RNJenn47201

OP, Slappy is right. I'm in rural NY (south of Buffalo) and I can tell you that you would have no problem finding a job out this way.

I've been in LTC all 8 years of my career and I don't plan on going anywhere else. I get a little med/surg, a little ICU, psych and hospice. The best/most-rewarding/most-difficult part is that on night shift it's just me, 3 LPNs, 8 CNAs and 148 residents, and when things go south my assessment/organizational/time-management skills need to be top notch.

Bold is mine. I don't know if this is different in other facilities, but every where I've worked the number on the blister pack never corresponds to the date. Usually the number just corresponds to the number of pills. It seems like you were caught up in trying to make sure the date matched the blister and that distracted you. Even if that is the case and you were distracted, if you did your 5 (or 6 or 7 or 8) rights the error may have been caught. I'd probably either approach your clinical instructor for a 1:1 meeting on a different day (when she's cooled down and not distracted by your classmates), or your program director to figure out what your next steps should be.

I'm sorry for what happened to you, I am, but you may want to change your user name. I don't usually do this, but I was curious so I googled your user name and some key words from your post. I found three news stories detailing the whole situation. The nursing world in very small, and if you do happen to get your license back, I'm sure you wouldn't want future co-workers/employers to find this.

I've been working in LTC for nearly 8 years now. I will re-iterate what some have said before, reach out to your supervisor and/or coworkers. In our facility I have a binder of random policies and training handouts for situations that may come up. I've included everything from admissions, drains & tubes policies, how and when to fill out incident reports and what to do if someone dies. Maybe your facility has something similar that you're just not aware of.

I live in one of the poorer areas of NY and I make enough to provide for my family and put away for retirement. It's not necessarily what you make, but how you use it.

In addition to this, since you are in ALF/SNF you may want to change the time of the second dose of Lasix to earlier than 5pm. If these elderly folks are up urinating all night, it's a pretty big fall risk. If you bring this up to your boss, they may appreciate you looking out for the resident's and may take what is mostly a documentation error a little lighter.

Just a comment on the "texting to parents" thing, there is an app (I have an Iphone) called "Remind" that my daughter's school used last year. I'm not sure how it was set up on their ends, but I got text messages from her teacher throughout the year.

The LTC facility I used to work in would allow RN's to draw off of PICCs, but not so in the facility I'm currently at.

I work in LTC and we have certain medications "stocked" in a Pyxis for new orders, etc. We have to count everything for the same reason the previous poster listed. The count is used so pharmacy knows who the meds are used for and when they need restocked.

I have no advice for you, just wanted to say hello to a fellow WNYer!

In LTC we have the occasional resident that likes to sit on the floor. They have "allowed to put self on floor" written in their care plan.

I've been a LTC nurse for about 5 years now. When switching between floors I've always asked the nurse giving me report to tell me how everyone takes their meds. Knowing that bit alone makes the med pass go smoother.

Do you have to have a job in a hospital? You said you have a lot of hospitals around you, so surely there is a plethora of non-hospital nursing jobs too. 60 minutes is a long commute after a night shift, especially if you tend to be (as you said) "lethargic" on a regular basis. A couple years ago I worked nights at a facility that was a 35-40 minute drive from home. One morning on my way home I nodded off, and didn't wake up until I was heading into a ditch on the other side of the road. I put my resignation in and started job hunting the next day. I thank my lucky stars I didn't hurt anyone or myself. My car, on the other hand, got pretty banged up. IMHO $19/hr isn't worth putting yourself or others on the road at risk. Good luck to you.

Maybe you could ask someone in charge of scheduling if they could schedule you with the same preceptor?