NurseYoshi

The facility I work at (or within) pays more to prn nurses because they get no benefits. I think they can get a 401k set up and have free access to the wellness centers if they sign up for the hospital wide yearly wellness checks. Prn nurses get 10-20% more per hour, but it's only $2-$4. Which I suppose adds up after a while (especially with shift diff).

It's raining phlegm, hallelujah. It's raining phlegm, every specimen. Bloody, sticky, yucky and gross.

I've got two! Neither are probably funny to anyone else, but they were hilarious to me at the time. First one, pt: "What's that in your ear?" Me: "my stethoscope?..." Pt: "no there's a shiny thing, like an earring" Me: "oh my daith piercing?" Pt: "that's a what!? How did they get in there?" Me: "well it's not that complicated when you go to a professional to get them to do stuff for you. It's a piercing that helps with migrantes." Pt: "NO WAY! Maybe I should tell my daughter so she can stop using drugs. She gets migraines from working with kids." LOL Second, while I'm drawing blood after I realized it was my pt's birthday the day prior(. Me: "sorry I missed your birthday, maybe we can count this as your birthday present?" Pt looking at where I'm drawing her blood and sees that she's starting to bruise: "maybe you shouldn't give me any more birthday presents." Lol. I hate hurting my patients to draw blood and the lady was really sweet, but she had horrible veins and it blew while she was fidgeting during our conversation.

I LOVE THIS! I was thinking "man if I ever end up in an assisted living facility, this would be it." I was talking to a guy who manages an assisted living facility and he said he always listens to his nurses instead of doing what he thinks sounds good because nurses know better. He says the only limits he sets are laws and facility rules from above him. He has no prior nursing experience and only knew one medicine because something with his facilities finances. Lol. I don't get how people remember random things like that.

So a little background about me. I was a military kid. So I moved A LOT as a kid. I will tell you that as long as your supportive and encouraging him to try to make friends and partake in hobbies/extracurricular that he's previously done, he shouldn't have a difficult time making friends (especially if you guys moved near an area with a military base or other people who move to and from). Try to remind him that y'all can definitely go home to SC to visit old friends and family, but that you guys moved for a better opportunity than one afforded in SC. As someone who was offered a job away from my friends and family after college, I couldn't make the move to be totally alone or even consider traveling home (two hour drive) for a few days at a time, so if you're really considering sending your son back to SC, consider how you'll feel living alone (or with an occasional son whenever he can visit you) in another state part of the time. What would be the point of trying to live in two places? Having two jobs in two states means lots of travel costs, cost of your home/apartment, food for two refrigerators, etc. I'm not saying don't do it, but look at EVERYTHING. Who would watch your apartment/home when you're in the other state? Would it be better for you financially to visit SC once every 6 months vs every week or two?

My pre-nursing/pre-high school dream job was to become a lawyer to help kids who were stuck in bad situations at home or elsewhere. Now I'm glad I didn't go that route because it almost sounds like something a social worker would help with and I can't imagine doing that. I'd probably have been unhappy just about anywhere else and I'm glad I ended up a nurse. I also love that I'm one of the few on my unit that doesn't mind dealing with sputum and trachs because I've told almost all the night charge nurses that if we ever get a trach (or peds pt) I will gladly take them. lol sorry for the little side note.

That's crazy! We had one guy who had tons of back surgeries, but no chiropractors or anything like that. We only had one person (that I'm aware of) that had been an LPN before our BSN program. Everyone else either had no prior experience or was a CNA (either just before starting the program or at the beginning of the program is when most of us got jobs as CNA's and PCT's).

:roflmao:Lol I'd love to know how much business a cake sculpting/decorating stripper would get!

My first thought when I read the secretary part was "OMG! It's Anna Beth from Hart of Dixie!" Lol I just finished that up on Netflix and now I'm trying to move forward from it, but I grew attached.

Daaaang. All I ever learned was a little piano and a little guitar. I could do the very basics. I did two years of choir in high school and sang at church. I imagined being a math teacher who subbed as the choir teacher during certain periods. I worked in a daycare for a few years with school aged kids and could never imagine teaching older kids, or being surrounded by elementary kids 9 months a year, 5 days a week, 8-9 hours a day.

When I applied, they were in the process of changing things. My cohort was the first one with the new curriculum (not the new scrubs though). I've been told by friends in cohorts behind me that they now require an interview during the application process. I took the hesi A2 and made a 77.7 or so and had been told I'd need an 80 or above to get in so I retook it and got an 82 only to find out the cut off was actually 70. UAH really wants to know WHY nursing. Not that it's good pay and nice hours (if you get a 9-5 job in an office or case management, etc). If you have a decent GPA (the lowest I've heard get into UAH was like a 3.4 or 3.5), a legitimate reason to want to pursue nursing, and a decent enough HESI score, I'm sure you'd get in.

Hey! So I went to UAH but could have done my ADN at Calhoun. I, like you, wanted my BSN, but as I was going through school, I realized something. If I had done the ADN program and done the other prerequisites for my BSN during that time (since Calhoun's Program is part time if you don't have any co-classes to take along with it), I could have gotten my ADN a year before I ended up getting my BSN. Meaning I could have been a nurse for a whole year while working on my BSN too and I'd already have a year of experience vs being a new grad right now. I will say that I wish I had done it that way because Huntsville Hospital doesn't care if you have an ADN or BSN (even though they want ADN nurses to get BSNs within 3 years of hire). Now since you'll have a child, also consider if you'd be ok with doing a nursing program with sleep loss from baby waking you up at night or if you'd rather wait until there's a more consistent sleep schedule. It all just depends on what you want/need. One more little thing, I've heard getting into a BSN program is a little easier because everyone tries to get into the ADN program. I actually applied for both at the same time and went with my BSN because if I had applied for the ADN program before doing my BSN prereqs it would've been worth it, but I didn't want to go to school part time and lose my scholarship because I didn't have 12 credit hours/semester.

I work for one of the largest hospital systems in North Alabama (we have 7 hospitals across North Alabama). Some of the hospitals still hire LPNs, especially in endoscopy. Not so much on the floor because most floors require ACLS and something about LPNs can't get ACLS? There's a rehab facility connected to the main hospital in Huntsville called HealthSouth. There's also several SNFs that I don't know the name of and plenty of nursing homes and assisted living facilities. I will forewarn you that Alabama is seemingly one of the lowest paying states and that one hospital system raised the nurses pay recently while another is still behind. I don't know numbers for LPN pay but I can tell you that Huntsville Hospital is offering a sign on bonus for anyone, RN or LPN, hired on 3rd shift 7p-7a either full time or part time. Would it be possible to transfer from your current facility to one here in Huntsville (if they have one)? I know some facilities here say they have facilities elsewhere too, but I don't keep track of that. Feel free to ask me questions and I'll try to help as much as I can.

Your teenage self had such high aspirations! I love it.

I'm sure you would've been great! If you're a male from England. Lol

TOTALLY! I left my old unit where I worked as a tech because I wanted new experiences as a new nurse and I feel like I haven't seen anything new or exciting yet.

What about a firefighting, biology teaching elementary teacher? Haha. You could be a firefighter on the weekends and teach during the week.

I have a friend who does book binding in her free time as a second job. I can't imagine being creative as a second job. I like to keep my artsy side to myself because I don't think I'm very good at all that (as much as I love singing and drawing and painting). I don't know if I'd leave nursing, just because it's possible to find a job doing almost anything with a nursing license and a caring attitude. I did just graduate a few months ago though so we shall see how I feel about it later down the road.

Hey all, So I'm sure there are probably some old threads about this, but what would you do if you hadn't gotten into nursing school, passed NCLEX, or not gotten that first job in the nursing field? What would your backup plan have been? Or what did you do before nursing? If you left nursing, why and what do you do now? I'm just being curious, but I suppose I can start. If I hadn't gotten into nursing school, I would have become either a math teacher or gone into law and done family type stuff. Can't wait to read what all you have to say!

I would not, but money isn't a motivator for me. If it's a job I REALLY wanted and they were willing to offer me more money, then maybe. If it's just a job I really wanted, I'd wait until after orientation to leave. Honestly, if this new place you're orienting at has a high turnover, you might not be fully burning a bridge with the whole facility (we had a girl who quit on her second night shift and she's not blacklisted from the whole hospital system, but our manager wouldn't want her back). You're an adult and can therefore make decisions based on your needs and wants, but I hope you're considering ALL the pros and cons to this.

Honestly, I would personally choose the job in Maine. I'm a family person myself and as much as I love Disney, I don't think I could move to the Orlando area alone for a job, plus I'd be concerned about my safety in a big city like that. You can honestly learn the same stuff, regardless of what others might say, at either ICU unless the larger one is specialized. I chose to go with the smaller 15 minute commute hospital rather than a large hospital 2 hours away with a residency (in a somewhat unknown area to me which has higher crime rates than my current area). I also chose not to stay at the larger hospital where I worked as a tech because I wanted a shorter commute and a different type of patient population. It's your choice to make, but trust yourself and figure out the pros and cons for each hospital/area before making a decision. I'm not one of those "try it and if it doesn't work out move back" kind of people. Ps New England has TONS of great activities in that area, so if you stay there you'd be able to have fun with your family and friends too.

This reminds me of how the house supervisor walks the floor and goes "y'all have some empty rooms. ICU is full, but y'all are sure slow up here. Must be nice." Then walks down to the ER and comes back "y'all will be having 5 admissions soon. K, see ya!" And wander away.

Nurse: "Doctor, I promise he swallowed something." Doctor: "I think you just wanted me to help you change his brief." Nurse: "now I remember what he swallowed. IT WAS THE DOORKNOB!"

I attended UAH as a BSN student. They're in the process of separating from the joint DNP program that's partnered with Alabama and UAB. It seems like as of right now UAH's individual DNP program (MSN-DNP and BSN-DNP) is not accredited, but they say they're in the process. Most of the faculty at UAH are ok, but they seem to get off topic a lot. The graduate students (MSN NP) that I've spoke to say that graduate work at UAH is easier than undergrad. Because everything is changing at UAH, I don't know when they'll update their website with the most updated information. I was trying to dig around about the BSN-DNP program, but I ended up going on campus and being told that they don't know anything yet. The lady who moved into the role of admissions for graduate programs at UAH is REALLY sweet and would be awesome to talk to. I just stopped by the office and talked to some guy who didn't know much and said the lady was out. lol

I'd like to join! So during my nursing program, I didn't do very well on most exams, especially when it came to medsurg because one teacher wrote really poor questions that made no sense (even when I went to review with her). So along cane the medsurg HESI And I antipated failing medsurg because I hadn't passed a specialty HESI at all and was pretty much failing medsurg. Well when the grades for that HESI were posted, I looked at mine and asked some classmates to reread it because I was so shocked. I had made a 99.99%! I squealed in a semi-full classroom (it was lunch break). And everyone started seeing me as the genius and asked me for guidance. I HAD BEEN FAILING! I was glad because I wouldn't fail and have to retake a class (my school has a 2 strikes and you're out policy). Even now, I'm still viewed as the smarty pants who couldn't fail a standardized test even though I only benched two specialty HESIs (out of like 6 or 7). I don't enjoy seeing people starting first semester post grades (even though I know how hard they've worked to get in because most of my friends have tried for several semesters to get accepted). They'll post about their Bs and I passed with Cs. I love helping my classmates, but for me it was like the blind leading the blind. That and my cohort was the first one under the new curriculum at our school. Fun times.