a.evans

Thanks! :)

I agree about the charting.. I've been a nurse for a year so I obviously don't have a lot of experience. I work on a very busy ortho floor (with some med-surg overflow). But I used to think charting took so long, until I actually timed myself. When I have time to sit down and focus just on charting, it takes me about 5 minutes for a full head-to-toe assessment per pt. Your hospital's policy on charting may be a little different than mine, but I chart by exception. If everything is normal for a particular system, I chart WDL and leave it at that. Only if there is something different do I go into more detail. Don't make more work for yourself. As one of my coworker nurses once said, "work smarter, not harder". :)

Hello fellow nurses out there! I need some advice! I've been working on a very busy ortho floor for a year in Roanoke, VA. I worked nights for 10 months and have since been on the mid-day/evening shift, so I'm just getting used to really working with SW, PT/OT, case management, doctors, admitting/discharging, and all the other crazy stuff that goes on during the day. I like it in that on ortho there's mostly healthy people who get better. But don't in the fact that I'm literally running around all day seeing all my patients (usually 4-6 but throughout the day with discharges/admissions sometimes around 8 different patients), passing out meds, pottying people, etc. It gets really stressful with so much going on. I know part of that is nursing in general, partly the fact that I'm still a new RN, and partly the floor. I would like to know, first of all, what floors or different nursing jobs I should look into that maybe aren't as stressful in that way. I saw a variety of floors in school, but to really get the feel for them in such a short time was hard. I like cardio, and like the idea of having just a couple patients like in an ICU. I liked my ICU rotation in school, though I felt like I didn't do all that much. And I don't know if I could really handle all that goes with working on that type of a unit. Something also like pre-op or PACU interests me because of more of a one-on-one straight-forward care setting but I don't know very much about them. Any thoughts on these floors or others y'all have experience on would be appreciated. Also, I'm planning on moving back to Florida in September, so I'll be looking for jobs there. My family is in West Palm Beach. I went to school up here in VA so I think that's why I didn't find a job down there right out of school. But I really don't know much about hospitals down there. I feel like nursing in general is better up here, but I may be biased and I obviously don't know because I've never worked there. What are the good ones in West Palm/South FL area? What are your recommendations? I have my BSN and will have a year and a half experience; a lot of jobs say you need at least 2 years on med-surg or whatever, but I've heard to go ahead and apply anyways. Anything will help! Thanks so much.