you propose someone do if they're injured by a volunteer who doesn't have the training to safely turn patients? Just suck it up?

Everyone seems to think that they're millionaires, and will be affected by estate taxes. Americans are nothing if not wishful thinkers. Estate Tax and the Founding Fathers (Economist, Lexington's Notebook, 2010)

If the company is marketing to kids, they should be held liable. The cigarette companies were held liable for doing that. Food and drug regulation in this country is spread over several government agencies. It's incoherent, and therefore, regulation is incoherent. Energy drinks are classified as "dietary supplements," and therefore are not required to list the amount of caffeine they contain, even though the purpose of an energy drink is to induce a pharmacological psychoactive effect. If you don't even know how much caffeine they contain, how do you keep from poisoning yourself?

That regime is highly recommended for all students who would like to succeed, while minimizing cardiovascular risk.

Alcohol + stimulants is a very dangerous combination, which is why Four Loko and other similar drinks in their original formulation were banned in the U.S. They were being marketed to young people, and were very popular on college campuses, and their use led to a lot of alcohol poisoning incidents. * * * * Pediatricians Warn of Energy Drink Risks (Food Safety News, 18 Feb. 2011) If you click on the link to the research paper cited in the FSN article, it will download as a PDF.

Uh-oh. :) I have no statistics, but I think that, in general, people are less apt to bully a man than a woman in most cultures.

Study the ATI book carefully. Regarding the science part, review mitosis and meiosis. Brush up on chemistry — make sure you understand the periodic table and bond types. Try to get a reasonable amount of sleep in the days before the test. I didn't do the ATI on-line tests (the ones you have to purchase), but some people highly recommend them.

There is virtually no way you won't be accepted into both tracks with that GPA (I assume that's your science pre-req GPA) and that TEAS-V score. They are both very good. There is not much room for "meant to be" in MDC's ADN admissions. It's a matter of your science pre-req GPA, your TEAS-V score (60%), and passing your background test, drug tests, and health exam. If your competetive score (40% science GPA + 60% TEAS-V score) exceeds the cutoff, then you are in. You are in the running until classes start, as people turn down seats, which are then offered to the next ones on the list.

So I think you're saying that, for a highly experienced nurse, a BSN offers virtually nothing over an ADN regarding one's practice, but someone with no experience might derive some benefits from the extra courses (and at least in some cases, more hours of preceptorship), and in any case, will help you land a job in many markets. I can agree with that. :)

* * * * It seems pretty clear that you're stating that states don't license facilities. How else could that be interpreted? ScottE corrected your statement. He was right. You meant to say, The state give you your nursing license; the facility does not. You left your modifier dangling.

The contradiction is between "I agree that the new standard should be entry BSN," and, "I recommend that you get a BSN at the start of your career because it will facilitate your job search, even though a BSN adds no real value to your practice."

If Medicare is starved of funding, it will "crash." If it's not, then it won't.

I sense a contradiction. Whether a BSN is justified or not, I think very few nurses at any level of education think that experienced ADNs should lose their jobs for lack of a BSN. The MBAs who make the staffing decisions are the ones who need to hear these arguments, but I doubt that many of them are reading this thread. Then there's the magnet status issue....

You seem to think that all your tax money goes to health insurance. It's simply not true. At the end of the day, what matters is how much it costs in total, and the quality of the service (i.e., the value). You don't like paying for the Canadian social safety net? Fine. The bottom line is that Canadian healthcare, while not the standard of perfection in the world, is much less expensive per capita than American healthcare (though it's not as efficient as the systems in Europe), and it provides, on the average, better outcomes. And guess who pays for all those people who show up at the emergency room without insurance, as you will if you have an accident or an acute episode of an undiagnosed illness. Do you think you're invincible because you're young and healthy? Right, because there is zero probability that you'll have an acute attack of something, or that you'll have a serious accident, etc. Is that expression misogynistic or homophobic? Or both? I don't wear panties. Lady, you brought up the topic. Canadian insurance companies provide expat coverage. I don't know what it costs, but it's something to think about. Does your daughter have health insurance? If you get really sick, guess who pays, if your Canadian coverage is lapsed?

This is generally not true, for the reasons RNsRWe points out. The deceased is not able to defend his wishes, and there's little risk of litigation in following the wishes of the family.

Out of the zillions of BSNs you get a tiny percentage of haughty malcontents who post here anonymously and stir the pot. I don't think they're representative. You should see what some people post anonymously on political message boards.

Isn't the common convention to provide references under separate cover, if the person doing the interviewing is interested? A resume goes out all over the place. It's not fair to the people you use as references to have their names and contact information going all over the place as well. And do you simply just throw out a resume with a college domain name? My college doesn't recycle e-mail addresses (it simply increments the number at the end if there is a duplicate name; e.g., john.smith008), and as far as I know, lets you maintain your email address indefinitely.

Talk to someone who has cancer but no insurance and get back to me. Or talk to someone in his 40's paying $800 a month for mediocre coverage with high hospitalization co-pays. Some insured people here go bankrupt after being treated for a serious illness. Is that common in Canada? You have no insurance because either you can't afford it, you can't obtain it, or you're a wild gambler. But then, if you got really sick, you could just cross the border for treatment, right? Do you imagine the money your employer uses to pay your twice-as-expensive-as-Canada's health insurance just rains down from heaven? It comes out of your salary. And now you know that your colleagues are your colleagues, not your sisters. Welcome to America.

I don't understand that statement. Are you too old for your continuing education classes? And yet, many ADN RNs have jobs, and many will in the future, especially those with experience. You may run into discrimination based on your age, which is common in many professions; I hope you'll not tell a hiring manager that you're too old to go back to school, and that you're in that place where you want to enjoy life. There's no doubt that you have plenty of experience, but don't you have to regularly learn new things, such as the effects and side effects of new drugs, etc.? If you haven't taken a nutrition class, it's something I'd highly recommend, even if you're pretty old.

My comment makes less sense since it was edited. I linked three other, older threads on this site on the same subject, and pointed out that a lot of people in those threads were strongly against "losing it" in front of a patient. Apparently that type of linking is not allowed. I guess you can search for those threads on your own, if interested.

Then which managers are hiring the bullies, given that they're so common on nursing units, if this site is to be believed? Do they all have pristine resumes, and exhibit great acting ability at interviews? Are nursing managers skilled at eliminating candidates with sociopathic tendencies? Are some nursing managers sociopaths who look for those in their own mold? Finally, given the education and experience nursing managers typically have, what gives them expertise in hiring?

It's a difficult problem. When you get a very large number of resumes for an open position, even if you use every objective measure you can think of to winnow the pile, you will still be left with a lot of resumes. (And you may have eliminated the best candidate because there was a minor typo in his cover letter.) At that point it becomes a matter of which candidate the hiring manager likes the best. At the end of the day, humans are tribal animals.

I made the "leap" based on what you said. I even quoted you. I'm not saying that they were in any way justified in firing you regardless of whether you were informing your manager(s) about staffing numbers, staffing performance, or whatever. I'm not sure why you are getting so technical over whether the issue was staffing. It sounds to me like the unit has chronic staffing issues, and acute management problems.

This has nothing to do with protected classes. It has to do with defamation of character/libel/slander. Without union representation, you are on your own. It sounds like you are either in SLC, Vatican City, or Riyadh. Given your appealing military background, if you are willing to go public, you might get some support, and an attorney somewhere who would take your case. It you don't do anything, and conditions are as you say, patients will likely (continue to?) die at your former unit.

The is is, the criterion is not, "Who will the patients like?" Rather, it's, "Who do I (the hiring manager) like?" To me the world of nursing management is Bizarro-land. In my previous life I worked on projects as part of a team, and members of the team (even relatively junior members) would interview potential new hires (even prospective managers). The manager would generally pay close attention to the opinions of the team members. They did not exercise dictatorial control, at least not in the successful organizations I worked at. Do any hospitals have CNAs interview prospective nurse managers? It's as if nursing teams are intentionally managed to sow the maximum possible conflict in many facilities. I'd amend that to "...character and capability...."