tramalady45

Just curious...I am trying to get an initial certification in BTLS and cannot find any available courses here in Southern California. Does anyone know of any or where I might have luck searching?? Thanks for the help....

Well, I have an ADN and I make exactly the same amount as my BSN counterparts. Go figure!

I say go for it. I started fresh out of school with zero experience in hospitals at all other than our required clinicals. I work in a level 1 trauma center, we see 100,000 + patients per year and we are constantly running. I hated the ER in school and actually said that I would NEVER work in the ER and I got called for an interview and decided to try it out and I would never want to work anywhere else now. I absolutely love it. try to have a good sense of humor. Don't forget to laugh, don't take things to personally, really make an effort to find out who your strongest players are and utilize their knowledge, don't be afraid to admit that you don't always have the answer, don't be afraid to cry over a patient in front of their family,they will remember you for it and appreciate you for being human and truly caring for thier loved one, or don't be afraid to hold a patients hand while they are dying, don't be afraid to try new things, don't fear starting IV's in a really weird place ( my weirdest was a lady's nipple....) and remember the patient assumes that you have lots of experience so just relax and breath and be confident and they will never know the difference. Don't hide from the hairy scary stuff like a traumatic full arrest or peds codes because you need the exposure and the knowledge and it will thicken your skin, and above all, never forget how hard you worked for this and why you are doing it. There will be days you regret it, days that make you question your faith and days that make you truly believe in a higher power. Savor them all as they are all a part of what makes our job so beautiful. Good luck!

Okay, I know that this sounds pretty harsh but I say it one way when they refuse, " you will take report on this patient or I will be up to give you bed side report in 15 minutes, you choose which way you would like this". I work in a level 1 trauma center in one of the busiest counties in the nation and we are always and forever on sat. It is extremely frustrating to us ER nurses to have to babysit a patient-especially an abusive loud really nasty one-all day long. We pray that this is the one patient that gets a bed and we have no luck in that area. Then wham! Like magic 30 minutes before shift change we suddenly get beds for some of our patients and we are required to call report within 30 minutes. One day I got beds for all of my patients 20 minutes before shift change! What a nightmare! I don't know about anyone else but I just want the patients to get out of the ER. I've had the same patient for as many as 3 days before they finally got upstairs to a room! One time I called report to ICU an hour before shift change. The nurse actually refused report saying it was the middle of shift change ( which wasn't taking place for another hour yet and she only had 1 patient that she was sitting on) then proceeded to tell me that she was too busy and I am like pulling my hair out as we had literally 11 ambulances waiting inside the bay to be able to drop off their patients and all 40 of our ER beds were taken. I wanted to die! Needless to say she got bedside report via the charge nurse. Too crazy. Sometimes I wish that I were in administration

I AGREE!!! I love my job, I would not work in any other department if I had the choice. I am tired of nurses in other units assuming that we ER nurses "rush the patients to the floor right at shift change". It is shift change for us too and no one makes the patients wait in the parking lot until we get our bearings just because it is shift change. We do not do it on purpose!! The ohter night at 6:15 three of four of my patients finally got beds (one had been there 3 days!!) and I am required to get them up to those assigned beds period, no matter the time. We do not like dumping all our patients either right before shift change because guess what? They just turn around and fill us back up despite the shift change thing. I had an ICU nurse actually refuse to take report on a patient at 6 because that was to close to shift change for her ( an hour away)! Hello! She only had one other patient! I would never belittle another nurse or refuse care based on what time of day it is, it gets tiring for us in the ER to never hear anything but negativity from everyone else. A nurse's job is difficult enough without making your peers feel bad about what they do. We are part of a healthcare team and should act accordingly to provide the greatest continuity of care for the sake of the patients. Period. Let's all try to be more positive and help each other out to make our job easier, let's not fight each other for goodness sakes!!

MRSA Poo isn't as bad as C-Diff Poo. It's like jelly, and the smell is putrid. The face is located under the smiley menu, just scroll down... hehehe

Hey, just curious, does anyone know anything about San Antonio Community Hospital in Upland, California? I am interested because I was thinking of applying to their ER as per diem and don't know anyone who has worked there. Any info would be great!

I work in Trauma in a major trauma center. I have seen it all. Literally. I can take puke, GSW, stabbings, broken bones, burns,pee, sputum, I have even seen maggots-yes, maggots crawling outta someone's rectum, and the only thing that still causes me to get weak in the knees and green is feces. I CANNOT take feces! If I am about to enter a room where there is even the slightest possibility of feces being there, I PUKE!:barf01:

Well, what kind of information are you looking for specifically What area are you interested in? I used to work there so I know a bit.

Don't let them freak you out. I worked tele right out of school. The first 6 weeks or so were very stressful because you have to really fine tune your assessments skills and being able to juggle time management issues but after that it was okay. Every job right when you get out of school is going to be frightening. You don't have anyone to fall back on and having the responsibility of making the decisions will seem scary at first but with time it will come. Tele is a wonderful place to learn, I know that usually that is code for "run like hell!" but it really is. Take this opportunity and use it to grow as a new nurse, ask lots of questions, and get as much hand's on with difficult tasks as possible. Also, you might want to consider taking a basic arrhythmia class ASAP before you start if at all possible. Also, I made flash cards the first week of drugs that I was starting to see routinely like Digoxin, Labetelol, Metoprolol, Lasix, HCTZ, Aldactone, Coumadin, Nitroglycerin, and Clonipin for example and memorized implementation , side effects, adverse reactions and common dose ranges just so I would be a little familiar with them.Don't let people scare you, and remember your patients will not know how much experience you have, they will only see RN behind your name so they assume you have experience and have done it all a million times. Remain confident and your patients will be confident and alot calmer too! Good luck!

Well, I actually have a leather "fanny pack". I keep the following items: 1. Pocket PC of course 2. at least three bottles of flush 3. at least 4 empty flush syringes 4. 2 tournaquets 5. tons of alcohol pads 6. a plethora of 2 x 2's 7. 2 of each: 16 guage, 18 guage, 20 guage and 22 guage caths 8. three pens 9. red pen and one sharpie pen 10. halls mentholyptus lozenges ( these are great to suck on when a really bad smelly patient comes in and you can't take the smell. You can barely smell anything else but Halls cause they are so strong! 11. Tape 12. penlight That's about it. It usually gets me through a shift without having to keep leaving a patients room. I have to restock sometimes but it beats saying "um, oh-I forgot that- I will be right back....." Good luck!!

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: My fiance didn't think that was funny-BUT I SURE DID!!!

:rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

I purchased the "light" and I hated it. It sucked in fact. I couldn't have heard a bomb go off on that thing. I decided to really upgrade and order the Master Cardiology and LOVE IT!!!! :yelclap: I will not use anything else! I can be in a crowded room and hear clear as a bell with it.

Wow. You are lucky. If I was smart enough to make it through the math for the biology degree, I'd surpass crna school and just be a doc. Good luck to you!!

As a matter of fact Loma Linda University offers this degree. go to http://www.llu.edu

Change your name for sure! YOU ARE NOT A LOSER!!!! I won't let my fellow nurses talk about themselves like that!! You can do anything you want. It is true that people will see through the exterior. Your personality will show through. Your skills will speak for themselves and if you are kind to people, honest, and fair and non judgemental that will speak volumes. I say go for it!!

Of course you can do it!!!! It sounds really intimidating because you have no background in it. Believe me, if someone would have told me 5 years ago that I was going to be a nurse, I would have told you that you should stop doing crack 'cause it kills. I had zero background in math or science, in fact dropped out of high school, passed the CHSPE test here at 16 and went on to years of rough partying. At 25 I decided to go to school. I could barely even divide let alone pronounce half of the names of my pre- reqs! I graduated this year with 3 degrees and on Deans list with a 3.5GPA! You can do it. I have learned if you have faith in god, and more important, faith in yourself, you can and will do it. If you can dream it, you can achieve it! Good luck to you!

You are not a baby. I can't stand when nurses eat their own. It really chaps my booty. When I was a student in school a nurse actually called me stupid and said I just don't get nursing because I refused to give a patient 100 units-yes, 100 NOT 10, but 100 units of insulin to a patient with no accucheck!! There is nothing worse then learning and trying and being nervous then to have some dirt old nurse yell at you and publicly humiliate you-it is too much. Our jobs are hard enough! Keep your head up and do what you know in your heart is right! You can't go wrong.

I just had to share this with my fellow ER/Trauma nurses. This is unreal. What are people thinking??? SCROTUM SELF-REPAIR by William A. Morton, Jr. MD taken from: Medical Aspects of Human Sexuality July 1991 One morning I was called to the emergency room by the head ER nurse. She directed me to a patient who had refused to describe his problem other than to say that he "needed a doctor who took care of men's troubles." The patient, about 40, was pale, febrile, and obviously uncomfortable, and had little to say as he gingerly opened his trousers to expose a bit of angry red and black-and-blue scrotal skin. After I asked the nurse to leave us, the patient permitted me to remove his trousers, shorts, and two or three yards of foul-smelling stained gauze wrapped about his scrotumm which was swollen to twice the size of a grapefruit and extremely tender. A jagged zig-zag laceration, oozing pus and blood, extended down the left scrotum. Amid the matted hair, edematous skin, and various exudates, I saw some half buried dark linear objects and asked the patient what they were. Several days earlier, he replied, he had injured humself in the machine shop where he worked, and had closed the laceration himself with a heavy-duty stapling gun. The dark objects were one-inch staples of the type used in putting up wallboard. We x-rayed the patient's scrotum to locate the staples, admitted him to the hospital, and gave him tetorifice antitoxin, broad-spectrum antibacterial therapy, and hexachlorine sitz baths prior to surgery the next morning. The procedure consisted of exploration and debridement of the left side of the scrotal pouch. Eight rusty staples were retrieved, and the skin edges were trimmed and freshened. The left testis had been avulsed and was missing. The stump of the spermatic cord was recovered at the inguinal canal, debrided, and the vessels ligated properly, though not much of a hematoma was present. Through-and-through Penrose drains were sutured loosely in site, and the skin was loosely closed. Convalescence was uneventful, and before his release from the hospital less than a week later, the patient confided the rest of his story to me. An unmarried loner, he usually didn't leave the machine shop at lunchtime with his co-workers. Finding himself alone, he had begun the regular practice of masturbating by holding his member against the canvas drive belt of a large floor-based peice of running machinery. One day, as he approached orgasm, he lost his concentration and leaned too close to the belt. When his scrotum suddenly became caught between the pulley-wheel and the drive belt, he was thrown into the air and landed a few feet away. Unaware that he had lost his left testis, and perhaps too stunned to feel much pain, he stapled the wound closed and resumed work. I can only assume he abandoned this method of self-gratification.

Too funny! I couldn't stop looking at it on line. Then for about a week I wouldn't answer my phone because I thought it was the BON to tell me they made a mistake and wanted my license back! :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl: :rotfl:

Oh! I almost tossed reading this! I could die! I hope to the lord I never ever ever ever see any patient eat anything that comes out of anywhere!! :barf01: I heard on this TV show one time that there is this village somewhere and there is this old lady that does this very special service for all who live in this village. She is so good in fact at her "job" that the entire village goes to her for this. Hold on to your hats...she licks and eats the crispy or gooey slimey stuff out of the corners of your eyes!!! :barf01: I am NOT making this up! I saw it on TV on some show. I have never been the same since!

Too weird! I have a sticker on my car window that says that! it is the only one I have ever seen :)

I personally think that the NCLEX questions were exactly like the ones that I was taking from the Davis NCLEX-RN Success book/CD. It was a great preperatory tool. I was used to the style of questions by the time I got to take the NCLEX and felt a bit more confortable. It still doesn't help how you feel afterwards though-I swore that I had failed! But, I was optimistic, I clicked off at 75 and found out I passed. I really liked the Davis CD. There were hundreds upon hundreds of higher level questions. I was told by my program administrator that if you could keep your head above 65% on any of the CD tests that I would be fine and she was correct. Good luck to you!!

I hope that you pass. I totally feel your pain. I took nclex on 7/1 and I had to wait 26 days to find out if I passed or not. It was sheer torture. I felt like I failed as well, but thank the powers that be-I passed. If you feel like the questions were very difficult, that is a good sign so I hear. I will say a prayer for you! Good luck!