visionary123

It's hard to know what to do 'after the fact'. I would probably leave it alone and ask about a pay raise (without mentioning co-workers' wages) at a job review. I wish I had thought to ask around in general about wages before I got hired at my first job (which was only 6 weeks ago). I had no idea what to ask for when they wanted to know, so I was honest and told them I didn't know :). Later a friend of mine that works for a different agency (but has a similar work situation) and I were talking about wages. I told her that I thought my pay was awfully low for what I thought a nurse would make. After I told her my base and comp wages she responded "That's not bad for an LPN." Trouble is, I'm an RN! Oh well, I'm learning a lot, and everyone at this company is very kind and patient while I am learning. So, I plan to stay here without mentioning my wages for at least a year.

Stargazer, sorry, I realize that I never answered your question. My daughter did not have meningitis. She had chicken pox. She had had it when she was 10 months old, and when she was ten years old she broke out in a mild rash after being exposed to a child who had a rash from her varicella immunization. Because of these two earlier chicken pox episodes, the ED physician insisted that it was impossible for her to have chicken pox again despite having been heavily exposed to it by four young children in the past month. I insisted that she do some blood work, and pointed out how swollen her spleen was. She did the blood work and came back saying that her platelets were low, and her white count was 2.4, so she did have a virus, but that 'the virus was likely caused from her being under stress because of her finals coming up in college' and told her that she was not contagious! I still can't get over the fact that she told her that a VIRUS wasn't contagious. While my daughter was laying on the hospital bed in the ED, she broke out in approx another 200 pox during that 90 minute period. The nurse came in to give us our discharge instructions and part of it was "bring her back in if she gets very many more spots'. I actually laughed and said "Why bother? She has broken out in at least 100 to 200 more spots in the last 90 minutes and the doctor still doesn't think this is anything to worry about." (This outbreak stemmed from a 2-year-old getting shingles (she'd had chicken pox at 12 months), and both her 13-month-old brother and 2 week old brother ended up with chicken pox. My daughter was helping at their house extensively as she assumed she was safe from contracting chicken pox.) Her own clinic couldn't get her in before two the next afternoon, and although they prescribed Acyclovir immediately, she had missed the 'magic' 24-hour window they like to start Acyclovir within. Her clinic wanted to keep her out of the hospital because of how contagious it was so they said they could provide outpatient support via their infusion room and since I am a nurse decided to see if we could get through it at home. Before the week was out she had chicken pox over most of her body, as well as on internal organs. She even coughed them up as they shed off of her lungs. Anyway, I had no idea how horrible chicken pox could end up being. My young granddaughter ended up in intensive care with encephalitis after being exposed at our house. My own 21-year-old did not end up recovering quickly as we hoped she would. It affected her liver and spleen. It was later determined that she had likely also had mild encephalitis. She has had to go into the clinic for several repeat blood tests, and her physician advised it would likely take her all summer to recover fully, which has certainly proved true. And we never did get the usual survey from the hospital, so my daughter did not have a chance to share her feelings about her experience with that particular physician.

Thank you - I wasn't sure how to delete one of them...

I just got my first job as an RN. It is all overnights, including many 12 hour shifts. I will rotate 3 nights one week, 4 the next, averaging about 30 hours a week. I start training in a couple of days, from 2300 to 0700. I am wondering if anyone can give me advice on how to set up a new sleep schedule? There are probably a lot of you out there that are veterans at working night shifts that could help me out! Is it best to sleep as soon as I get home, or later in the day before I go back? On my days off, can I go back to a normal schedule? I heard about sleeping in timed sleep cycles - has anyone else tried that? I am worried about falling asleep at work - I've never worked nights before. Since it is in a home, there won't be anyone else to talk to to help me stay awake. Any advice on how to stay awake in a quiet household will be appreciated.

I just got my first job as an RN. It is all overnights, including many 12 hour shifts. I will rotate 3 nights one week, 4 the next, averaging about 30 hours a week. I start training in a couple of days, from 2300 to 0700. I am wondering if anyone can give me advice on how to set up a new sleep schedule? There are probably a lot of you out there that are veterans at working night shifts that could help me out! Is it best to sleep as soon as I get home, or later in the day before I go back? On my days off, can I go back to a normal schedule? I heard about sleeping in timed sleep cycles - has anyone else tried that? I am worried about falling asleep at work - I've never worked nights before. Since it is in a home, there won't be anyone else to talk to to help me stay awake. Any advice on how to stay awake in a quiet household will be appreciated.

Seven years ago my 16 year old traveled to a larger city for the weekend and then came down with whooping cough about a week and a half later. Except that we didn't know it was whooping cough - we thought it was just a bad cold with the worst cough he had ever had. All my children had been vaccinated, including him. One by one, my older children caught it from him, including two that had asthma. We inadvertently exposed my newborn grand daughter to it as well when one of my apparently-healthy daughters went to stay with her sister to help her with the new baby and then came down sick while she was there. I remember laying awake at night listening to my household coughing and coughing and being SO frustrated that nothing stopped it. After some research (I was not a nurse back then) I finally realized that they had all the symptoms of whooping cough and got it tested. Then our practitioner gave the treatment to everyone, plus prophylactic antibiotics to my husband and I and any family that hadn't come down with it. My two children that had asthma coughed for six or seven months. My 16 year old, previously very healthy, now coughs for a long time whenever he gets a cold. My newborn granddaughter survived after a couple weeks in a large children's hospital, but ended up with some damage to her lungs. I know first-hand that immunizations are not 100 percent, and also that they wear off. Once the cough sets in, the patient is stuck with it for a long time (it used to be called the 100-day cough), but they should still get the antibiotic treatment so they don't continue to expose others. Does anyone know how long immunity lasts after you have had the actual disease whooping cough?

"I love my cat" - terminated for napping in your car on your own break? What? If you ask me, a power nap could do wonders for making a safer, less sleepy nurse.

I'm sorry, ThirdGen, that it took me so long to get back to you. I haven't been on in a while. The shoes I use and love are Saucony Women's Grid Omni Walking Shoe in white. [h=1][/h]

I graduated from an ADN program in Minnesota last year, at the age of 48, so I am not looking at college as a young, fresh adult. It took me two years to get through the pre-reqs for my ADN program because I could only go half-time. I don't have to tell any of you how crazy things got when I started the actual nursing program portion. First, my practical nursing program, and the next year, the registered nurse program. (At the school I went to, you have to successfully complete practical nursing and pass the NCLEX for LPN before you can move into the RN program, which meant that not everyone moved forward). I might going against the flow here, but I had a positive experience at my nursing school. Other than the craziness and insane amount of studying and work expected, I really liked my nursing school. I thought I must have the best instructors in the world. They not only encouraged questions, but tried to answer all of them (and if they couldn't, they worked to try to find the answers). They gave many examples through lectures to try to help us apply what we were learning to real-life situations. We were encouraged to email or call with further questions. We not only met before, but also after each clinical so we could go over our experiences to learn as much as possible from each other. My instructors truly seemed to care about each of us, and wanted us to succeed to become the best nurses we could be. They were uplifting and positive in their attitudes toward us. They also had student representatives join their meetings regularly, and we were encouraged to voice our concerns to our student representatives so that they could be addressed. I know that instructors come and go, so I hope that it continues to be the positive place it was.

Fascinating! I enjoyed reading this. Thank you for sharing it!

I am 5'9" which is tall enough that I don't like to add extra height either. I also have plantar fasciitis so good arch support is a must for me. I did find a pair of white shoes that I love. Although they add about an inch in height, I found this acceptable considering the excellent support they give me. They are leather, but the tongue has mesh in it. Since the tongue is covered by laces, it doesn't really get dirty. I've also washed them in my washing machine with bleach a couple times and they are still going strong. My shoe size is 10.5, which they carry. They also have 11, and 12, but I don't know about 11.5. Although I bought mine from a shoe store, I did just find them online on a popular site for $61.95 including shipping. Am I allowed to post a link to them here? Or at least state the name of the brand and type?

SeattleJess, I honestly don't know if this hospital would have the culture of retaliation or blacklisting - I just didn't want to take a chance. I highly doubt that ALL of their facilities would, but I still want to be careful. I felt much better just by posting it here and getting some opinions. She had to go into the ED again a few days ago (six days after the initial ED visit). This time, I chose a different facility, but it was still the same hospital system. They gave her excellent care - I couldn't be happier with how they handled it. My daughter is now well on the road to recovery, and although she is weak as a kitten, she should make a full recovery in the next couple weeks. We also found out that this hospital system will send out surveys about both ED visits, so my daughter will have a chance to air her concerns as well. Thank you everyone for your advice.

Congratulations! That is wonderful, and I am so happy for you!

jadelpn, I was in the room with her the entire time. I have read a lot of good advice on here - especially liked the comment from nurse156 about the mama bear instinct running deep. Haha - that is so true! I think I will wait until my daughter recovers and then talk to her about it and allow her to follow up if she so desires. I've had to contact her college instructors because she was too ill, but they have mainly been supportive; most of them have offered to give her an incomplete so that she can recover fully and then finish up her last week. Poor girl was supposed to graduate this week .

Ginger's Mom, Funny, I never even thought of that!

LoveMyBugs, how does Western Governors handle the clinical portion?

Okay, I need some advice. First some background: I graduated as an RN with my ADN last year. I had a long-time home care client which kept me adequately employed, and I had a lot of things going on with my family so I didn't actively begin to look for work as an RN until after my client passed away. I have only applied at hospitals since then, and not gotten any calls, so I am planning to start looking into home care again. I am older (49), but I have good references and graduated with honors. I have not been very aggressive because I am only looking for part time work at this time and am planning to go back to college to get my BSN in the fall this year. Okay, now for my dilemma. I won't go into the details (unless someone wants them), but basically I just had a situation happen that I would like your opinion on. I brought my 21-year-old into the ED for care on Sunday night because she was ill and rapidly getting worse. She did not get adequate care and was misdiagnosed even though there was heavy evidence of what was wrong (and I told the ER physician she had been very exposed to a highly contagious illness). The ED physician even told me that my daughter was not contagious and that she could go out in public without taking any precautions. I was very frustrated when I left the ED because I knew that she needed treatment quickly, but then I had to wait until my clinic could get us in the next afternoon. They quickly diagnosed the obvious problem and set things up for me to be able to care for her at home. She is so contagious that they didn't want her in the hospital if it could be helped. She was (and still is) sick enough to warrant hospitalization, but since I am an RN and our clinic can do IV infusions, they wanted to try to have me care for her at home. The delay in proper treatment caused her illness to become more serious and she is now quite ill (but expected to recover). Her own doctor was not happy that the ED did not treat her immediately for what she called 'a textbook case'. Some people have told me (including a physician and an RN) that I should file a complaint with the hospital and refuse to pay the bill. My husband also wants me to file a complaint. Personally, I am not worried about the bill itself because my daughter has insurance, but I am upset about the way my daughter's case was handled rather nonchalantly. I am especially upset about how ill my daughter is. It is highly likely she would not have gotten this bad if she had been given the proper medication in a timely matter. Also, I think that physician made a foolish error by telling my daughter that she wasn't contagious, didn't have to wear a mask, and could go back to college when she had all the symptoms of the highly contagious illness that she had been exposed to. I am not interested in getting anyone in trouble, but I would like the ED physician to realize that she potentially put my daughter's health in serious danger, plus could have put the public at risk by insisting that she wasn't contagious. However, I would also like to work at this hospital some day - this is where I've done most of my clinicals and I really enjoyed working on the med-surg floor. Not only that, but all the hospitals and most of the clinics in our area are in this same system and I am afraid that I might get 'blacklisted' if I file a complaint with the hospital. What do you think? I am not talking about whether they should be able to 'blacklist' me or not; I am trying to be realistic - do you think if I make a fuss that it could potentially affect my chance of being hired by them later? I feel like I have a moral dilemma - I want to do the right thing, but I also want a job later! I don't know if I should file a complaint and potentially risk not being hired to work in this medical system (which is almost the only option in our area besides some LTC facilities)? Or just let it go? Do you think I'm being silly to even worry about it possibly affecting future employment?

I was just thinking about how I missed nursing school too. i also graduated less than a year ago from an excellent ADN program. I've kept in loose contact with some of the nursing students, but while we were in school we talked all the time . Now I don't even want to call them because I am too embarrassed to tell them that i am still looking for work. For various reasons (mainly because I had a long-time home care client), I did not start seriously looking for an RN job until about a month ago, and still have not found one. I am envious of the nursing students that I run into at the hospital and/or clinic because I miss caring for patients. I also really enjoyed working with my instructors and preceptors and the freedom that I felt being able to ask any question I wanted about anything we were doing. I asked our public health nurse to please let me know about any volunteer opportunities, but so far I've only been able to volunteer at a immunization clinic.

Thank you for all these links to help with interviews!

MrChicagoRN, I didn't even know that allnurses provided CEUs. I really know almost nothing about Continuing Education. Next time I fill out a survey for my nursing school, I am going to address this - I think they should prepare us somewhat for them.

I have no advice for you, but am writing to say thank you for posting this. I graduated with my ADN last year and passed my NCLEX last July. Although I applied for a hospital job in the fall (and got a rejection letter), I have only recently really begun to look for an RN job. I was still taking care of my home care patient until last November so I wasn't in a hurry. Now that I am not even getting phone calls back - nothing but form-letter rejection emails - I am starting to feel like I will not be a good nurse because I am not starting to work soon enough after school. I hope that you find a job soon, but honestly, I am so relieved to know that other people regularly apply for jobs and don't hear anything back too.

The more I read, the more scared I am about getting the first job!

I graduated last May from an ADN program, then went into an RN preceptorship. Unfortunately the hospital where I did my preceptorship was not hiring (very small hospital) so I had to move on from there. I had a private homecare client so I continued with that job until she passed away last November. Then I had to renew my CPR for Healthcare provider, which I was able to do in December. When I was in school and asked about Continuing Education, everyone just told me that when I was hired somewhere I would get so much extra training that I wouldn't have to worry about it for a while. Well, I have applied at several hospitals and still not been hired. I have to have 14 CE credits done by the end of September so I'd like to start working on them. I see in my nursing magazines that many of the articles are available for CE credit hours. Is this how many people get their CE credits? Does this count as "contact hours"?

Thank you for this helpful information!

My heart went out to you as I read your post. I can only imagine how difficult this must have been for you. It is wonderful that you recognized what you needed to do (take medical leave and step away while you recover), and to me this shows that you are very responsible. You even took an extra step that many would not have in telling your floor manager what was going on. I hope that she also sees how difficult this was, and respects you all the more for it.