galenight

I am having trouble finding continuing education for Acute Care NPs. ANCC requires at least 51% of CME be directly related to your specialty. So many conferences are geared mainly toward primary care. I am having an especially hard time find pharmacology credits for acute care. Does anyone have any suggestions? I have tried Medscape, NPACE, plain old googling and many others. Thanks!

I'm likely to be offered my first NP position this week after 2 interviews. The schedule is a brutal: 7 days on, 7 days off 12 hour shifts with a hospitalist group. My question is does anyone pick up RN time? I could use the extra money for loan repayment. As a new grad, I don't want to take on a new NP role in addition to my new job...that would just be information overload. But with that 7 on/7 off schedule it would allow me to pick up 2-3 days a month for extra cash. Any thoughts?

I, too, am in Job limbo... thank goodness I still have my RN job! I finished classes late July, actual graduation date was August 27. Took boards on Oct 16 and my license came through in 8 days. I've been looking since July and have had 3 in person interviews and 2 phone interviews. I just got called today for a second interview/job shadow day in 2 weeks as well as an in person interview following a phone interview (will be 2 interviews for 2 different services since it is a 4 hour drive). That is scheduled for the day after the job shadow. I feel like it is taking forever. I've also received a number of replies to job postings via email stating that another candidate was hired or my qualifications aren't what they are looking for. But more often than not, I just don't hear anything as the original poster noted.

We are also critical access, with a moderate ED patient volume... big fluxes some days pretty slow, others crazy. My opinion is that it is unrealistic for us to care for OBS patients adequately. There is the whole thing with a Medex, kardex, different computer system, computer charting (we chart paper) that we know nothing about. I realize we can be trained, but still. What our facility has just implemented is that we will keep ANY inpatient if census on the MED/SURG floor is zero (which does occassionally happen). Once a second patieint is to be admitted, then we can call the MS nurses and the floor will be opened up. Pity the patients if we are swamped. Their care can be severely compromised. We only have 2 nurses on staff in the ED. On midnights one is an LPN. This is not a good situation at all. Damn bean counters!

Hi all 1. Wayne State University 2. Acute and Critical care nurse practitioner 3. working full time 4. school part time 5. need to talk to the mental health nurse practitioner student, cuz i must be crazy to be going back to school AGAIN!

So.. I personally think it is tacky. Tacky Tacky Tacky. If we went to the bathroom of a Forbes 500 company would they have ANYTHING taped to the door of a bathroom stall? If I went to IBM tomorrow, would there be a memo from Gates detailing fourth quarter profits? Would GM have postings regarding sales of heavy duty trucks? C'mon. Give us a break. We are professionals and should be treated accordingly. Make important info available elsewhere and leave the bathroom to its one and only purpose. Also.. do you think there is anything posted in the CEOs bathroom???

I started nursing school when my children were 3 and 7. It wasn't easy. I did have a husband at that time and for a couple years while I worked, but always had to work full time. The key to juggling both being a mom and a nurse, is to make the time you spend with your kids quality time. Yeah.. that sounds very Dr. Phil, but it's true. Be grateful that you can work just part time and also know that you are showing your son that work is important and necessary and valuable to you as a person. Kids adapt. They are incredibly resiliant little things. I've been divorced now for years and have done the juggling thing totally alone. My kids have not suffered for my career. They are great teens who understand work happens and that work is important for us to live and for mom to be sane. When I started nursing, my facility was still working 8 hour shifts and I worked afternoons. Once we went to 12 hour shifts it was much better. Even if I picked up an extra day now and then I still usually had 4 days a week at home. So my advice is this...if it works for you, work a job that is 12 hours so you are home more full days. Don't feel guilty for having your child in day care, it is often necessary, just pick a good one and be vigilant. And finally take time for yourself as well.. that is the best gift you can give your son and the best way you can be a good mom.

I agree with everyone else.. you are not too old. As for your nursing education, I would recommend getting your RN degree. Nursing infomatics is complex and would require the more specialized knowledge an RN possesses. You may want to research the requirements for working in that field, I suspect it will say RN not LVN. Also, remember that your previous course work will count towards some of your education requirements, depending on the institution and maybe depending on how long ago you obtained them. More research. Good luck to you. Nursing infomatics is definitely the new kid on the block and sure to grow.

Boredom to the Nth degree...lol This information should be in your reference books. I assume you are a student. By the way, there are many nursing theories, not just one. Happy researching.

OH yes I did... just wanted to see how long before anyone noticed....lol :chuckle Ok, I'll rephrase. GRAMMAR POLICE UNITE!

Acid relex instead of acid reflux gets me everytime. I, too, cannot stand when people use to/too/two incorrectly. PheneGRAN puts me over the edge. Pacific for specific, as one poster already mentioned, is enough to make me want to jump in the Pacific! To the poster who asked for the pronunciation of Diflucan.. here in Michigan I've always heard it pronounced die-flew-can. I think it's phonetic. I also can't stand when people use ain't (do you put an apostrophe in there? doesn't really matter.. it's not a word!) It's worse still when the nurses you work with use it regularly. Cringe!! Or the all to common double negative. "I didn't get no memo about that". WHAT?!? Then you did get the memo? GRAMMER POLICE UNITE!

I have reported my dirty needle stick, but not the couple of sterile ones. Those darn insulin needles we had for some reason would go right through the cap (before we got the ones with the sleeve) and I stuck myself twice. Duh. I also once was dropping a needle before drawing anything up and out of reflex, went to go catch it (another duh!) and got stuck in the palm. Now, I just back up.. hands in the air... like I'm under arrest or something...lol

No lay person should read their own TB skin test. They don't have the knowledge or the background to know what is normal and what is not. I read my own TB skin test at home over the weekend when I had been required to get it done immediately due a known exposure several weeks before that was just confirmed. Well, it was grossly positive. Even I, a trained nurse, had wondered what was going on with the redness on my arm because I had forgotten about the test. Then the lightbulb came on and I realized what it was. A layperson could have chalked it up to a bug bite or a reaction to some other substance, especially if it was as large as mine was - nearly my entire forearm.

I don't do it in the ER where I work (small rural), but would love to. I believe I have heard of training courses within a hospital where they deem you capable of simple sutures, but it's a hospital by hospital basis. It is not typical for ER nurses in the US to suture based on my experience.

The decision is yours alone. And it can't just be about money. If you think about it, your increase is only $40/week if you work 5 days a week. Yes, that's $2000 a year. But where is your best quality of life going to be? Some people love midnights. Some people love afternoons. And then there are people who loathe each of those shifts. Imagine what your life will be like if you work each of those shifts. How will it affect your family, your kids if you have them, your weekends, your dating ability... whatever your issues are and then go from there. Are you a night owl anyway? Then either shift will work for you, but if you are an early riser, you probably won't do well with midnights. Good luck

I think you need to be more specific. What unused meds are you referring to? Do you mean outdated meds? If so, there are safety and efficacy issues with that one. Are you talking about medications left over after a loved one has died or when a prescription is no longer needed? If so, there are issues of how it was stored, where it was stored, who touched it (ie were they ill, maybe carrying some virus or bacteria on their fingers) and is it really what the bottle says it is. Sure you can check with a IdentaDrug book, but you get the gist. I'm not saying it's necessarily a bad idea, just be devil's advocate here.

nuh uh.. heck no... no way.. not in this lifetime, never ever, not if doctors were the only bachelors left on the planet. Did I say no?

OHmygosh... got a mental picture of this. Too funny... feathers everywhere.. wounds, everyone's hair... equipment.... LOL

I am looking for a book that will help me refresh my memory. I am an ER nurse working in a rural setting. It seems as if lately I am stagnant because much of what we see is the same over and over again. Then, when we get something a little different, I have forgotten some of what I need to assess and care for the patient. I have also recently started working per diem at a larger facility and it sometimes seems overwhelming - mostly because they don't have a lot of openings I can work and so my shifts are few and far between. But clearly some of it is the fact that I have lost some knowledge. I'm still a good nurse, just want to get out of my rut. Thanks for any suggestions.

Not sure I'll get this in exact order.. but here goes Ice cream jockey bookstore clerk gas station cashier worker in a direct mail distributer worked for Uhaul cleaning motor homes they used to rent out gas station cashier waitress motel cleaning lady legal secretary (have associates degree in it... jobs here in that field few and far between so... back to what i know... gas station cashier Lpn RN Bsn

Does anyone else see the irony in the fact that we CARE for sick and injured people, and yet, we are not ourselves expected to get sick or injured??? Off topic, but same goes for health care.. some of health care workers medical insurance is the worst of the working world. go figure. Additionally, at my facility, we have only vacation days, and holiday days (8 hours each even though we work 12 hours) but no sick days. Duh.. as previously stated.. we are human. We get sick.. JUST LIKE THE PEOPLE WE ARE PAID TO TAKE CARE OF!!!!:angryfire

We got pizza earlier in the week. Our ADON made us a yummy banana dessert. We were given Emergency nurses week folder/organizer thingy. It has a notepad and slots to file things like your incident reports (j/k), your CEUs or organize your bills or something.. Kinda like a file thing. Anyway. It was nice to be recognized and appreciated. They were going to have food every other day and in the nights too to try to catch everyone.

Boy, if that's not the truth!!!

oh my.. where to start I wish they knew... That they are not the only patient I have at the moment and more than likely, they are not the most critical. That I am doing the best I can within the limits of... my profession, my abilities, my resources, and my physician. That they are responsible for their own actions and/or inactions. I am not here to coddle you. I am here to get you out of your crisis du jour.. that's it. If you don't want XYZ treatment or medication, you don't have to have it. I could care less. It's your body and your right to refuse. I'll let you know that. You will have to sign a refusal of care form, because if you are a big enough boy or girl to make that decision, you are big enough to take resposibility for it and sign a waiver. I also wish patients knew and truly, truly understood that medicine is as much art as it is science. We cannot cure everything. We can't make all pain go away. We cannot save everybody every time. We want to. We try our hardest, but we just can't. I wish patients knew that often with chronic pain or severe injuries, one has to learn to live with a certain amount of pain. It may not be pleasant, it may be hard, but it beats being addicted and doped up without quailty of life. I wish they knew that you SHOULDN'T always try to save everybody. Your 99yr old, comatose, demented, diabetic, great gradma with CHF, on dialysis, s/p CVA with paralysis does not have any quality of life. Let her go. I wish they knew that medical resources, particularly the emergency room, should be used prudently. Health care, whether or not you pay out of pocket is not "free". I wish they knew that I want to get them that warm blanket, that hot meal, that cool drink and that current magazine for their comfort. I don't mean to forget it -- more pressing things come along.. I usually get it sooner or later. I wish they knew that it isn't the hilton and that those things are not what makes us good or bad. Quality nursing and medical care is. I wish they knew that I am a good nurse. I work hard FOR THEM. Yeah, I get paid a fair wage, but that's not the only reason I do what I do. I do it because I want to help people. I wish they knew how hard they sometimes make it to continue to want to help them.

When I started the long educational process, my children were about 3 and 7. My husband was only marginally supportive because he figured I would make good money. I took a one year intense program (had no prereqs done) LPN program. I continued to work nearly full time while my now ex worked part time. I still did the majority of the household chores and childcare. I went to work full time as an LPN and immediately began taking prereqs for RN school. A entrance requirement for the articulation program was 1 year experience working, so as soon as I could I started the RN program... all while working full time and trying to keep a marriage going. The marriage failed immediately after I graduated. I then worked as an RN full time and before I knew it was going back to school for my BSN. I did that slowly, only 2 classes a semester, taking summers off, but I just finished this past December. So in answer to your question.. yes, you can do it. Especially since you have a supportive family and are not working. It will be an intense time for you regardless of whether you work or not, as the classes are often fairly fast paced and quite technical in nature. Your children will survive your educational adventure. They will even thrive because of it. They will learn the value of education and the rewards that come with hard work and dedication. They will respect you in your decision to go back to school and do something that is in your heart. They might not think it now at their ages, but they will eventually. You said you were nervous. Use that energy to your advantage. It can be a great asset. Being nervous mean you are aware of exactly what you are getting into. You don't have some rosmanticized version of nursing school being all kum-by-ah, roses and story time. It's hard work, it can even be considered gruelling at times, but it will be the most rewarding thing you have ever done aside from your children. You will gain so much more than nursing knowledge. You will gain self confidence, a sense of community, great friendships and after working for a few years you'll probably even get a set of "kahunas". So keep those nervous eyes wide open and focused on the prize... your degree and your brand spanking new title... NURSE Good luck in your endeavor.