heartsgal

Has anyone used the nurse dash app to pick up PRN shifts? I have a MS background and would like to be able pick up a couple of shifts a month in addition to my current job, with no PRN contract of minimum days. I haven’t completed the onboarding process in hopes that someone could share their experience with using them. Tia?

Thank you for your replies. I have thought about home health nursing in the past, but it seems like there is quite a large load of paperwork. I suppose that is a trade off though. I am also condersidering a surgery center. There are many in my area but can be tough to get in without at least a year of pre-op or pacu experience.

Hello all, I am in need of your advice and suggestions. Some quick background for a better picture, is that Iv'e been on medical leave since 11/13. After a short viral illness the week before I worked a Mon and Tues and woke up on Wed with sudden deafness in one ear and my balance greatly compromised. After exams, MRI etc.(I am 50 so they have to rule out other serious stuff , I was diagnosed with SSHL/ Sudden Sensorinueral Hearing Loss. Often what happens as in my case, the balance nerve is damaged along with the hearing nerve, so I was unable to work the floor. Iv'e had weeks of vestibular therapy and it has helped me tremendously and close to fully recovered now (75-80%) of my balance issues. I have been demoing some hearing aids with my awesome audiologist and adapting to wearing one. Although I am super eager to return to work, I seriously do not want to continue working 13 hour shifts. I work 7a-7p and typically leave around 7:45- 8:15. I love bedside nursing and patient education though and feel like I would be bored to tears at a MD's office or as a school nurse. I am fortunate as a PRN employee and can financially afford it, so theoretically I could just work 2 days a week where I am now instead of 3. My prn agreement is minimum 4 shifts per 1 month schedule. I would much rather work 8- 10 hour days though, but my small hospital is very limited in what they have to offer. So now what?

I can only speak for myself and my unit. I work a busy MS/OBS floor at a small community hospital in the Houston burbs. At 52 and only 13 months, I have pain in my hips I have never had before and I came from acute rehab and transferring orthopedic and stroke pt's constantly. I think it's because some days I spend so many hours on my feet, charting in spurts standing up. I wear Brooks Glycerins, get new ones every 8-9 months, have custom orthotics and recently started wearing compression sleeves also, because my legs/feet hurt so much at night after 13-14 hours:arghh: We have several older nurses in their 60's, but most work nights and have for many years. We have 1 nurse in her mid to late 60's on days and she is what I would call built of hardy stock. She works 3, 12's in a row and I have no idea how she endures it! While I respect her immensely and know she is a top notch nurse, that will not be me. I've already started looking for alternatives that do not tax me physically and mentally.

Jennylouwho, where did you get the information about the program changing to exams from projects? I will be doing my intake interview tomorrow so I don't have a mentor yet, just enrollment counselor.

I've been considering WGU for over a year, but we were looking at houses for months and finally moved last fall. I'm slated for a November start as of now and sent in my background check fee yesterday. Today I received the email from my transcript evaluation and I have 80 credits and 40 to complete. My enrollment counselor said on average it should take me approx. 18 months to complete the program, if I'm working about 16-20 hours a week on it. That sounds good to me. I would love to finish in 12 months, but I want to have a life while I'm working 3 -12's a week, which we all know are more like 13-14's! Does this sound about right?

I really appreciate the advice you all gave me here and I've tried to be more laid back and not let my emotions get the best of me, when dealing with her. This CM is a LVN with lots of experience and has been at the hospital in this position for over 15 years. I've watched her and paid attention and I think a lot of what she says and how she says it, is out of habit albeit bad ones. After I wrote this we had an observer from corporate on our unit for a short period one day and she introduced herself and listened in on our morning mini patient meeting. The difference in the CM's behavior and verbiage she used was a complete transformation. One of the other nurses and I talked about it and I told her if it was like that every morning our day would be so much better and we wouldn't dread talking to her. I've also discovered when I work the weekend my day seems to go smoother since we don't have a CM on the unit. I still know who might be discharged and get orders if I need them, but there's no constant nagging by the CM steasing me out. It's a simple thing but I'll take what I can get:yes:

I've been working this MS unit for 4 months and while I'm getting down the flow of the unit, I really struggle with the constant pressure as soon as my shift starts, to discharge patients. Our 8 am mini meetings (I work 7a-7p) each day about the barriers to discharge patients with the CM, nurse manager and charge nurse, are something I have come to dread. The hounding from the CM who constantly says, "they have to go" and often adds "they're self pay" to the end of that sentence, some days makes me so angry. I worked 2 years in an inpatient rehab unit before this and often floated to MS/Tele and MS/Obs and didn't hear anything to this extent. This CM is very aggressive and sometimes will ask me repeatedly, if I've called and got DC orders for those pts, that in her words, "have to go today". I realize hospitals are businesses and must get remimbursements for patient care and I readily discharge pts everyday, but I don't believe it's my job to go tell my double mastectomy patient that she has to go home today, because her insurance only certified her for 2 days. Is this within our scope of practice as the bedside nurse? I don't want to hate my job, but this aspect of it is making it tough to remotely enjoy my day and focusing on actual patient care.

I didn't want to be thrown to the wolves and experience the whole, "sink or swim" adage on the job. I attended this nursing school myself and while I had some great professors, the program was often fraught with disorganization and we all hated that. The timeline was too rushed for me this year and I didn't really have time to schedule around it. Maybe next year I'll consider it, because I think I would enjoy it, if I had adequate time to prepare.

I appreciate your input. Thanks.

I was initially honored that my nursing school and former professor, would consider me for an adjunct teaching position, but now I think they are desperate for anyone to do it. I interviewed for an assistant to the clinical professor, but was told I would have my own class of 10 students for clinicals 2 days a week, for a summer session in their LVN program. I was super excited to do it and asked them for 2-3 days of paid training to follow the current clinical professor, so I could get a feel for what is expected of me as the instructor and an idea of a structure for my own class. I'm a med-surg nurse and work prn, so I would need to schedule myself off for those couple of days. I got a email that the plan is for a professor to attend the first 2 days of clinical with me, to orient me to the instructor role. I do not want to start off my own class being "trained" to do the job. I believe this will show my students that I don't have a clue about what I am doing. I would prefer to start my class alone in the teaching role and talk to them about how I am new to teaching and have many things to learn as we go forward together, but still maintain my legitimacy as the teacher. What are your thoughts? Am I simply being paranoid or having cold teacher feet?

When did your classes begin? I'm trying to get a handle on an approximate timeline for myself. Thank you for all the tips and detailed information :)

Thank you all so much for your encouragement and advice! I am eager to "jump right in" Bella and hopefully can begin soon. I'm still working out the financial side of things.

I swore after I finished my ADN at 48 that I was through with school forever. Ha famous last words! I'm a reasonably smart person, but my ADHD and algebra ineptitude have me worried about trying to finish an entirely online program, while working full time. I want to begin and finish this BSN sooner than later, but dread working alone with no classmates. I loved my study group in nursing school. I've tried twice to physically go to school 2 days a week, but it's too much with family commitments and 3- 12's a week. I will have to take stats and a few other prerequisites, so I want to make sure I set a reasonable goal for myself to complete the program. For any of you that might also be a little slower paced students, do you think 12-18 months is a reasonable time frame? How many hours a week were/are you spending on the class work? I completed my application and had my transcripts sent in about 8 months ago and then we decided to look for a new home and sell ours, which took 5 months. They keep calling but I want to make sure I am mentally prepared for this challenge and make the correct decision.

Thank you commuter and love to sleep, that relieves a great deal of my anxiety. I just filled out my application this week and hopefully in a few weeks I can get this ball rolling. The traditional track of trying to attend school a couple days a week is a huge pain in the proverbial butt so I'm ready for a new and fresh approach😊

I'm a working RN/ADN and spoke with an enrollment counselor today. I have a few general ED classes I still need (I.e. Govt and nutrition) and I haven't had Chem since HS (a very long time ago I have tried taking algebra at community college but always get very bogged down with the large amount of homework required, along with working. I am great with basic math and never have a problem with day to day calculations, if I need to do any. Does WGU require algebra? The course description says, "foundations of college mathematics". Can anyone tell me what that is exactly?

Perhaps the word "standardized", is throwing you off. I believe the question is asking you what method does the nurse utilize to estimate lochia, amount color etc. the use of that word just makes it confusing, one of the many things I don't miss about nursing school

I graduated May 2013 and probably 50% of my class have not found hospital positions, or do not work as nurses period, because it is a tough market out there. Even when you do interview well, are professional and articulate, if you dont have the experience whoever is interviewing you needs they have to look at someone who does. I was rejected many times when I knew I interviewed well and was confident and finally got a SNF job also 6.momtjs after graduating. I loved the nurses there, but hated the facility because it was a very heavy workload and very stressful environment with terrible management. I stuck it our for 5 1/2 months and then finally got hired at a smaller hospital (340 beds) in an acute care rehab unit. It's not without its issues either, but it's a way better than the SNF and we float to med-surg, so I've learned so much more then I did before. Do like I did, give your self permission to feel like crap when you get rejected. It's normal to feel down after a rejection, especially if it's for job you really wanted. It would take me a week or longer each time after the rejection to put my big girl panties on and move past it. You feel demoralized and just plain beat down every time afterwards. The lucky ones thst get jobs right away or quickly will never understand how it feels to interview time after time and how gut wrenching of an emotional roller-coaster it is, but those of us that have lived it do. So hang there, it will happen, just don't stop applying and if possible find another SNF to work at that is safer. Good luck to you and please update us in the future. ?

I have a friend that works at Mem Hermann mem. City in mom baby couplet care and she loves it! She transferred there from imu at a hospital that was much closer to her home, but she was miserable and now seems to enjoy going to work, since she loves that unit. Good luck.☺

It's ridiculous with information at our fingertips and so readily available, any prudent nurse would give a new mom such outdated advice. I am glad I found this thread though, because I am applying for a transfer to pp from an acute in patient rehab unit. Postpartum has been a goal of mine since before nursing school. I also want to obtain my CLC or IBCLC as soon as I earn enough contact hours and I've wanted to do this for several years now. After reading your comment and others here, when I emailed the unit manager of women's services I included that information as well as my passion to be a pp nurse. Hopefully it will help land me an interview. Fingers crossed?

Update: My unit mgr tod me today the after investigation it was revealed that the anesthesiologist accidentally canceled his own order for tele in surgery so the pacu rn wasn't at fault either. Since I was so overwhelmed I just presumed I had missed it. I have still learned a valuable lesson though as far as documenting when a patient returns to me after surgery or any procedure to be sure and document the full report from the transferring unit :)

I've worked on the acute care rehab unit for 4 months and was cleared to float after 3 months per policy. Our censuses has been low the past several weeks, so I've floated 4 or 5 times and it hasn't been pretty but I've learned a lot. Last week though was nothing short of a complete and utter disaster. 3 of my 6 IV's infiltrated leaving me extremely backed up and finishing the 9am med pass at 12:30. Being so far behind made me a wreck trying to so hard (and unsuccessfully) to catch up, while my pocket phone rang incessantly. I am not afraid to ask for help and asked questions several times, but everyone else was slammed also and even the charge nurse was harried. After lunch I finally got help with the IV's and 2 discharges, one to an inpatient hospice care facility as she was quickly deteriorating. There were several situations that came up that I had no idea how to handle, because I haven't had exposure to those specific things on my unit. As usual I was there 2 hrs after shift to do charting I had no time to do all day. The next morning I received a call from the unit supervisor with some questions on a few things I didn't do correctly. The most important of these being her following up on my 91 y/o patient who crashed during the am hours and had to be transferred to ccu. After coming back from a procedure there was an order for her to be placed on tele that the pacu nurse didn't give me in report. I also missed the order after acknowledging 20+ orders before she was transferred back to me, that to my knowledge all pertained to the pacu since they all had "pacu" at the beginng of the order. I was very upset to hear my patient had a code save called for her, for something I know was largely my mistake because I should have caught it when she was transferred back, even if I didn't get it in report. Thankfully she was stabilized and did not go into full arrest. I told the supervisor that I take full responsibility for my mistake, especially since I did not document the report from the pacu nurse (a mistake I will never make again). I was so terribly overwhelmed that day trying to get to everything and have learned a valuable lesson the hard way due to an incident report with my name on it now. I do begin my day with reading orders and the latest h&p doctors's progress notes on my pts after report, but I can't seem to do it quickly and was behind before I even began my day. What can I do in the future to help stay on track with a 1000 things happening all at once? How do I not get overwhelmed when I see I'm getting so far behind on my meds and other tasks? I love being a nurse I really do, but some days lately I ask myself why I went to nursing school in my late 40's to be so exhausted and overwhelmed.

I was thinking along the same lines with ortho, because I know my faculty doesn't have an designated ortho floor. I wish I could float to the post partum unit. I only went there twice during clinicals, but wasn't the mother baby couplet care I think I would really like. Thanks for the encouraging words :)

Thank you for the advice and it's funny that you mention floating because this week I go on the float list and will likely be floated to m/s neuro/ tele tomorrow, because our census has been very low and I'm at the top of the list. I am nervous because I don't remember squat about tele from school, but also pretty excited to broaden my horizons Unfortunately I don't think my hospital allows floating to women's services and I'm not sure how to get that information without giving away the fact that I don't want to stay on the rehab unit long term.

Thank you for that wise advice. I guess being almost 50 has me feeling like I need to hurry since I simply don't have 30 years for a career. So I think I will go to the m/s conference and learn as much as I can and enjoy myself. Thank you :)