not2bblue

I thought if you failed 3 times you were ineligible to sit for the NCLEX again without remediation. You can try to take it for another state but you graduated in Florida and the school still has to be notified when you apply. Sounds like you are trying to get around the rules. Pretty unethical way to start your career. Also if you failed 3 times, I'm sorry but you NEED remediation.

After you said no, he called your work and continues to call despite being told (I assume) you aren't interested. This type of control to get what he wants can be an early sign of an abuser. Tell management so you don't get in trouble for having "too many phone calls" and tell them to no longer pass him through! Give a specific extension to family for emergency calls. Take it from a woman who thought he will never hit me and then had to spend 2 years trying to get out of hell

It wasnt really a choice (I guess as long as it wasnt on floor qualifies but felt that was too broad) if it is dropped on pt or bed I give it. But thats about it.

Ldrp only one unit. There are a few pp only nurses and a few nursery only nurses from when they first opened but now everyone hired needs to be able to do everything. You might be ld, pp, or nursery at any given time. Although TYPICALLY one nurse is assigned to catch baby if it is busy everyone miat pitch in. Yep catch a baby when you have 3 couplets. But the mom and baby are rarely seperated (circs, procedures, and nightly weights only) and they are trying to limit that but we only have 4 scales for 50 room so it is easier to do it in a central location. Baths are done in pt room under warmer whenever as long as not on blood sugars and the baby must have successfully fed at least 2 times. I like it this way a lot better. Mom stays in same room whole time. We might labor and keep her. Or give her to pp nurse and get another labor. It is super easy because we are one floor, one unit (although we are an entire hospital floor lol) and so there isn't a whole lot of conflict amongst labor and pp that I experienced in hospitals where they were different separate units.

Well you posted a while ago how did it go. It is weird the first thing that tell you is how much you make but... How was it?

Keep at it. It is hard. I had a fellow nurse (experienced in midwife school) in triage rush a pt to a room and called for a setup because the pt was complete. Dr comes in and she was 5. 100% effaced and far back up cervix. Low head felt like a bulging bag. Even the Dr said he thought she was complete at first. Ive called them 8-9 and another nurse says 7. Whatever. Keep trying and busy or not if you are unsure ask for back up. After a while you will get it. No one is an expert in a minute.

Apply. Prepare for the interview. Most places do the behavior questions "tell me about a time you had a conflict and how you would handle it differently now" so knowing everything l&d doesn't really help. My experience only: NICU is the hardest specialty to get in followed by l&d. Postpartum in many hospitals are totally separate and they don't EVER float to ld ever but might go to nicu for feeder growers. Some places ld nurses don't EVER float to postpartum. Where I work now we do ldrp and so they want everyone hired to be able to do labor AND postpartum. Nicu totally separate and we don't EVER float to it nor them to us. So it is important to know what you want to do and what the specifications are where you apply because it is a little different than med surg where you could float anywhere. Once you decide research a little about what you will do, but of course you won't "really" know and the managers know this. My hospital does an internship for non experienced in labor so look around for that. Honestly though, any specialty is difficult to get into without experience (how do you get it then??) so just be persistent. Good luck.

I did. I hated the OR. They have an internship at my hospital for non experienced in labor. The OR in l&d is different too but since we only do a few types of surgeries very few of the nurses worked OR prior. I would talk to HR if that is the reason they gave you for not hiring you because that seems a littllllle immoral if not illegal. Denying you a job not to hurt the managers feelings? What?? Look at other hospitals if that is the case. The ORs are closed in my unit (no floating in or out of our unit) and the specialty is different. Sorry they wouldn't give you a chance.

Totally agree about working in l&d first. Grad school will be most impressed by your GPA and your experience more so than you shadowing anyone during undergrad. Besides. I thought I would love labor and wanted to be a CNM. But honestly now having been in it for a while- I don't love it and can't imagine doing it for a long time. Remember CNM are on call and may be awake working for 24 hours while still being responsible for 2 lives (one you can't "see") try it before you buy it!

An epidural is a pain intervention. While most women do end up getting one, it is entirely individual as to when you get it. At my facility as long as you can sit still for it you can get it whenever- even at 10 cm. Though at that point it is usually better just to push through the pain since it can take 15 mins to get the epidural in and another 20 to 30 for it to be effective. Move as much as possible. I love the epidural as I hate to see my patients suffering but honestly movement is the best method to move labor along and that can't be done as effectively with epidural. Good luck. Baby comes as baby comes. Educate yourself but don't go in with clear cut expectations because every birth is different. C sections happen for many reasons (baby in distress, failure to vertically progress, failure for fetal descent) healthy baby is the best goal. And ask your nurse whenever you have a question. That is why she is there.

Bunch of comments I dont have time to go thru. But I would seriously suggest you get some kind of therapy for your low self esteem. It doesn't matter where you work, people will see you and it sounds like you need some way to deal with how badly you feel about yourself.

Ok wait..... You are newly licensed in a different state as an RN and working in another state as a CNA? I am unclear why your boss would need to fire you if you are not licensed as an RN in the state in which you are working. Tell your boss but ask to see the policy or call HR. I actually know many nurses who work the last few weeks as a CNA before their residency starts. They used to do GN orientation but that isn't common anymore. However your case is different anyway in that if you are not licensed in that state anyway. Talk to your boss that is the best thing.

Several years ago I worked in an LTC ( I was the only RN at the time). Resident slumped over in wheelchair, slurred speech. Called EMS (we used a service, so it wasn't 911) and told them I thought he was having a stroke and needed to go to the hospital. One of them told me it didn't look like a stroke. They still HAVE to take him because it is LTC not assisted living and they don't have family to take them, the nurses in the LTC can't take them, ect. So anyway long story short. The resident never came back. Because he died that night. In the ER. From a stroke.

I don't work or even live in Texas, so that might be the best hospital and area of the country. I don't know. What I do know is that, no this isn't a once in a lifetime opportunity. Lots of hospitals don't require that experience. Look around.

Our hospitals have 3 ORs on our LDRP unit (main OR is directly downstairs) and we only do surgeries on pt's on our unit. I imagine they COULD do other surgeries but we are a closed unit for LDRP. I think the main issue would be where and who would recover these pt's outside of the OR. As L&D nurses we recover our own sections, BTL, and D&C's with the vast majority being short surgeries with spinal anesthesia. A person who undergoes a more invasive long surgery with general anesthesia could be potentially harmed during recovery by a nurse not trained to do real post-op recovery. I know I wouldn't want to do it and I have both worked in the Main OR, pre-op holding, and as LDRP. Additionally, would these other surgeries put a burden on availability of staffing and/or the OR for a section in the event of an emergency, such as cord prolapse?

2 years is a long time to be unhappy. I would maybe talk to the manager or director or nurse recruiter (tread carefully if you do this) about what issues you have in a constructive way. The manager may be unaware of it and wonder why they are having a hard time retaining employees, and it sounds like that might be the case if they are trying to require a 2 year commitment. If you are uncomfortable doing that, look for a PRN job elsewhere. Many people work PRN as a second job so it wouldn't be out of the ordinary. It is easier to explain taking a PRN job that you enjoyed more and were offered full time there, than looking like you job hop by just looking for another full time job.

We chart in 30 minute increments, ie 0600-0630, 0630-0700. I know other places do it differently, but that is what we do here. So, if it occurs in that time frame it is documented in the flow sheet that it existed at all during that time, but not specifically when it happened. I document what I did about it in real time in nursing notes. Since we do it differently, only way I can answer it is that if you are charting for a time frame, chart what happened in that time frame but you can't pretend nothing happened and ignore it simply because it was out of the "10 minutes" you are charting your findings. That would be a separate note in that case, but you have to define your time parameters without simply saying absent and you have to address it somewhere.

Depends on the hospital and even then the mood of the director. They hired a few nurses right out of school last year on my unit and they are doing well but the PCT who has been working here for years was told by the director that she is no longer hiring inexperienced nurses and she was offered a job on our women's med-surg unit that the director also manages. She told her she would hire her into L&D after a year on that floor. So, look around because what one hospital does another may not. And if you are seriously interested in working in L&D and need a year in med/surg it will not be the worst thing (although it may feel that it is) because it then gives you that "year" many specialty floors require, so you are open to more choices. You really do NOT know what you will like until you are actually working there. I thought I would love OR and I hated it. It happens.

I'm type Z lol. Let the pieces fall where they may! Stress is a relative thing. Learning any specialty comes with stress. A nurse and I started in L&D together and she quit because it was too stressful. I felt the same stress (learning a busy unit) and stuck it out. That stress is replaced by new stresses as I learn and have a challenging patient. You have to have organizational skills in any unit and you will learn what you need to do to stay organized for yourself. What I really want say is that you do NOT have 2 patients on L&D. You might have 2 laboring mothers, but that means you have 2 more "invisible" patients who are stressed out and have potential problems that can occur at any second. All you have to ensure they are healthy is an electronic fetal monitor and your hands on mom's belly. There are a multitude of things that can go wrong and it literally take seconds but can potentially lead to harm (short or long term and even up to death) of either one of your patients. So, that is stressful. Also, you have an unpredictable day; a woman can drop in ready to give birth, sometimes with no prenatal care, or very preterm and you may have to deal with that with no doctor present. And sometimes the woman is giving birth to an already deceased baby. So, type A isn't as important as understanding that the stress we deal with is not quite the same as a medical floor (although as women give birth older, they DO have medical issues as well). Important to have the ability to be flexible, understanding, and open to learning.

I would quit. It is just like when ER wants to send EVERY pregnant woman to LD just because she is pregnant. No matter why she is coming into ER. Send that pt with chest pains up here without doing a cardio workup and clearing her and she will die here. We had a woman sent to our triage and she was having an asthma attack. What part of that is OB? Either clear her medically first (should be the preference) before sending her to us or keep her in ER and take care of her, we will monitor the baby. I don't want to work med/surg, that is why I chose OB. Seriously unsafe practice to float nurses to units that far out of their specialty.

Seems like it is time to not do PACU (for main OR? or for your c/s?) and peds. Staff each unit and not spread so thin. We do 2500+ births a year, only LDRP. Some nights they are begging for help but when you are always begging, people get tired of coming in. We only get called off it the census is low. Otherwise, come in ready to run!

I would definitely discuss with the charge nurse which co-worker you would like to be your nurse. The benefit of delivering at your own hospital is getting treated like a rock star (and usually getting the pick of your room!)

When you say "mom stays downstairs" do you mean the pt is still in L&D? because you say both PCU and L&D and in my experience, those are 2 VERY different units. How often are you checking in on your babies on your unit? So, if there has to be a second caregiver who can call for help then I wouldn't stress as much about scenario 2 because in reality, you are checking on your patient as frequently as you would if they were on your unit. That said, you should have someone to cover your patients when you leave and the LD nurse should have called you to take the baby out of the room and not had it at the desk. Giving the baby a bottle without permission is unacceptable. Yes, I have worked in a hospital that did that same thing. Scenario 2 makes no sense. If the baby is on peds, then why not be admitted to peds? That makes no sense at all.

We have 26 beds and average 2500 deliveries a year, but that is going up so much we are doubling our unit size (currently building 19 more bed unit!). We do ALL LDRP and have no LPN. You might have labors or posties and switch around all shift. It isn't always easy, but I can't stand med/surg units. I'm sorry to say that families are that way no matter WHAT specialty you work in (I have done transplant, Med/surg, OR, OB, NICU, ALF, LTC). Try a different hospital in the same field. A different manager, different docs can make a world of difference.

Get into L&D if possible and ask if you are able to cross-train or move to PP if L&D isn't for you. It does happen sometimes that you don't like the "dream" unit. Also, I ONLY worked PP for years and when I had to move to another city, I couldn't find an opening to save my life. I currently don't work in any OB position because L&D requires experience so I am unable to get back in. Working PP I would think you might have a way in if your manager and L&D manager both agree you are worth cross-training. Also, consider NICU.