ABitterPill

I was burned out by the time I got out of school!!!!! LOL!! Find what you LOVE and be happy in what you're doing.

Sounds similar to my experience with home health! You absolutely did the right thing. How long had you worked there?

My question is why? How is your correct answer going to let them know whether you are right (or wrong) for the position? I'll have to do some research.

I'm not from that area but worked at Gentiva Home Health in my area for a month & a half. My experience was not a good one, everyone was nice enough but the orientation was horrible. I had no home health experience at all....my orientation was to ride along with another nurse. They are not on computers so all of the OASIS paperwork must be done by hand & there is TONS of it!! I had paperwork from the start and none of it was really explained to me. I told my manager and preceptor that I really needed help understanding the paperwork (the how/why of it all) and the response I continually got was "You have to step it up, this is home health!" Not satisfactory to me, so after a month and a half of this, I had to tell them that it was not working out for me and that I had to move on. I loved the patient care but the paperwork is horrendous! Oh and also---I was the third nurse in as many months that had left because of the paperwork!!!

Thanks for the list of apps--very useful information!!

I was interested in WGU until I found out that they grade as pass or fail only, no GPA so if you are planning to continue on to say DNP and have to apply to another university, your classes will not be accepted..making all of your work a waste of time, I feel. Anyway, so now I'm considering University of South Alabama online for my BSN, MSN and they also have a DNP program. Anyone familiar with USA online programs?

Just reading through this thread caused such anxiety in me from memories!!!! I could never understand why this was happening and it was something that drove me absolutely nuts! The ER nurses and the ICU nurses both act like they are sooo much more intelligent than a floor nurse----it's totally ridiculous and makes me furious! I've recently retired as a Med/Surg staff RN and hope to never have go back to hospital floor nursing ever again!! Sorry--just had to get that out.

I agree, I always give a little more TLC to those that have given the prior shift a hard time, most anything to get me through my shift w/out incident and to make them happy. But there are those that are just miserable people and are determined to make it miserable for everybody else. Then you just do the very best you can to try to appease them.

I've worked night shift now for over ten years and all can tell you it is still not easy. Working 3 twelves is not easy and the older I get the more intolerable it all becomes. The best things I've found is to eat healthily (you can really pack on the pounds working nights. I've found that when I'm tired, I crave carbs), drink plenty of water, exercise and get your sleep! I've been pretty darn lucky because I've had a set schedule so I don't have to work random nights during the week...it's always the same. That really makes it more tolerable but it is still difficult because I then get back into "normal" day living the nonworking nights and then my body has "adapted" so that usually on the night that I return to work, I'm able to sleep some that day. Then do my 3 nights--(come home, sleep, get up and return to work--for the other 2 nights). But that 4th day, at the end of my stint, is a completely lost day--I'm completely useless, irritable and difficult for that 24 hours. The next day is a little better, the third day I'm more "normal" and then the fourth, completely back to normal and ready to do it all over again!! I'm single, unattached, no children and no life!!! And after these 12 years--I'm looking to change that!!

CodeTeamB: Do you have a "sane" nurse manager?! Cause, if we try the "scary nurse pants" thing on our floor and a patient or family member expresses the least little thing about it, we're reprimanded...leaving me to wonder, just how much abuse is a nurse expected to take---from pts, family members and my nurse manager?! I'm about at my ultimate limit sadly.

I know this is an older thread but I have to put my two cents in on this and that is: It has been my experience with male student nurses and male RNs (with the exception on 1 over my 12 years of nursing) that they ALL act like they are the "big rooster in the hen house" and know it all!! I noticed in school that the men seemed to have an easier time of it given that the instructors were female and there were very few men (1 or 2) in my class. The instructors catered to them. Now they get out on the floor and think they're "all that and a bag of chips" and can't take any constructive criticism or instruction from their preceptors/coworkers. We presently have a male PCT/student nurse working prn on our floor that is a nightmare to say the least.