calivianya BSN, RN

ICU

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All Content by calivianya

  1. calivianya

    Should I take the HUGE paycut to switch from ICU to a clinic?

    calivianya replied to nirali.karsaliya's topic in General Nursing

    If I took an $8/hr pay cut, I'd be making $15/hr. I would say it's not worth a 9-5 to take a $15/hr job, but if your area's salaries are high enough that that's not going to happen to you, I'd say go...
  2. calivianya

    Need Encouragement/To Vent

    calivianya replied to popcrnlvr's topic in First Year After Licensure

    An hour and a half is an easy drive - you can go home in the morning, visit all day, and come home at night. You are in easy reach of your family and friends. If it's the first time you've lived by...
  3. calivianya

    Compassionate Connected Care (C3)

    calivianya replied to calivianya's topic in General Nursing

    Oh, that's when you get around it by being sneaky. I have heard coworkers involve their nursing school experience as well. "Yes, Ms. Smith, I have been in the hospital setting for two years now,"...
  4. calivianya

    Today's cringeworthy event..

    calivianya replied to xoemmylouox's topic in General Nursing

    At least you can move your sharps containers! Ours are locked into the wall/cart. Literally locked in. We have to get the company that services our sharps containers to come in and change them out...
  5. calivianya

    Accepted a new position in ICU and possibly changing my mind. Help?

    calivianya replied to michigan94's topic in General Nursing

    You will learn a lot if you want to learn. We have two secretaries in my unit, and one of them knows her rhythms and knows something about what drugs do what just based on talking to us, and we have...
  6. calivianya

    Nursing to med school experiences?

    calivianya replied to floatingribs's topic in General Students

    I am taking my pre-reqs for med school right now, but I have been a nurse for about 2.5 years at this point. Just signed up for Genetics last night and I'm trying to sneak in a physics and gen chem...
  7. calivianya

    Odd finding (Concerning genitalia)

    calivianya replied to LDAthleteNurse's topic in General Nursing

    I had a patient with hemorrhoids so bad once it reminded me of that part of Stephen King's book The Tommyknockers where it was talking about the townspeople developing tentacles in their genital...
  8. calivianya

    Specialty pay

    calivianya replied to BeachsideRN's topic in General Nursing

    My first job had a differential for critical care - it was $5/hr, and it conveniently went away a month before I started. Unfortunate stuff. At some hospitals, you may see a differential for whatever...
  9. calivianya

    Where did you start working right after getting your RN license?

    calivianya replied to xmilkncookiesx's topic in General Nursing

    I started out in a 24 bed ICU. How that first month is going to go depends on what your nursing school is like. My last six weeks of nursing school, I spent 3 shifts a week, 7p to 7a, with a...
  10. calivianya

    experienced nurse training programs/residency?

    calivianya replied to sunshine539's topic in General Nursing

    Many hospitals I have heard of have OR residencies, but no specific residencies for other specialties for experienced nurses. Ideally, you will get a good orientation at a new position whether the...
  11. calivianya

    transfer from PP unit to ICU/ER

    calivianya replied to sukh :)'s topic in General Nursing

    Just start applying! You can explain your desire to learn new things during the interview when you land one. It's a good answer for why you want to change specialties. I just had an ICU coworker...
  12. calivianya

    Max dose for humalog?

    calivianya replied to Michelle King's topic in Patient Medications

    Different setting, but I once had a patient on an insulin drip that I got up to 79 units per hour before I left that morning... and I never did see the blood sugar drop below 660. It was actually...
  13. calivianya

    Help, pregnant, working nights and seriously depressed!

    calivianya replied to JLB1215's topic in General Nursing

    It's definitely your hormones. I work a busy ICU, too - and I have picked up day shifts occasionally over the past couple of months if I have been awake in the daytime for some reason and then they...
  14. calivianya

    Are the pts in the ICU mostly unconscious?

    calivianya replied to Philly85's topic in Critical Care

    Unconscious/conscious really depends on the acuity of your ICU and the overall acuity of the patient population in your city at that particular time. I work in a relatively high acuity ICU - the...
  15. calivianya

    New & Confused RN

    calivianya replied to Noel777's topic in General Nursing

    Hey, you never know. I hated med/surg and postpartum clinicals with a passion, but I love ICU. If it's people who can use the call light she hates dealing with, a high acuity ICU with 99% vent...
  16. calivianya

    Maximum Hours Worked

    calivianya replied to ddd2012's topic in General Nursing

    I think it may be 16 hours in NC. I stayed over to help day shift out earlier this week, and management finally told me when I was about to hit the 16 hour mark that I would be breaking labor laws if...
  17. calivianya

    Does the size of the work unit matter?

    calivianya replied to adventure_rn's topic in General Nursing

    Honestly, finding people to switch/do vacations/etc isn't necessarily any easier or more difficult based on unit size - it's more about how much management cares about making their staff happy. I work...
  18. calivianya

    Starting neuromuscular blockers

    calivianya replied to pharmd8888's topic in MICU, SICU

    Well, if the patient is truly being paralyzed, a RASS isn't going to tell you much about awareness. The patients would be -5 whether they are aware or not. We titrate the paralytics independently of...
  19. calivianya

    What are my chances?

    calivianya replied to LAD2015's topic in Pre-Nursing Students

    My BSN program was more competitive than the ADN programs in the area - the year before I got in, nobody under a 3.8 was accepted because the applicant pool was so good. Honestly, it just depends on...
  20. calivianya

    What thrills you/what terrifies you?

    calivianya replied to Philly85's topic in General Nursing

    Terrifying: Bedbugs! We had a patient with legit BEDBUGS on the unit last week! Anything that's creepy/crawly that gets brought in with the patient freaks me out. Also had a patient who was on the...
  21. calivianya

    The MANDATORY Skills fair

    calivianya replied to Hippy chick's topic in General Nursing

    You are better than me. I probably would have made some nasty comment to the person manning the "baby daddy" station. I would have been really offended if I had walked into a skills fair and entered a...
  22. calivianya

    Requesting words of encouragement… I’m a new grad having a breakdown at work right now.

    calivianya replied to BeatsPerMinute's topic in First Year After Licensure

    You can't take death so personally. Saying your hands killed a patient is making it personal. Unless you walked up to a non-vented patient with a 30mg PCA morphine syringe and pushed the whole thing,...
  23. calivianya

    NHRMC or Novant?

    calivianya replied to alc0550's topic in North Carolina Nursing

    Can't speak for Brunswick, but I work for a Novant facility. I hate their upper management with a passion, especially that self-righteous CEO. This year, they fired a whole bunch of people per their...
  24. calivianya

    Hospital experience in the Triad

    calivianya replied to OUxPhys's topic in North Carolina Nursing

    I interviewed at Duke with one year of experience and I was flat out insulted by the pay rate there. I make $3/hr more in the Winston-Salem/Greensboro metro area than I would have at Duke. The UNC...
  25. calivianya

    How often did YOU see the school nurse?

    calivianya replied to SnugglePuggle's topic in School

    I don't think my school had a nurse. If she did, I never saw her. I never had any sort of medical issue crop up during school,