loquacity

hehe, i remember my obstetrics and l & D days last year... is it awkward at times yes....but i got over it... "so hows your flow" "i'm just gonna feel your breast for firmness" and other awkward questions have all been conquered by me one patient whom i'd had for a while and i knew well, asked why i chose to be an postpartum nurse and i simply said "i didn't--i'm only here for 6 days. I want the ER!!! blood and guts! this is sorta awkward for you and for me, but don't worry we'll both get through it!" lol and despite the fact that i still maintain no interest in working there in the future i actually liked doing probably 90% of all the teaching, especially for new parents. They're so excited and they have no clue what to do...but your their new baby's user manual & instruction book. 10% of the stuff i didn't like teaching ~ as in stuff re lochia etc.....gross....Plus i got really good at quieting the baby's. I should have gotten an award. also the actual staff on the floor were great (and funny) and more than willing to help out and give advice....and they understood i was a male and this isn't my best area... oh and btw i was only 19 for my clinical, defiantly looked pretty darn young and had never actually held a newborn baby before....but i knew my stuff well and faked me some confidence and everything went well (i got an A- which i was thrilled with)

"Of course you can't work in the OR, in fact you probably can't be a nurse. Might as well quit now. Nurses don't get acute or chronic illnesses, or injuries. Nurses never injure their backs 'cus of obese patients, we also never get colds, gi bugs or anything like that. I'm sure you instructor is in perfect health with the body of god. Because nurses are never overweight. Also nurses never smoke, or get angry for that matter. Nurses "are" superhumans!" (sarcasm) don't put too much worry into your instructor, in fact what she said in post conference seemed a bit unprofessional to me. I've had instructors say some things simialr to that but they've been wrong. And even if the OR doens't work out, there are sooooo many other places that will.

well, i'm a male....at the end of my 3rd year I suggest you do dress up a bit although for girl i not entirely sure what that is. I know most female peers when applying for hospital jobs this summer tended to wear a skirt/slacks with a blouse with nice shoes. Just look professional! Your applying to work in a hospital amongst doctors and nursess both profession'ss so i think by dressing up nice you will make a good impression. Best of luck ~Loquacity (eg for my interview i wore a suit and tie)

i found that all that knowledge was very hard to staple down in my brain first year, but after my first summer...which i didn't do work related to nursing for...but come 2nd year septemeber me and classmates found that we all of a sudden knew a whole lot of stuff we learned in 1st year. Its like it was info overload and our brains just needed 3 extra months to process and file all that info...and now that i have a foundation its easier to learn new stuff...cus your geared to remembering this medical stuff....however some stuff still gets filed in the garbage file right away still....eg. nursing models and other random stuff which isn't very real world practical in my opinion.

terminology can change depending on geography but i'd interpret it to mean surgical as working on a floor with surgical patients pre & post surgery like a mdicine unit but faster and not as sick aptietns...often with higher turnover depending on the type of patients, and theatre would be working with the operating theatre eg. scrub nurses, circulating nurses etc.

im not expereinced but # 1 sounds better.

theres a really,really long forum that has tips, along with peoples adhd life stories, ideas on its causes, along with your usual flaming posts of "adhd doesn't exist"...just ignore those...lol....just search for it...it'll be the one with the really long page number.... although a warning...it does jump around a bit (surprise surprise...its written by ppl with adhd lol) but its very useful and entertaining and long ( i just jump form page to page till i get bored)

when i worked as a porter over summer (transfering pt's, charts, supplies etc. between units) i wore it on night shifts 11pm -7am. But i wore it under clothing & took it off when working with patients. I don't think it is appropriate to wear when working with patients (though i don't seem a huge problem if they are unconcsious, and the volume is low enough to hear any alarms). I never would've worn it on a day or evening shift though, only night shift.

Personally, i thought your post was funny. & if some docs come and quote it and chuck it in there forum, meh, their fault for quoting out of context. Plus those docs should know never to beleive everything you see on the internet. After all If everything on the internet was true, we'd all be using those "natural" diet pills and north america wouln't be an overweight/obese nation and i'd be winning ipods, tv's and trips to hawaii from all those contests that i just seem to win. I seem to have a new win from contests i never signed up for every day!!! lol sorry bout the tangent,lol

"I know I possibly do have ADHD now and again, especially when on coffee..Oh boy! Flitter flatter and more, can't keep to one topic at a time for too long or when it's early morn during my night shift oh is it ever present. Can't concentrate worth a darn!!!" actually that might just be......caffeine... for some people with adhd coffee actually works to an extent like ritalin, and by being stimulatory (like ritalin) acts to actually calm the pt, and increase focus etc. & the lack of concentration in early morning or night shifts is prob. due to it being a night shift/early morning shift, in which most peoples brains arn't work'n right unless you're used to night shift. if you think you do have adhd then talk to your doctor if you want to investigate the possibility further.

"why in the world do you want to be a nurse in canada, the rate of pay there is crap for nurses compared to some regions in the US of A." "Not to mention quality of life. Much to some people's surprise, some us actually LIKE it here." There is also many other things nice in canada like perhaps she doesn't want to work in a hospital where you have to charge the patient for every single item used, or there is less chance of being sued for malpractice, oh and Canada is safer, with lower crime stats. Considering the fact that the OP also deliberatley stated the fact that she is of an asain background, she may like how Canada is more multicultural. For example according to the United Nations Development Programme, Toronto has the second-highest percentage of foreign-born population among world cities, after Miami, Florida. While Miami's foreign-born population consists mostly of Cubans and other Latin Americans, no single nationality or culture dominates Toronto's immigrant population. So overall, there are lots or reasons why one might want to be a nurse in canada.(and where I am in western Canada most nurses do NOT have masters)

re: "Just in case you don't want to do breaths, here's a little bit of info that I heard about in my latest CPR class: Apparently, in Europe, compressions are done but rescue breathing is not. Studies have shown that the success rate of CPR is higher in Europe than in America. This is why we have increased our ratio to 30/2." At least where I am, so as not to be sued, and be protected by the "Good Samaritan Act", you must act within your scope and as trained as a CPR trained person (regardless of what your occupation is)...anyways CPR courses do teach that you are to give breaths, so you could probably be sued if you did not give any breaths just compressions just because you were afraid of getting germs, that being said i still don't think i'd give CPR to a stranger without a mask of some sort (even if it is just a shirt or something, (im always wearing one of those lol!). Oh and i was also taught as of this year the 30:2 ratio, & because thye're always cahnging the rules, in my palce now there is only 1 basic CPR course, where everyhting is standardized (eg ratio) for all age groups and as simple as possilbe since most laypeople who take CPR don't ever take it again, and forget things, howevor there is a seperate CPR for healthcare workers. (Oh and we have to recertify q Year, not q2 year), oh and i've never had to give CPR, although a gril in my class did to another tourist when vacationing, though they didn't survive, but thats why she went into nursing.

personally i think the nurses in all white looks scarier to patients than the ones wearing all black (plus in some asian cultures the "colour of death" is white, not black...so we can't be using those excuses when we live in countries with such diverse ethnic backgrounds). I think the all black scrubs can look very proffesional... I think the all white looks very institutional....and if your hospitalized you don't need to be reminded more than you already are that you are in a big scary hospital, possible with the nurses that look so old school that it freaks you out.... but i figure if people want to wear white feel free to do so.... (PS. i used to work in a bakery when i was younger...all white once again but more practical considering there was flour EVERYWHERE...but unless im mistaken blood, feces, vomit and simialr substances are rarely pure white thus you see them on scrubs...(unless it was some sort of very white purulent discharge...which just what i want to ahve spilled on my uniform)..but one tip for white scrub wearers don't wear eg. bright red, black etc underwear if your pants arn't thick enough to conceal it...now that looks funny lol. (and in a hospital setting probably unproffesional)...oh and with whites after a point fabric seems to get thinner with age and there coems a point that is just plain see through no matter what you do period...chuck thm!

im not an expert but is it possible that its schitzophrenia (sorry prob. spelled it wrong)...myabe he's just never been dx...? are you sure they only started once he was on meds...

as an instructor she should know (as i do as a fellow student) that even if she is able to quickly dart it in to only halfway, that a student realtivley new to injections probably doesnt have the dexterity, motr control, muscle memory to do such a deed, and if she wanted you to practice on a arm going only half in, you should practice on a beefy arm...not the skin and bones arm. ~Loquacity