bubbly

There are a lot of babies on my unit who I would like to adopt and bring home. Too bad the parents won't let me because they would rather take them home instead. :chuckle I just wish all the babies go to good homes with lots of love. I know of 2 p...

If the baby is your primary, then I am sure you know the baby and perhaps family very well that you can use your own discretion in deciding if its appropriate to give a gift and what that gift is. If it was me and my mangers/board of nursing complai...

Age is not a factor to pursue nursing. In fact, the oldest graduate in my nursing class was in her late 50s. I would also recommend applying to multiple nursing schools in your area just to increase your chances for acceptance. I think you have a ...

Hello. I graduated nursing school in May 2007 and I had only been off my NICU orienation for about 6 weeks and was recently floated to PICU. I am struggling enough to keep up with my time management and nursing skills in NICU that being sent to PICU...

Thank you for your post. I too chose to work at a large teaching metropolitan hospital because they have experience in teaching new grads and I knew the orientation was going to be nice and long (6 months)! I got a tour of the unit from the manager...

Everyone makes mistakes. I just have to put the mistake in perspective and tell myself that as long as the patient is ok and there is no long term damage, it will be just fine. The worst you can do is not learn from your mistakes. If you missed a ...

Hello :) I graduated in May 2007, passed my boards in June, and started my internship for a neonatal icu in July. Its been a long journey and lots of consideration if this was what I wanted to do or if I could handle the stress and workload of my ch...

Hi all! As a new grad, I found the job search difficult because most hospitals are looking for experienced nurses instead of training nursing newbies. Most hospitals in need of nurses looking for new grads will take any RN degree out there. Howeve...

I was curious how long different NICUs kept chronic babies who did not meet requirements for lower level care facilities. Do you transfer these babies to a special pediatric floor in your hospital or do they continue to stay in the NICU until they m...

maybe being a school nurse? I know people who have started as a new grad, just have to have a bachelors degree in my state. Hours seem comparable to that of a teacher.

I was curious to know what NICU nurses think about visiting and even babysitting your NICU graduates. I have heard of some nurses who will continue their relationships with babies and parents outside of the hospital even though it not encouraged by ...

It doesn't really matter which nursing is the hardest and easiest bc it will vary on who you talk to. What matters most is starting your nursing career in something you really want to do and you have passion for. That will make the challenging part...

My hospital's incubators have built in scales, like sweeper said. Many of our warmers even have bed scales. We weigh our babies once a shift at night. We are allowed to defer weights if they are critically ill, just had surgery, etc. We use humid...

Ooooh I had an awful time on my first and only float so far. It was only 8 weeks after I finished my NICU orientation and I was floated to the never seen before PICU unit. Everything was completely different over there and I had no idea what I was ...

wee one that is exactly what i do too. We have these bean bags in the shape of an arm for our babies and when I turn a baby prone, i will put the tubing on the face in between the fingers of the beanbag. They look so much more comfortable that way....

I'm from Houston. Having lived in both Houston and Dallas/Fort Worth, I am familiar with both areas. As another post mentioned, good hospitals in Dallas are Baylor, Parkland, and Children's Medical center right next to Parkland which would be the b...

we recently changed to 2% chlorahexadine. i don't think that is good for the skin either!

At my hospital, it is common to let parents hold intubated babies, but not ones with UACs. With UACs, you can at least tell parents that the most they usually stay in for is a week (or up to 10 days if Drs really push them for the real sick kiddos)....

Thank you for your post meghan. My educator is new (she actually oriented with me and the other NICU interns when she was hired for the NICU ed position to see what we were learning). So I guess we were kind of her gunea pigs and she didn't really ...

I am just hitting my 6 month mark as well. It definitely is more scary not having a preceptor around me just to make sure I am doing everything right and not missing important details. I think I am in the 6 month slump too. Admits are still scary ...

As Meghan mentioned, hurry and contact the nurse recruiters. The NICU is competitive in Houston for new grads and some of the deadlines have already passed. I don't think you can even get a NICU job without an internship here if you don't already h...

It is common for students to think that they have certain "psych" diseases when learning about them, but I am not sure about physical ones. In fact the first lecture of my psych class we were told about how common it is that students will start to t...

I work in a level 3 NICU. My unit's kangaroo care policy is a lot like csm08mms's unit policy. The only exception is babies under the bililights or babies under oxyhoods cannot be held. All parents get a kangaroo care packet in their admissions fo...

Hi! Congratulations on getting your dream job! It sounds like you will do great! It is wonderful that you already have a feel for the unit since you are working there and will have other girls in your class to relate to. It's going to be challeng...

My unit uses humidity for babies 28 weeks or less. Those babies are placed in the Giraffe beds with the built in humidity system. We start them out on 70% and start weaning the humidity by 5% each shift on the 7th day. We wean them down to 40% by ...