hidesert

PS - I also totally believe that life experiences make us better nurses: being a mom, having worked in the food industry and gaming industry, having worked in a doctor's office as an assistant and surgery scheduler and first assist for many years, et...

I graduated at 49, got my BSN at 55 and start my MSN at 57 (this fall) prob for an ANP degree, by then I will have 5 degrees. I love school, obviously, and I love being a nurse. What I do see is that my age-peers are burnt out, and I am not, since I'...

Unless I was really impossibly miserable at a job, I would not leave after less than a year. Mostly because I think it looks really bad on a resume and I would have a hard time explaining that to a new employer. If there is a systems problem, perha...

toradol is great stuff, sort of a compromise betw tylenol and narcotics, in my mind, anyway. i worked in oncology and critical care for seven years and now at the va, and veterans for the most part hate to take pain meds. they are tough guys and at h...

It seems that a discussion about the quality of a CC nursing degree is difficult to separate from the ADN/BSN controversy. Otherwise how would we rate the ADN degree; to what would we compare it ?

"In being able to take into account the "big picture" instead of being task oriented, given the same patient and same resources, what exactly gets done by the BSN trained nurse that doesn't get done by the ADN trained nurse? Where in the course of c...

UM, that may be true of some ADNs, but not even half, in my experience. It prob relates to their previous work/life experience and their age. Most RNs I know are able to think globally and collegiately whether they have a 2 or 4yr degree. Just my ...

When I got my RN, I went to CC for time/cost and they also had a higher pass rate on NCLEX than the university, and they did for several years. (I have not looked recently.) I worked in a doctor's office and a hospital, and asked every nurse and MD ...

Here is my advice- keep at it. I was 50 when I got my RN. Most pts and families (and some doctors) just assume I have been a nurse forever. ALso all the pre nursing life experiences I've had made me a much better nurse. I don't freak out at stuff lik...

I wanted to go for most of my life, with a few side trips (one in the medical field) took 16 yrs to do prereqs and went to school at 46. KEEP going, if you want it you will get there. Cannot believe I haev been a nurse for six years now, and I am not...

PS if the patient cannot hang the arm off the bed, sometimes just elevating the head of the bad 20 or 30 degrees really helps too.

In oncology I learned to hang the arm off the side of the bed for a few minutes and even better is to wrap the arms in warm blankets 10-15 mins, while they are hanging it off the bed too is great. Also tying the tourniquet and then setting up my tape...

YES YES this is so good. Also included would be a video camera and the scenarios could be videotaped so we could see ourselves as others see us. I am guilty of coming across one way when I mean something to sound a certain way, and it puts people off...

WOW that is a great idea. Yes a lot of my fellow students were very young and really had not worked out in the world, much. They went right into nursing school from HS and this class would be so great. And yes and older person could also learn from i...

I agree with the post who said new grads should not go into ICU. I work in ICU and there are nurses around here who have never worked anywhere else and they have NO clue what a floor nurse contends with. They only know they did not like the floor in...

I love hearing all this, I was not a nurse yet, but I AM that old

I am an RN (was not a CNA first) and have worked with some of the best CNAs in the world. They worked their butts off and I always thank them. When I was an apprentice nurse, I deferred to them because they knew a lot more at that point than I did. T...

hey y'all everyone lighten up! To the new grad, there are RNs out there who will be kind and will help you and answer your questions. To the old RNs, no need to be mean and treat people as if they are stupid. Some RNs are nicer to their pts than the...

I think you can do it if you want to, or else it will guide you into something else. I became an RN @ 49 and pts usually assume I have been doing this for 30 yrs :)))) Good luck to you, and there is something waiting that you are being drawn to , I p...

I have read the approx 1/3 of new grads leave their first job within the first year, but I think this includes someone who might switch from telemetry to ICU, for example, and not necessarily ones who leave nursing. I personally know three RNS locall...

Maybe those nursing students are looking for the carrot in what they are doing. - Meaning, nursing school is the hardest thing I have ever done, except for being a single parent and raising my kids almost entirely on my own- and the money can be a mo...

A friend in nursing school who graduated a year after I did, went to a very large city to work in a university medical center & after coming in there with just one year of med-surg floor experience, was making $51/hr on nights ! I envied this...

I did research on this after getting out of school. This was about 4-5 yrs ago, and the pay scales in the US ranged from $22/hr to around $40 per hr, a huge difference for a new grad. (The lower hourly amounts were in the Midwest.) ---I think CA was ...

I am kind of with you and GIRLvsRN on this one. I would not want a tech drawing from my art line either, and where I work it is only RNs and RTs.

I agree, I learn something every time I am on the site. I have been a nurse 5 years and I got into the site while in nursing school. I LOVE it, and it is nice to see all the encouragement given to students and new nurses.