meghanlyn

Thank you SO much for your answer, Nurse Beth! I have accepted a new position as a Telephone triage RN with a local primary care provider's office. This is somewhat similar to what I do with my home health job (just primarilary over the phone) and I can definitely see myself working this position long term as it is affiliated with a growing health care company in the area. I look forward to growing more as a nurse and furthering my nursing career by accepting this position.

Okay so I get no job is perfect but I'm on my second job since I became a nurse 2 years ago and am seeking another. I started as a ER RN right out of school which was a great experience but not the place for me. I'm now a home health RN case manager and I love this job but hate on call as we cover a wide area and on call nights can be very stressful as you can be all over the place and don't have much back up so I hate feeling completely alone. I'm interviewing for a FN telephone triage job next week as I feel my ER and HH background will help with this position as I'm very used to unpredictability at this point and if I get this job I will most likely stay PRN with the HH agency I'm at since I really enjoy HH nursing. But basically I'm wondering if I'm alone here by being overwhelmed with the endless career options that come with nursing. This is part of why I went into nursing but I figured by now I would have found something I want to do long term. Any feedback or advice is appreciated!

So I'm a newbee to the home health world and have been with the agency I'm at for less than a month. Earlier this week I had OASIS training and learned all about it and realized all the information it includes. I was wondering if any of you have some type of a cheat sheet that you use when you do a SOC visit to help keep all of your information in one place for when you go back to document later. The nurse I'm training with gave me a sheet she uses to keep frequently needed patient info in one place but said she doesn't really have anything she uses for OASIS since she's been a home health nurse for so long she knows the questions fairly well and knows what to ask on that initial visit. Any information/advice would be very helpful!

Haha. That's a smart idea though. Next time I'm out and about I'll have to keep my eyes open just in case I stumble across someone who might be able to provide me with some advice.

Thanks! I've seen Bayada pop up during my job searches so I'll probably apply. And I kind of figured it'd probably be best just to ask around the area I live in what others recommend in my area. But thanks for your advice.

Hi everyone. I've recently made the decision that I would like to get out of the hospital setting and try a new aspect of nursing and venture into the world of home health nursing. I really enjoyed my home health nursing rotation in nursing school and just find many positives to home health nursing which has helped me make the decision to make a change in my nursing career. However, as I've been starting my job hunt for a home health position I've realized I have no clue where to start in this search. There just seem to be many agencies out there to work for and I have no idea how to sort out the good from the bad. So I figured I'd turn to you home health experts for some help in how to go about applying for a home health position. I'm located in south central PA but I'm close to the PA/MD border so I'm going to be obtaining my MD nursing license as well to give me some more options. Any advice is greatly appreciated!

I know there are probably several threads out there on this topic already but I think it'd just be easier for me to start my own in order to be more specific about the advice I'm looking for. I graduated from nursing school in December, passed boards in February and started a new job as an ED RN in February. Just a little background about where I work (not that it matters much for the question I'm asking but just in case anyone is wondering): I work in a decent sized community hospital in an ER that has about 30 beds and 2 trauma bays. Our hospital is a certified stroke center and we also have a fairly new cardiac cath. lab as well. Anyways, to cut to the chase. Like I mentioned, I started this new position in February as a brand new nurse. I had worked as a nurse intern prior to getting my RN and I fell in love with the ER as an intern. This was pretty much my dream job so I was so happy to start. I knew I'd have a pretty lengthy orientation (16-18 weeks) upon starting since I was fresh out of nursing school and that during this orientation period I'd also be meeting once a week with our department's nurse educator who would review what to do in certain emergent situations and help practice skills that need improvement. I started with one preceptor and was with her for about 1 month or so and our nurse educator and management thought I'd benefit from switching preceptors which has really helped. I've learned a lot thus far in my orientation period and have come a long way as a new nurse. I now have about 4-5 weeks left of my orientation and just recently I was faced with two of my most emergent/critical patients: one was a STEMI who required an immediate cardiac cath, the other a pneumothorax who had a needle decompression done as well as a chest tube placed. Of course I had my preceptor by my side during both situations but for some reason I seemed to freeze when faced with both emergencies. I couldn't quite prioritize the way I should have in either situation and if it wasn't for my preceptor's guidance I have no clue what would have happened. Now I'm stuck in a tough place. Both situations were very challenging for me and now I'm beginning to question if I truly am cut out to be an ER nurse especially since I come off orientation in a little over 1 month. Part of me wants to take the easy way out and run away and switch to a different unit but at the same time I'd like to stick it out and push forth and take what I learned from those situations and grow from them. I've made it this far for a reason, right? I've just been beside myself these past few days because I've never frozen like that before and I'm afraid it might happen again when I'm out on my own. Oh and I forgot to mention that I've already been battling with confidence issues throughout my orientation period thus far (which I think is typical for new nurses just because of the fact that everything is new). So basically I'm just wondering if anyone else out there felt as though they might not be cut out for the ER when they first started and if anyone did feel that way, what advice to you have to overcome that fear? Every bit of advice and encouragement is appreciated!

took my test yesterday and only took 75 questions. checked on the ride home and got the good pop up. checked the BON today and I'm officially an RN. the trick really works!!

There's a thread on here somewhere discussing the same topic I think it's titled: Morphine or Oxygen? , I stumbled across it a few days ago so look through the first few pages here in this forum and you should find it and it might be more helpful.

Luckily, I didn't have any questions like that on my exam but I found the same thing. I think you really need to read the question and just determine what the better option would be. When I was going through Kaplan I had stumbled across two different questions that I remember both about MI and the one answer was Morphine but for other question it was oxygen. When I compared the rationales for both I realized the stem of the question where the answer was O2 mentioned something specific about an increased # of respirations along with the pain associated with the MI. Hopefully that makes sense. I guess just focus on what the question is asking is all you can really do. I learned MONA in school like many others so I always want to pick Morphine just because it's what I learned.

I mainly used Kaplan's review course to prepare along with a couple of books (Saunder's and Exam Cram). I'm sure you'll do great though! Just go in with confidence!

thank you all!

congrats!

I took the NCLEX-RN in snowy PA this morning and I was in shock when the computer shut off at 75 questions. On the ride home I checked Pearson Vue and was SO scared I'd get sent to the credit card screen but then I saw the good pop up!! Now I can't wait to get my quick results to hopefully be one of many that had this trick work for them.

Kaplan's review course has a good content review along with lots of practice questions. So if you're looking for both I think that's a good choice. I take my exam Feb 3rd and have only been out of school since December but it still really helped me review content I had when I first started nursing school that isn't as fresh in my mind. Plus it helped me realize what topics I needed to review.