PedsRN2016

Yes, they do all have their own weeks and at my work we celebrate all of them! It's just the nurses that have lost our week to Hospital Week.

I work in peds, as well, and truly cannot imagine having to call at night for every half liter adjustment! We usually have ranges and possible equipment...you do need a different order for a high flow nasal cannula instead of a regular low-flow. Otherwise, our max may be 8, 12, or 15 liters depending on the age/size of the patient. Most of the time, we can wean based on the patient and our judgment, however, occasionally the physician will put a minimum liter flow, as well. Either way, we usually have a solid range of at least 4 liters that we can adjust up or down, as needed!

I guess my first question is why you need English speaking patients? Does your school require a thorough interview of the patient? I also live in an area where at least half of my patients' parents are Spanish only. I also can get by a little bit, but no fluent conversation and no medical terminology. I just do my best with what I have. Obviously, if a serious conversation is needed I get an interpreter, but I use my little bit of Spanish to say I am going to check out the patient a bit (I.e. Assess), or to ask them if they need water or anything. If they say they need something I don't understand there is usually a better Spanish speaker around who can clarify for my, but 99% of the time they just ask for water or point at a pillow if I don't understand that they are asking for pillows. When I was in school, we usually just had to do one full assessment, usually with the patient's nurse and then could get most of the other information from the chart! If it's like this, you may be fine with a Spanish speaker as well! Nursing school is scary, but don't let this hold you back! You will get through it and be done soon enough!

I may be overly cynical and jaded, but the only way I see this happening is if the school determined that an empty or partially empty container of unprescribed drugs was found next to him during the "seizure."

At my hospital, crisis pay is rare and has to be implemented from the top management. Normally, any extra shift for a full time RN gets time and a half, but when the hospital finds themselves very short for several days/weeks, they offer double time for the whole shift for extra shifts. It is offered for a set number of weeks, but with the caveat that it can be rescinded at any time if the census goes down.

I do not think that schedule is necessarily unique to New York! If I worked that schedule I would want it the way you have it currently to maximize weekend off time. If you were to work Friday night, you would work until 7 on Saturday morning. I may be a bit of a weakling, but I would have to sleep a decent chunk of my Saturday or be miserably tired all day. On the other hand, if I had Friday/Saturday off, I could enjoy Friday, Saturday and most of Sunday. I would probably take a nap from like 7pm-10pm on Sunday night, but I would still feel like I got most of my weekend to myself! So, I don't know if it is "normal," but I think that may be where they are coming from!

Nope, not a union hospital! I do agree that I am rather lucky to work at my hospital!

Let me preface this by saying that I am no longer a "soontobern", but I don't think I can change my username on the app...and I can't pull myself out of bed just yet. At the hospital I current work at as a nurse, we DO get time-and-a-half after 8 hours and all nurses work 12 hour shifts in acute/critical care. We do get two half hour clocked out breaks during our 12-hour shift, as well, so every shift we work we get 3.5 hours of 1.5x pay! Since I am a new nurse, I didn't realize that my hospital must be the exception and not the rule! I would say that between my night shift diff and the 1.5x pay each night, 12 hour shifts are definitely more lucrative then 8 hour shifts would be at my hospital.

In my area, if your schedule is flexible and you feel ready, there are almost always day before cancellations that you can snatch up if you want to test quickly!

I recently interviewed and confronted this question, but my interviewers were also aware enough of this trick to narrow down the question to something like "what is your greatest personality weakness?" I have also been told in the past that you have to be careful with some answers as they may not show true self-awareness in the ability to discern your actual weaknesses. I have been told that the key to that question is how you are working to progress past the weakness!

Sounds similar to Stat Doctors that some employers are including with medical insurance now! Some of my coworkers swear by it.

It may end up having been the hardest for you. Medsurg was not the hardest for me, I am pretty sure it varies by person and school. For me, OB was my most difficult class, but that was the area that I had the least experience and I had a somewhat stubborn teacher (I showed her where my test answer was in the book verbatim and she would still not give points back.)

I have used the Littman Classic SE II throughout nursing school and it has worked well for me. In the beginning, I hoped to just use the cheap one the school handed out and buy a nice one for graduation. As I was getting ready for my first skills check off, I freaked out a bit when I could not hear the blood pressure sounds and went out and bought my Littman which allowed me to hear perfectly! I am pretty sure my ears are fine; I think I agree with the poster above who mentioned things rubbing on the double lumen tubing! Best of luck with your decision and with the start of nursing school!

If I were you I would talk to your schools of interest to see what their class schedules are like (make sure to ask about nursing class schedules specifically, as they are usually less flexible.) Working 5am-5pm mon, tues, fri, sat, and sun would not have worked during a lot of the classes in my program, even if it was every other week.

I can't comment on those specific schools, but I can talk a bit about the working stuff. If the days and hours for those 15 days a month are flexible, it could be doable to work and do school. If the days and times are not flexible, it may be nearly impossible. My nursing program made it clear in the beginning that they own us and at times we have been instructed to be places with less than a week's notice. The reality is it depends on you. If you are the type that learns quickly, is motivated to complete assignments, and can survive on little sleep at times it is very possible do nursing school and work with a flexible work schedule. There are other factors, too. If you are still working on prereqs, those are very doable and I did work full-time throughout my prereqs. From a personal perspective, for the first year of my program, I worked 16 VERY flexible hours per week. I do very well in school and have not found prereqs or nursing school overly difficult, but I personally could not have worked full time in the beginning of my program purely due to the amount of schoolwork. I will admit that I do require sufficient sleep or things get ugly fast with my mental and emotional outlook! Ultimately, you have to do some evaluation and soul-searching to figure out what will be best for you and what you are capable of doing! Best of luck to you!