JenKatt

Anyone have a contact number (outside the main HR number) at Haley?

Anyone apply for a non staff nurse position? I applied back on 2/12 for an Informatics position and am in limbo. It closed on the 20th, and now says complete (instead of pending HR speciailist). Wondering how different this hiring process might be than a floor nurse.

Thanks for the reply! I actually reworded the search last night and came upon some info on security and access given to users by an NI nurse. Yes my school does have a Phd program (I'm at Maryland). Here's the problem. I'm in Florida. I don't know anyone up in Maryland ( there's no degrees in NI being offered anywhere in Florida). So I could email my advisor or what not but didn't want to have to do that since she's crazy busy and I don't know her well. I'll forward my info along to you as the assignment was any APN in Informatics, which covers PhD'ers to. Thanks again

Hey ya'll, I'm new to the NI board and to NI. I've been a superuser in the past but just started 1. a heck of an NI job and 2. my MSN in NI. Anyways since I'm new to everything I'm in a quandary. For one thing I need to interview an NI nurse who has her master's in NI. Any takers? Everyone I know only has their undergrad. 2. I have to write an ethics paper on NI, ethical issues NI nurses face. All the lit I have found is about general informatics ethics, not specific to the ethical issues NI nurses might face. I thought about writing a paper on the ethics behind determining levels of access to the EHR/ EMR but not sure how to word it and get anything back on the lit search. Any help at all is greatly appreciated, I'm ready to go nuts! Thanks again Jen

I'm not in NJ anymore, but have worked every concievable shift and have found once you're on nights it's not so bad as long as you stick to it if possible on your days off. I really do get out by 6:15 (we work 6-6) usually earlier. I do stay awake usually pretty easily all night, but I'm more of a night person anyway. Most of us that I work with now, start with the cafeeine before work and stop by 2 or 3 in the morning. By 7 or 8 in the morning you're ready for bed. I wouldn't work days if I had to ever again. Too much crud and no shift diff. Nights is much more laid back and less insane, but you don't have as many people around so when things go bad you have to rely more on yourself and others. As far as staying awake, drink plenty of water, eat a decent meal and I find laying off a lot of refind sugars/ heavy carbs helps me not feel so slugish. And get 6 hours of sleep in between shifts if you can.

our hospital likes 2cc/kg/hr for 24 hours. once below that we start to look at it.

Before an infant can go home, often NICUs will have the parents sleep overnight at the hospital with the infant. This is to ensure that the parents are able to care for the infant and whatever medical needs it has, feeding, monitor, etc.

Just a word of warning. Your cut in pay will be painful!

Our TPN/ IVF tibing is q72 hours, our lipids are q24 and most of our med tubing is q 72, bgut our PGE's are 48, milrinone q48. pretty much whenever a new syringe or new bag has to be hung, the tubing goes with.

I'd say 20% sounds right for twins and triplets. We had a rash of multiples not that long ago. only one set of twins went home together, the other 6 or 7 sets of 2 and 3 went home at different times.

Every 48 hours? Seems a bit much. In your smaller kids, doesn't there skin getting eaten up with all of the changes? Our central line infection rate is also pretty respectable with a 7 day turn around on dressings.

Most of our bad gut kids get zantac in their TPN and reglan IV when they are placed on NPO. We also use sucrose in NPO kids unless it's a bad belly. Usually use the dip the pacifier method, but some of us do use a 1/2cc in a syringe coating the mouth.

I live down here, our hospital is involved with the conference since we are the largest NICU in the area and have a ton of NNPs. I would get a rental. There is a Radisson directly across the street for the sheraton. There's a beach front shopping/ dining area next door to the Sheraton. There's a few more hotals in the area that are all within walking distance. Having stayed at a few of them, I would still stay at the Sheraton.

Since we're a dedicated children's hospital we have a lot more resources I think. Our broviac dressings are changed by our hospital IV team q7 days or PRN at the bedside nurses request. Our PICC and midline dsgs are changed by our unit PICC/ midline nurses who also place them. Any of us can reinforce the dressings as needed. Our assessment sheets require us to chart the status of the dressing q12 hours and the date it was last changed.

We had a patient not that long ago who had a chest tube for months after a TE fistula repair. He had a chylothorax post op that would not heal and repeated surgery was not an option (it's a very long twisted story). So the little one wound up on Portagen and m,ultiple chest tubes. It finally did heal and he went home. You're role as an RN during insertion and care depends on your facility but usually requires ensuring proper placemnt of the tube after it's in (checking lung sound frequently) ensuring good oxygenation, pain control (often an uphill battle), and patency of the system. And if I wasn't coming off my fourth night on I'm sure I could think of more. Your duties during insertion includes helping if not setting up the field, making sure you have life support ready if need be. Often the infant we need sedation prior to insertion which will also fall for you to do, whether it's morphine (what we use) or something else. As far as your preceptor, if you can't talk to her, go to your nure manager and tell him/her that due to differences in personality that you would like a new preceptor. Try talking to your current one again and if you get no where, stand up for yourself and demand a decent orientation. Not only are you doing yourself a disservice by not learning, you're doing your patients as well. I'm here if you need someone to talk to that has been there and done it. Good luck! And we're all not that mean!

Once in a blue moon we'll use continuous with some of our really bad gastrics, but even with intermittent, we'll only aspirate/ check patency once a shift or if we're gotting nothing out and the baby's belly is getting bigger

Don't take ACH off your list. Most of us that work here really do like it. The pay isn't great, but the experience you get here is incredible. It is a bonus to get the experience you get here vs TGH or St Joe's. We get the kids no one else can handle. I live over by Brandon, actually Apollo Beach 35 minutes usually to ACH/Bayfront. Great housing market out there. There has been alot of issues buying/ building houses in Manatee county lately (good friend is a realtor there). Better to look in Pinellas or Hillsbourogh. Tarpon Springs is nice, but out of the way for most things. Anyways, ACH is actually a pretty good place to work. The overtime policy isn't 1/2 bad either. Benefits are pretty good too. The regular peds floors seem to be nice places to work, the ICUs are wonderful. I work NICU and have to say we have our politics and crud, but make the best of it. St joe's is a good hospital, but not the easiest to get to. I would stay away from TGH, I have friends who work there and can't stand it.

Our unofficial policy is to change probe placement with hands on, which is usually q6. Feet, wrists or hands are fair game. It can go on the same extremity as the BP cuff, just hope you remember that when your sats drop that its because of the cuff. In our bigger kids we'll do probe site changes q12.

BIORN, You could have been me back in 97. I had a adjunct professor teach my first clinical rotation, community health, nursing home stuff. She was a psych NP and wanrted to help all of us. She almost ran me out of this profession. She told me I had problems. I had no business being a nurse. I didn't belong. etc etc etc. Sound familiar? Under no circumstances was I going out like that. I went to the Dean of Student Affairs and threw one hell of a fit. I wasn't going to allow another student, someone who didn't have the resolve I did, to be forced out by someone who had no business being a nursing instructor. If you want out of nursing, fine, that's your call. But don't let it be because of some witch who gets all her pleasure out of torturing another human being. You're better than that. You derserve better. At least don't leave without putting in writing why you left and sending it to the school. At least if she does this to another student, that student has a leg to stand on. Sorry you went thru this

I can do respiratory, but I have a hard time with some vomit and poop...

If you want to interact with people, and use skills, try being a car salesman.... they use people skills and all that crud.. nurses use time honored elbow grease... I was reading the above peost by a NICU RN and remembering all that lovely poop... It really does stink, and is impossible to get out, which is why in my NICU when ever we handles kids we wore cover gowns, I would have hated to ruin multiple pairs of white pants.. I've alrwady ruined multiple white shoes (why is it that Admin says we have to wear white shoes, when all most no bodily excretion is white????) Nursing is hard. You cry with your patients. you fight with them. you fight for them. And sometimes at the end of the day you cry. Just because. Last month I swore off nursing. i couldn't handle being a pawn for the docs, stepped on my admin and generally frustrated. The next day two nurses, myself being one of them, saved a patients life. No help from the primary doc, he was too busy. If a nurse hadn't been there, she would have died. The doc tried to get the two of us in trouble for what we did, but he got slammed to the wall (there is a God after all). The point is, I made a difference, not the doc... I think I'll hang around for awhile

Thank you sooooooo much... JCAHO is making a surprise visit in less than a month, we got 1 months notice.. since we're military, the JCAHO equivalent is also coming.. talk about psycho!!!

My first month as a military nurse we had to evacuate the hospital because of a bomb threat. We ran it like a fire evacaution. We went horizontal then vertical to evacuate. At the time we had 4 patients on the unit, all but one were immobile and morbidly obese. We had to trasfer them via the stairs in stair chairs. We were never told when the bomb was going to go off, but we had our unit evacuated, with help from what staff has arrived thus far, which was very few since it was before 6:45. There was no way any of us were leaving patients behind. Our job as nurses and mine as military is to protect and help my patients. So what I'm guess I'm saying is I don't get is the line "I'm not convinced that nursing is a job to die for, but personally would feel some need to help get someone out with me. As I work on an ortho. floor, evacuation would be time consuming and extremely difficult." Maybe I just think differently, but I would do everything in my power to get every last aptient out of the hospital. period

There is also a nursing shortage in the military.. Question 1: All of the above Question 2: all of the above Question 3: How about this: people stop looking at nurses as human pooper scoopers and instead as professionals.

When I got to my current floor, I hadn't worked with adults in over a year and had forgotten much of my basic skills... I repeatedly told my preceptor this, but she pretty much blew me off.. my med tech came to me and told me my patient's blood sugar was 200 something, dinner was being served so I hurried up, got the MAR ran to the med room, pulled up 30 units of regular insulin.. yes THIRTY units.., the MAR was written very badly, what was 3 Units, was written 3U and the U looked like a 0, and 3 units seemed awfully small. I told my preceptor I was giving the patient this insulin, she waved me off to go give it and I did.. 3 hours later I'm at home lying in bed and the night nurse calls me and did I really give this guy 30 units? I said us, the night nurse said it was for 3 units and the guy's BS was 40 something.. I nearly died right then and there... I was very very fortunate and so was the patient, he didn't get ill, they gave him some OJ and he was good to go.. We all make mistakes.. I too only had like 3 patients that day, it happens, we're lucky when the patients are alright afterwards