ConRadical

However, depending on how you grow your facial hair, it can raise eye brows or lead to questions. Perhaps I have had a blessed existence, I am bald with a goat that touches my chest, have exposed tats that I have never been asked to cover and have always been received well by patients, management and staff. Of course I couldn't cover my tats even if asked as my whole hand is covered. Folks often often don't recall my name on the patient surveys, they just talk about that nurse with the beard and tattoos, its always been a great conversation starter and something for folks to get more comfortable as opposed to less comfortable. Just saying.

wow! Didn't look at the full date of this only the March14!

I am also looking into this area and have noted that Medical Staffing Network has many listings here. I have previously worked with them and then accepted a staff job in San Antonio after working with the agency for several years at the facility, and am looking at doing the same thing again.

Bronze3, try signing up with an agency like Medical Staffing Network. They have many postings in OR, Portland, and Medford among others. Working with an agency is a great way to move into an area. My experience has been great with this approach. You get familiar with the area and computer system while they get familiar with you and soon they are offering you a staff job.

Started the application in March, had to re do the fingerprints because they use ink instead of the more common computer scan, now over a month later and am still waiting, all the boxes state completed. I was warned to be patient that Oregon takes awhile. I'm in no rush, haven't even listed our house yet. I am surprised at the slow pace but I was prepared for it!

check out Skyscape, they have lots of books electronically for your phone, once installed it will search every book loaded not just the one your currently in. I have been using them for almost 10 years and notice many MD's also using it.

"Many nursing assistances are downright hard to work with, lazy, expect you to do half their job (and tell the director of nursing on you if you don't, and you get in trouble), have an axe to grind against you because they feel bitter or something toward you because you have a degree (atleast it seems this way)," Wow!! Bitterness! Take a vacation! People are usually not out to get you. My hospital is absolutely full of awesome aides! "Pts are downright abusive and nasty and you just have to take it, on a daily basis too because there always seems to be atleast one rotten and mean pt on your set. You get zero, nadda, respect as a registered nurse. " Seriously?! I have found it to be the exact opposite the past 17 years! You may not be happy at anything you choose to do, a lot has to do with attitude! I had a math professor that said if you change your attitude even math could be fun and easy, it was true, if you change your attitude even if your faking it, it will be so much better! Good luck!

Agree wholeheartedly! Been at this for 17 years, and I'm amazed to see such dissatisfaction across this board. I have fun, my pts are usually laughing, feel bad for all those folks that are hating it. Sadly management is very poor across the country as the dollar is the bottom line, they would save money if the load on the floor nurse was less and the nurse was free to really be with the pts, not to mention satisfaction, strange that with all their degrees they cant figure out this simple fact!

Market saturated? WHere the heck are you located? Come on down to Texas!!

Some change maybe a different department or float pool, you have a lot invested it would be a shame to throw it all away. Sometimes it does suck, but I have been doing this for 17 years and strive just to make my pts happy and laugh, just to lighten their day, I end up having fun despite a overworked and undervalued position. If you are having trouble with Docs, they are only people, let them know that! Too few people stand up and demand respect from them.

ER NURSES......... Feel good about what you do. - Written by an ER MD. This is a discussion on ER nurses, read this! in Emergency Nursing, part of Nursing Specialties ... after circling the drain with compassion fatigue, I stumbled upon this article that was published in the ACEP: read it and tell me you don't feel p...roud! Guest Editorial ACEP News September 2006 By David F. Baehren, M.D. For a generation or two, we have lamented the loss of role models in society. As parents and individuals, we naturally seek out others we would like to emulate. Sadly, a serious search through the popular culture leaves us empty-handed and empty-hearted. Thanks to a long list of legal and moral shenanigans, many entertainers, politicians, and athletes long since abdicated this momentous position of responsibility. We usually look afar for heroes and role models, and in doing so overlook a group of professionals who live and work in our midst: nurses. And not just any kind of nurse: the emergency nurse. There are plenty of people involved in emergency care, and no emergency department could function without all of these people working as a team. But it is the emergency nurse who shoulders the weight of patient care. Without these modern-day heroes, individually and collectively we would be in quite a pinch. This unique breed of men and women are the lock stitch in the fabric of our health care safety net. Their job is a physical, emotional, and intellectual challenge. Who helped the paramedics lift the last 300-pound patient who came in? Who took the verbal lashing from the curmudgeon giving admitting orders over the phone? Who came to tell you that the guy you ordered the nitro drip for is taking Viagra? The emergency nurse has the thankless job of sitting in triage while both the long and the short buses unload at once. With limited information, they usually send the patient in the right direction while having to fend off some narcissistic clown with a zit on his butt. They absorb the penetrating stares from weary lobby dwellers and channel all that negative energy to some secret place they only tell you about when you go to triage school. Other kinds of nurses serve key roles in health care and attend to their patients admirably. However, few function under the gun like emergency nurses do. It is the emergency nurse who cares for the critical heart failure patient until the intensive care unit is "ready" to accept the patient. The productivity of the emergency nurse expands gracefully to accommodate the endless flow of patients while the rest of the hospital "can't take report." Many of our patients arrive "unwashed." It is the emergency nurse who delivers them "washed and folded." To prepare for admission a patient with a hip fracture who lay in stool for a day requires an immense amount of care--and caring. Few nurses outside of the emergency department deal with patients who are as cantankerous, uncooperative, and violent. These nurses must deal with patients who are in their worst physical and emotional state. We all know it is a stressful time for patients and family, and we all know who the wheelbarrow is that the shovel dumps into. For the most part, the nurses expect some of this and carry on in good humor. There are times, however, when the patience of a saint is required. In fact, I believe that when emergency nurses go to heaven, they get in the fast lane, flash their hospital ID, and get the thumbs-up at the gate. They earn this privilege after being sworn at, demeaned, spit on, threatened, and sometimes kicked, choked, grabbed, or slugged. After this, they go on to the next patient as if they had just stopped to smell a gardenia for a moment. Great strength of character is required for sustained work in our field. The emergency department is a loud, chaotic, and stressful environment. To hold up under these conditions is no small feat. To care for the deathly ill, comfort suffering children, and give solace to those who grieve their dead takes discipline, stamina, and tenderness. To sit with and console the family of a teenager who just died in an accident takes the strength of 10 men. Every day emergency nurses do what we are all called to do but find so arduous in practice. That is: to love our neighbors as ourselves. They care for those whom society renders invisible. Emergency nurses do what the man who changed the world 2,000 years ago did. They look squarely in the eye and hold the hand of those most couldn't bear to touch. They wash stinky feet, clean excrement, and smell breath that would give most people nightmares. And they do it with grace. So, here's to the emergency nurse. Shake the hand of a hero before your next shift. DR. BAEHREN lives in Ottawa Hills, Ohio