Vana21

I've been interviewing since April for a school position in a district and have gone on about 8 interviews ranging from elementary to high school. Only 3 have responded back, and only 1 said their reasoning was lack of experience. I've been a nurse for 3 years and was a tele tech for 4 previously, all at the same hospital. My nursing was a general adult ICU for 6 months for training and the rest has been cath lab. I don't have pedi experience which I know is what is hurting me the most. I'm at a loss at what to do and if I should even keep trying. Any tips to make myself seem more valuable?

Cath lab is very high stress with a lot of on call. The on call cases are pretty emergent and even higher stress. You can come in to work at 0700, stay until 9pm, get called in at midnight, be back home at 0300, get called back in at 0500 and stay until 7pm again. It is very rewarding and good money, but if you are looking for less stress it is not a good place to go for that.

you can see if they will allow you to go to the holding pre/post area for the pregnancy term

I would assume it would be like a cath lab recovery area which would include pulling sheaths, watching groin sites for bleeding or retroperitoneal bleeding, taking down and off TR bands and doing EKGS and post labs with education and maybe discharging outpatients. It can be considered critical care and would be a good first job for a new grad

I work in a small cath lab that only runs 2 rooms, and we also prep and recover our patients. We are nurse dominant. My sister hospital I go to has about 7 rooms and a separate holding/recovery area. My hospital doesn't do all those fancy procedures, we stick to international radiology and cardiac caths. So a typical day would be to get there and look up my patients on the schedule. If im circulating or monitoring, I will get my patient from holding and bring them to the procedure room and get them hooked up to our monitor. I make sure the sterile table and tech have everything they need. We help drape the patient with the sterile drape. I get the manifold connected to the art line system connected. Then we wait for the doc. When they get there we time out and start the procedure. We give sedation and monitor the patient, not anesthesia. As a circulator, you will be pushing meds, grabbing wires, catheters, and other supplies, monitoring the patient, making sure the contrast bottle doesn't run out, reminding the patient to stop moving their arms or legs. After the procedure we make sure certain medications are given like plavix if needed. We get the pt back on the bed and move them out, and get the next one in. The worst part about cath lab is the call, and it is also the best part. I take about 4-5 days of call a week, and I get called in sometimes never in a week, sometimes 3 in a day. There is no pattern. You get called in at 3am and are there with a tech and maybe another nurse or tech. The patient might be ok, or they might have just coded 4 times. They might code again on the table.

Heparin in that small dose to an adult generally won't do a whole lot. In cath lab for a procedure, we regularly give 2 to 3 times that amount. The half life if Heparin is about 30 minutes. No real harm done thankfully for you, but the potential was there. Everyone makes mistakes and I bet from now on you will remember this event and use it for the best

I got pulled over for going 70 in a 65 (people were passing me) on the highway. I was leaving work and had scrubs on, have a sticker on my car that says Cath Lab call team, and a stethoscope hanging from my mirror. I got a ticket. I would have rather had the special treatment

I'm deciding on my second elective and I am stuck between choosing NURS 4300 Cooperative Nursing Work Experience II or NURS 3352 Legacy of the Family. I work in Cath Lab so my hours vary and I'm trying to get a class less focused on long papers. Cannot find a syllabus online of either class to help me decide. Which is easier?

I was deadset on being in ER and eventually doing Life Flight I ended up in Cath Lab and I enjoy it probably more then I would have enjoyed ER

I'm considered morbidly obese according to BMI I can also run 3 miles without stopping. I'm rarely sick, my blood work is fine. It's subjective

oh heck no. If I find someone touching anything I will warn them. If they do it again I will have security escort them out to never return.

certain leads show different parts of the heart so left circumflex artery (LCx) blockage shows in lead I, aVL, V5 and V6 Right coronary (RCA) or LCx shows in leads II, III left anterior descending blockage shows in leads V1-V4 and so on. I don't remember that coming up in nclex, the most they ask is that you just recognize a rhythm and know if its lethal and what to do about it.

"an empty clean room" oooo spooky

Ask them to tell you the name of the patient, their address, and other information like that When they can't, then you say "So what is the problem?"

Does not work. My class tested it in January and we had fail/good popup, fail/bad popup, pass/good popup, and me personally had pass/bad popup

It's a stupid humor thats exaggerated but anything's funny after a hard day Here's a link (sorry about the ads): http://bestream.tv/4Jsh/Bobs-Burgers-S06E10-HDTV-x264-KILLERS.html?pt=wlK%2FYDtrHQ5VGBWTNzTbOCRUupDN43Qm ozAr8AYSbNI%3D

It's pretty funny about a lice epidemic.

I have a reoccuring dream where I am sleeping in a patients bed (without a patient in it) and I wake up (at this point i have my eyes open and looking around my own room but still mostly asleep) and I get bad anxiety and I think "oh no I fell asleep in a patients room if someone sees me I'll be in such big trouble, better stay awake." I'll be sitting up for some period of time before I end up going back to sleep.

A critical care patient who weighs 80 kg has an order for 10 MCG/KG/MIN of dobutamine to be administered IV and regulated by an electronic pump. The supply of dobutamine is 500 MG in 250 mL OF D5W. I need Help, Please... 10mcg x 80kg = 800 mcg/min 60 min x 800 mcg x 1 mg x 250 ml (multiply these together) ---------------------------------- (take top number and divide it by numbers below) 1 hour x 1 min x 1000 mcg x 500 mg Setting it up like this. It allows you to keep track of your conversions. So minutes cross out, mcg crosses out, and mg crosses out because theres 2 of them, so youre left with ml/hr answer I got was 24ml/hr Correct me if I'm wrong (math isnt my strong point )

Back in the old days, there were no pumps and nurses had to eyeball everything. It's not impossible to do, just inconvenient I think, but I also don't know jack about OR. What specifically was the med? Some are meant to be hung to gravity

Not all programs are like that I'm in the Memorial Hermann residency program in Texas and we all get paid $26.50 no matter what unit. Medsurg gets 3 months orientation and a year of classes, ICU/Critical care gets 6 months, and OR has a year orientation. Each hospital in the system only accepts a certain number (my little hospital accepted 8) of people, and they fully expect you (you sign a 2 year contract) to stay employed after that year is over. Research before you apply.

The thing about doing it this way (correct me if im wrong) is they will have 10 mg diluted in 10 ml. So even though they squirt out 2ml, there is no way of knowing there is 2 mg of medication in that 2 ml. I can see where that thought originates from thinking thasquirting out the 2ml means there would the be 8mg in 8 ml, but personally, I think its risky and wouldn't do it that way. Do what they taught you in nursing school. Sometimes being on the floor can develop bad habits in some people, and its tempting to develop them yourself.

I'm not sure if im answering correctly based on your situation but it sounds like you might be referring to an IV push? So for example, if you have 1 mg of morphine ordered and the vial is 1mg/ml. What I do is take a flush thats 10 ml, squirt out however much I need to draw into it (so for this i would take 1 ml out), put a needle on it and draw up the 1 ml of morphine. That way its diluted. If the bottle comes with 3 inside of it, I will only draw up the 1 ml. This specifically because if you have a med you need to witness a waste, the"correct" way to do it is to draw up the remaining 2ml and show it and then waste it. I know not everyone does this, but it can be odd when you're supposed to waste 2ml and someone tosses an empty container.

If the patient had come without the proper equipment and took a turn for the worse, I think we all know your admin wouldn't have had your back. You did the right thing

We have a "hydration station" where we leave closed bottles. This is where the ice/water machines are we use for patients.