Mortpm1

Kaiser permanente. I came from California, and my endorsement took about 6-8 weeks, but I think the hold up was on the California side. Clark college has a lpn to rn bridge program. Ditto about getting the Oregon license as well.

If the salaries are the same now as when I graduated in 1992, I would not recommend LPN/LVN. I love nursing, but I can't pay the mortgage. With the pressure to use unlicensed nurse assistants in acute, and MA'S in clinics, the only living wage is in LTC, where the nurse patient ratios are not consistent with safe care, in my opinion. The OP specifically asked if she should quit her current job to go to school. I wouldn't, unless I planned to bridge straight into a RN program, or want to work in a SNF. Most people go to school to improve their financial situation.

One time, when I was working as a Telemetry Technician, the resident refused to write ICU transfer orders on a patient with a heart rate of 10 I told him that the patient was not stable enough for the med surg floor, and he met our facilities ICU admission criteria. I called our nurse manager at home, as I had been instructed to do in this situation, when he continued to refuse to transfer the furious resident stalked over to write the orders, asked me what my problem was, and that he thought I needed to have sex really soon (but not in those words). I reported this comment in writing to my manager, and thought no more of it, until 3 weeks later when I noticed a written apology to the nursing staff from this doctor posted in the hospital breakroom. A supportive manager is worth her weight in gold. I was lucky enough to have her for 15 years. Never had another one like that. Probably never will.

Look at it from their point of view. There are probably things they shared with you that they would never want "their boss" to know. There are things you may have shared with them, that may make it difficult for them to view you as an authority figure. Maybe some of them trained you. Maybe they have had a negative experience with a former "friend's" promotion, whereby that person changed once they got a promotion. My former "friend" fired me 6 months after she was promoted, mainly because she was upset at how much money I made. (more than her in her previous position). So, sorry, if any of my coworkers get promoted in the future, I will assume that I will be thrown under the bus the first chance they get. That's how management is, so get used to it. I totally agree that you should move to a different group when you start being in charge. Being a ne we manager is hard enough

I have been a LPN since 1991. When I graduated I was offered a job as a LPN intern in a hospital and I made $17 per hour. This was not my only job offer. I had many to choose from. this was in los angeles so perhaps the cost of living had something to do with the salary I don't know. in 1993 I moved to Washington State and was not able to find a job paying more than $10.50 per hour. I was disappointed but there was nothing I could do about it. I worked for a unionized employer and through the years I moved up in pay to the point where I was making $29.46 per hour. I believe this wage placed a big red target on my back because I was recently terminated under a brand new manager, for supposedly violating a policy that I did not violate. She brought me into her office for a meet and greet soon after she arrived, and the subject of my very high salary did come up. She asked me if I realized that she could hire two new grad LPN' s for what I was being paid. I had no idea what the market rate is for LPNs as I have been with this company for 22 years but I did tell her that basically I had gone up only 1.00 per hour per year for 20 years. my salary was not based on merit because any LPN having the same number of years at my company would receive the same amount of pay but I did have excellent reviews for 22 years. I also did many things that typical LPN's in my facility did not do. I acted as a case manager for a chemical dependency program that we were piloting. I was the only nurse in my unit for several months at a time when we were between RN team leaders. I was IV certified and wound care certified. I had been through three separate company-wide reorganizations whereupon I had to rebid for my job each time. I had stayed throughout the process of our inpatient hospital closure, and I transferred and trained as a clinic nurse, and I was working as a telephone advice nurse, something that usually only registered nurses do. I brought out literally dozens of written patient comment cards praising me. I told her I thought I was worth every penny of my salary, as I was basically functioning the same as an RN without the title, something she obviously disagreed with. Since I am now looking for a job I find that LPN's are no longer being used in acute care facilities, so my 15 years of inpatient experience means nothing. Outpatient clinics now utilize MA's. I have no long-term care experience and I doubt if I have the physical capabilities at age 51 to pass meds and do treatments on 30 or 40 or 50 patients. after saving for years I finally was able to come up with a down payment and bought a house 3 years ago I will lose the house because I can no longer pay for it. I'm going through a union process to grieve my termination and be reinstated but I have very little hope that it will pan out, as I have discovered the union is more interested in what's going on in Washington DC then what's going on with its members. Sad because I calculated that I have paid approximately 25,000 dollars in union dues over my career. The entire process has left a bitter taste in my mouth for the field of nursing. if I have to work for 12 or 15 dollars per hour I would rather just start over in a new field altogether and not have to put up with all the ******** that goes along with working with nurses-- the cliques, the petty jealousies, the outright meanness that women can show to each other at times. the only good part about it was being able to help patients, something I treasured. frankly, that's why I never became a registered nurse because I wanted to stay out of the politics and my only joy in nursing was to work with patients. I was at the top of my pay scale and I knew I would never make more money but I was happy with my salary and I just wanted to keep my head down and work with patients until I retired in a few years. my 28 year old son who graduated with a degree in theater arts of all things is making more than $30 per hour as a stagehand. I now feel like I could have gone into any other line of work and done better than this I would never recommend for any young person to be a nurse. becoming a registered nurse is not the answer I have seen them be treated like s*** my entire career with the liabilities and lawsuits and crazy nurse managers, it just isn't worth it.

Can you do telephone nursing? Lots of nurses work from home in the company I used to work for, manning their 24/7 nurse advice lines.

My facility had 2 policies, one for PAY, and one for calculating tardiness. You would get paid if you clocked in 7 min late, but, if you clocked in ONE SECOND late, it was counted as a late arrival. No distinction between the person who got there 1 min late, or 20 min late. This has the ridiculous effect of 18 nurses standing in line at 6:52 am waiting to clock in. Of course we all got there at 6:30, so someone had to set a timer for 6:50 to remind us to stop working off the clock and run over to get in line. God help the hapless soul who was naive enough to try walking in at 7 am and clock in on time.

Kind of makes one want to go into management just for self defense...

Hmmm...what would haunt you more, seeing that he murdered another 4 year old the next day, or violating hipaa? I'm just sayin'

Wow, high school never ends, does it? If your facility has an emr, it will be easy enough to discover who was in the chart. Consult a lawyer. The write up is just the first step of a campaign that will likely end with your termination. If the NM is willing to violate hipaa, and lie about it, she won't think twice about "making book" on you. Whatever you do, DONT discuss this with coworkers. Vent here, go to a shrink, whatever you need. Make sure you hold your head up, for you know you're in the right.,

Life is all gray. My hospital probably would have fired you for helping with the insulin, or not bowing out of the code when you realized it was a relative. It's so frustrating that our humanity and caring are to be sacrificed on the hipaa altar. Trust me, you are feeling worse about your grandmother's not having a chance to say goodbye than you ever would have if you "broke confidentiality" and called her. Hipaa has nothing to do with providing excellent care, we got along fine without hipaa for centuries. Mean, gossipy people will violate confidentiality any way, and innocently caring healthcare providers trying to do the right thing get fired all the time. It makes me so sad.

Not a hipaa violation, but I was recently fired for taking a call from, and providing telephone advice to a friend. Many facilities, including mine have prohibitions against accessing records of family, friends, and co-workers. I had assumed (wrongly, according to them) that this meant [independently accessing records for my own personal use, but my facility tells me that because the patient sought me out personally (he asked for me by name), in my role of telephone advice nurse, that the chart access was deemed "for personal use" so even if you're minding you own business, on your shift, it's always a good idea to have someone unknown to the patient to provide the care. I learned this the hard way. I thought I had good reasons that would matter to my employer. The patient was brand new to the system, and had not bonded with a care team. He has aspergers, and was extremely upset. He called the one person he knew and trusted in our company and asked for me. I did have a "boundary" discussion with him later, and asked him not to ask for me in the future. I helped him choose a pcp, helped him to set up online access. Healthcare facilities are so freaked out by hipaa, it sometimes feels like being human and compassionate are now against the rules. I came up many years ago, I guess when we weren't so "professional" when it was still ok to hug a child, or cry, or pray with a grieving family member, but I've been told none of that is ok anymore. I no longer want to be part of a caring profession where it is no longer an option to actually care about people in an open, human, spontaneous manner

I worked as a telephone advice nurse until a few weeks ago, when I received a call from a young man that rents a room from me. I provided advice to him, as I would have for any other patient. I know him. He rents a room from me, but we aren't social friends. We aren't related. Because he and I have the same address, it was flagged as a possible hipaa breach, so it was investigated. This happens occasionally if you happen to care for someone with the same last name. I assumed that my explanation that I considered this call the same as any patient call, along with a statement from the patient confirming the call details, and the fact that he called as a patient would clear me. Instead, I was terminated from my job of 22 yrs. Every one agrees that this wasn't a hipaa violation, but violated another facility policy prohibiting chart access of "friends or others for personal use, or without a business need to know" I was very aware of this policy, and always assumed that the definition of "for personal use meant MY personal use. I am now being told that, because the patient, who was new to our system, asked for me personally, thus, it constitutes personal use. In other words, the PATIENT called for personal purposes. By that definition, every call is for personal use, since every patent calls for their own personal needs to be met. The facility is calling this "misconduct" so I don't even qualify for unemployment. Every prospective employer's demeanor changes when I disclose that I was fired for alleged violation of a privacy policy. My career is over due to one minute of trying to help a confused and upset young man get the care he needed. Hipaa hysteria has ruined my life, and i suppose I will need to figure out how to earn a living some other way. Hipaa makes it illegal to be human, imo. Amazingly, since I was fired 4 days before the end of the month, I needed to get some preventative care. I work In a system where we receive care in our own facilities. Apparently, news of my upcoming appointment was all over the clinic, including emails that staff sent to each other, and to my former supervisor, speculating about "how I might act" THAT seems like a hipaa violation to me, but nobody at the company seems to care about that. Is there an outside agency to report hipaa violations to? I have several of the emails that were sent back and forth.

If you are in a position to notify the applicant, you should. She has a legitimate right to be evaluated based on her skills, work history and references, just like anyone else. The NM is in violation of several laws, and she is a huge liability for your facility. At a minimum she should be fired. The applicant has a good case for a lawsuit.

My hospital only used RN/LPN pairs. No CNA's. if my RN did not have me to pass meds, provide bedside care, and monitor the stable patients, she would have been a basket case. My nurse manager had to fight for this staffing model. We had some of the highest JCAHO evaluations in the area. Of course, that didn't stop the health conglomerate that owned this small 100 bed facility from closing...