Sparrow91

So I have been fighting increasingly worse back pain since before nursing school. It has built to a point now where its becoming difficult to do my job. The pain radiates down the back of my legs and gets to the point were my hands start to shake. I work in outpatient dialysis, I never sit and I have to do some heavy lifting and I'm at the point now were I mainly do CVCs because my hands shake too much for me to feel comfortable doing fistulas and grafts. I have recently been diagnosed with AS and will be starting Humira which will increase my risk of contacting hepatitis and TB. I was wondering what type of work I could look for that would take me away from the bedside. I am currently looking at case management.

Went to a new pcp office as a patient. I was asked the typical screening questions, "Do you have any STDs, Hep B, Hep C, etc..." I started "no, but I work in dialysis so I am at a higher risk of exposure." The medical assistant makes her little note on the computer, I didn't think much of of it. I logged into my patient portal later and I see... "Sexually transmitted disease- risk noted- work related". Has to be the funniest/most mortifying thing I have ever had happen!

First take a deep breath and try to stay calm. You have made it through one of the toughest college degrees with success. You have what it takes to pass the exam, you just have to focus and stay calm. It's been a couple years since I took the exam but I remember I used NCLEX 10,000 RN which is a online access that gives you 10,000 customizable questions, it's not supper cheap but it's cheaper than other options... Lippincott's NCLEX-RN 1

Based on the description I would think gauze and tape would do but I would clarify with the doctor on what they want.

This was the video that was emphasized in my orientation... It drove me nuts the entire time of orientation that the patient was always referred to as the "customer". That really rubbed me the wrong way and gave me a sense of what I was to expect on the job. I do not feel like the professional I thought I was going to be. I feel more like a cruise director on a lido deck! The only difference is that instead of cocktails I bring dilaudid, and instead of warm towels I bring warm blankets, just replace my nurses cap with that of a sailors cap and we'll be all set.

@ roser13: I told them that I would be more than willing to take an IGRA or Gold test but they said without documentation they were not willing. Thank you for help though! @ dishes: I spoke with the PA at the time and I tried talking to my doctor today but because the reaction was two years ago and was not documented when it happened there is nothing that she can do for me. Thanks for the advice! @ MunoRN: I have not had the vaccine, my reactions are not positive TB results they are allergic reactions. Thank you though!

Sine I have been 17 I have had PPDs done, at first I never had any reactions to it, but every year that I have had it I have gotten more and more of a reaction. Two years ago I had one done and I developed redness, itching, swelling and an itchy throat. I took benadryl and the itchy throat went away. I told the PA when I went to have it read, but by then the swelling had gone down and there was just a little redness remaining. Apparently she never wrote any of it down. Fast forward to a year ago I was a new hire and when I was told I would need a PPD for the job I told them of my concerns with the last one and they had no problem sending me to the lab to have the IGRA drawn instead. Now I have begun a new job and at the employee health visit they told me that unless I can show documentation of my allergy I will be required to have a PPD. I called my doctor and that is when I found out there was no documentation of the allergic reaction. It just doesn't seem right to me that an employer would make an employee take something that they feel will cause them some sort of harm. If I were admitting one of my patients and they told me that they had an allergy to something it would be documented in their charts regardless of weather they had any paper work with them. I am not sure what I can do. I really don't feel comfortable taking the PPD again, but apparently I have nothing to prove my allergy. Any advice on how to handle this?

I would say look at your job listings for ICU. In all the ones I have looked at they say they want either previous ICU experience or several years of medical surgical experience.

Bring a drink A snack with both carbs and protein, I bucked the system and instead of bringing a healthy snack I brought my lucky chocolate milk! It has carbs, protein, and CHOCOLATE! Seriously how can you go wrong? Plus it got me through all 7 HESIs, no sense in breaking with tradition now! and your ID Make sure to leave the cell phone in the car, I know it sounds simple but everyone in the group I tested with had their cells phones with them and you can imagine the disapproving stares they got. Wear something basic, one person I saw wore a sweat shirt with a hood and cargo pants, it took like ten minutes for them to take of the sweat shirt and to flip all there pockets in side out. Wear clothes that will be good for a room that may be either too warm or too cold, I tested in the summer and a lot of people had shorts and flip flops and the testing room was freezing! Leave jewelry in the car or at home, again you don't want to be that person that holds up the line while taking off copious amounts of jewelry. You have made it through one of the toughest degrees out there. You can do this!

I think it all depends on what your long term goals are. If you want a job within the nursing capacity were you work closely with patients and gives you a structured routine, a regular schedule, and a job you may want for the long haul then go with LTC. But if your goals are more towards acute nursing and possibly continuing your education further you may want to consider urgent care. LTC/ALF experience is considered nursing experience, any job requiring you to work under your licence is nursing experience, it isn't however acute nursing experience. So again it really depends on what your long term goals are. Good luck!

Seriously the BEST advice! When I took mine I went the day before thinking it would be easy to find. I went around in circles for over an hour until I got a hold of a friend and found out it was on the second floor of another business with only a teeny tiny little sign on the side of the building. It was literally the last building I would have guessed it would be in within that business complex.

I asked the same question when I took the exam a few months ago and the pretty much unanimous vote was to do NOTHING! Get out of the house and away from the computer/study materials! What I did was take a trip to where the testing center was so that way I wouldn't get lost the next day and then I met up with a good nursing school friend who had already taken (and passed) the exam. She kept me distracted and encouraged. I also did some shopping, got my lucky chocolate milk, and set like 3 alarms and went to bed early. Try and relax. At this point you either know it or you don't, anything that you try and review at this point is not going to be absorbed. Good luck, you will be in my prayers! :)

For class I had a basic tote bag (Vera Bradley pleated tote). I never carried my books to class, there was just not enough room on the little desk tables to have a note book and text book. Plus in almost all my classes my teachers had power points of the material we were going over and they were posted prior to class so that they could be printed and brought to class. I had a Mead flex binder for every class. They are light, flexible, and portable. I did however have a large back pack (L.L. Bean deluxe) for the evenings and weekends I spent at the library studying. It held most of my books and my laptop. I also had a canvas shoulder bag I used for clinical. I learned fairly quickly you really do not need to bring a lot of resources with you. Most facilities have lab manuals, drug books, and such on their computer systems and sitting around on desks. The only thing I brought was my lab skills book because the skills resources on the computers did not provide as much info and pics as I would have liked. I also had a very small wallet (vera bradley zip id) it was small enough to fit in my pocket and I could carry cash, change, my id, and credit card. My phone I left locked in my car. Most of my clinical sites had a strict no phone policy. Good Luck!

Wash cloth on the floor of the linen closet shampoo/soap stored in the linen closet 3 loop fibers pulled up from the carpet Patient missing a black pair of sweat pants Trash can without a bag liner I could go on and on. I remember in a developmental psych class we were talking about the elderly and some how the class got on a rant about nursing homes and how "so many of them today receive state tags and can not be trusted to care for our elderly". Once everyone piped down I told them about the ridiculous state tags that are issued and how just because the state tagged a facility for something does not mean that that facility is incompetent. I also encouraged them to ask facilities that they may wish to have their family go to for there book containing their correspondences with the state so that they may see for themselves the quality of tags that they have received. By my states law that information has to be provided and made available to everyone. Heck when I did nights I dug up the book and read it for a good laugh. There are some pretty nit picky and borderline silly ones out there.

Thanks for all the feed back. I have started my job and will have about 6 weeks of orientation and then I am on my own. Just does not seem like it is enough.

Have you thought of taking a pals of acls course? It would keep you busy and it will look good on a resume.

BSN 24

I was just curious on what the average amount of time orientation is for new grads. How many weeks do you get? What type of facility do you work for (Hospital, LTC, ect)? What unit?

Don't let one group of nurses or facility get you down. There are some jobs were the work loads are intense and there is a high burn out rate. But here is whats great about nursing, you can do something else!!! If you don't like what you are doing look into another type of nursing and try that. Go to pinning and look forward to the future possibilities!

CoNgRaTuLaTiOnS SMB_RN!!! Just a tip I know I have heard from several different resources that the trick to answering SATA questions is to treat each answer as a True or False question. It made a big difference for me. Good luck to all the future test takers out there!

I did my first year of nursing school I had... Intro to Nursing (with a 3 hour lab) Promoting Health and wellness (nursing) Chemistry (with a 3 hour lab) Nutrition (which was considered a BIO class) and French for nurses It was a lot of work but doable. As far as having BIO and CHEM in the same semester it would all depend on how well you do in science classes. If this is your first year of college and you find science challenging then I wouldn't do it. But if science comes naturally to you, then you can probably handle it. Good luck!

Not sure what your school offers but one of the classes I took when I was on a wait list for an ADN program was a Death and Dying class. It was very interesting to learn about death and dying in other cultures. Plus a big focus of the class was getting yourself comfortable with the idea of death and dying. One class (or classes) that I have been wanting to take in American sign language. I have had a handful of deaf patients over the years and I wish I at least knew a few phrases. We had a translator but they only came for an hour once a day. I think it would have gone a long way in making the patient comfortable if we at least knew a few important phrases. Just double check with your adviser or business office. Usually FAFSA does not pay for courses outside of your degree UNLESS you are going for a minor or double major.

@Sierrarox: I used this thread to help give me an idea. It is pretty out dated but lab values don't change a lot. I wrote down all the ones that seemed to pop up the most and then looked them up in my lab value book just to make sure. Hope that helps! https://allnurses.com/nclex-discussion-forum/values-labs-amounts-231028.html

CONGRATULATIONS adgn!!! You have worked hard, now time to celebrate! Good luck with the job hunt!

I went to the University of Maine at Fort Kent. I applied in April and was accepted into nursing for that fall. The reason why the college has no waitlists is basically because it is in the middle of nowhere. It is located in a nice quiet town about an hour away from the closest Walmart. But the program is steadily growing. About ten years ago the graduating class for nursing was well under 20. This year (my graduation) between the traditional BSNs, Accelerated BSNs and the ADN to BSN programs there were nearly 90 graduates. Your clinical experiences won't be the same as those found in larger cities, but it is a solid and respected University in the nursing world. The campus does not offer housing for married couples but the rent for apartments off campus are pretty cheap. Many people move off campus to save on costs.