rachaelofcourse

Any Navy blue scrubs will work.

You have to buy them yourself.

Ditto!

Banner only does a night shift differential.

Yep! About 8 months in as a new grad in a medical ICU and loving it. :)

Gateway's evening program was great for me, as I was in a similar situation. Most of the clinicals were on the weekends as well.

Well, the cost of living here is significantly lower than that of the Pacific Northwest. I think the last article I read said the average home here goes for 250-300K. Of course hospitals will pay more for experience/professional certs/etc, but at least in my system, 45/hour is right at the top of the pay scale. I'm sure not being a union state may play into pay too, but that's just my 2 cents.

Yes, they do. Those positions in general are hard to come by, but they're certainly there. AZBlueBell is a new grad in L&D. :)

After your orientation/preceptorship ends. It should be noted that while yes, you do pick your own schedule, the managers can change it to balance the staffing out.

For my system, they factor in the degree you're getting, school you plan on attending, as well as years of service. To be eligible, you must be a full time employee with at least 6 months of service. I would like to add that in my system, tuition reimbursement is very hard to come by. It might not be that way in other systems, though.

The only thing of note I can add is that employers don't necessarily pay FOR your BSN. I work for the largest healthcare system in the state and they offer tuition reimbursement, but it is a competitive application process. I'm not sure how other systems are, but I can't imagine they'd be too different.

I didn't.

Just nights, no weekend diff. I just got a raise, but raises are largely based on merit and going to the meetings and such.

It also depends on the unit, in addition to what AZBlueBell said. Most people on my unit do most of their orientation on days, regardless of whether they're hired for nights or not. This is to get experience with the Intensivists, bedside bronchoscopies, bedside EGDs, more codes (although we still have a bunch on nights), things like that. I should add that part of the reason I did mostly nights is because I worked days as a PCA so I was already accustomed to days.

I did almost all of my orientation on nights, FWIW. I think I only did like 5 day shifts lol.

I work nights by choice. I dislike day shift. Academy is going through some changes right now, so I can't speak to that. I know you have some simulation and skills days for it, but that's about it.

Hello, I just recently completed the new grad programs and am going core in my unit. Basically, how it works is you will interview and they will place you on a unit in one of their hospitals. Sometimes you can have a bigger say, but I'm not sure of that as my position had been saved for me for a couple months. The first week, you will have Banner and facility orientation (Monday), then Clinical Orientation (Tuesday) , then Cerner training (Wednesday). I was on my unit with my preceptor the first week. You have 3 days of sim spread out over 2 weeks. There are no lecture days until you take Academy, which is specific to your service line. For example, I work ICU, so I will do ICU academy. As far as how long your preceptorship is, that really depends on you, what unit you're on, and how your manager feels you're progressing. For example, ICU preceptorship is the longest at 12 weeks. I did 14 to make up some time that I had to take off for family things. My friend works PCU and her orientation was 9 weeks. Hope this helps!

There are loads of people who fail a block and go on to pass nursing school and become successful nurses. Study up; you can do it!

For clarification for anyone reading this, I went out of state for an earlier test date. I still had to wait to receive my ATT from AZBN, but instead of testing approx 2 weeks after getting my ATT, I tested the next day by going out of state. Just wanted to clear up any confusion!

Haha I wish! It was still about 3 weeks after graduating.

I was never endorsed in another state. When you register for NCLEX, you designate what BON you want your results sent to. So, you can test anywhere, but your results will only go to the BON you designate.

Or go out of state to take NCLEX. That's what I did, and I took NCLEX the day after getting my ATT.

I work at Boswell in the Medical ICU - just finished my orientation and am now on my own as an RN! Boswell is definitely a geriatric hospital, but I have grown to love it. Right now we are super busy because of the snowbirds being here, but the summers can be pretty slow. It's an older hospital, so some things are a little weird, but you get used to it. PM me and I'd love to show you around the hospital! I was a CNA there before I became a nurse, so I'm familiar with every unit. Are you days or nights?

I used to have a complex about mucous. I now work in the ICU, where mucous abounds. Exposure therapy is great!

That has happened a time or two í ½í¸‚