RNshy

Nutrition was a piece of cake; you can probably just take the test. Health Assessment requires a test and a video, but you're allowed to have the checklist with you to be sure you cover all of the expected assessments, so it's not too bad.

Many of the group home sites contract out their nursing services to consulting agencies; have you looked into those already? Also, I know a ton of agencies hire for RN on-call for telephone triaging DD patients, so that might be another option. Good luck! I found my dream job in DD; I hope you do too!

Thanks anyway, Farawyn! She's not on AN. I've sent her some links to the state websites, but told her I'd "ask around" too. I've been trying to convince her to speak up, but she's not sure she's right in these particular situations, so I thought if she had some other nurses (aside from me!) who felt the same way, maybe she would speak up to administration about the issues.

I'm trying to help my wife who works as an RN in a boarding school find some answers for things going on at her school. I work in a totally different nursing field, so I thought I'd reach out to you school nurses. This is long, sorry! Who regulates medication administration at a private boarding school that is approved as a "special education facility?" I looked on the state website and the school is listed as "approved," so I assume they'd have to follow the Department of Education regulations for medication administration, right? There are staff at the school who are teachers, administrators, etc who are "med-certified" to pass meds when the health center is closed, but they seem to be outside their scopes more often than not. They call doctors and take verbal orders for medications for sleep, anxiety, etc. and have these medications started before a nurse even knows they were ordered, usually in the middle of the night. They are also the staff who determine whether a student needs PRN medications for anxiety during the day. Isn't this nursing assessment? Furthermore, where does HIPAA come in to play? My wife told me she is required to type up a report everyday that includes every single visit to the health center (who, what, why, treatment, etc) and email it to the entire staff of the school (teachers, therapists, coaches, etc). There is no encryption, no need-to-know basis, just a direction that it must be sent out every night. If a parent finds out about the emails, will it be my wife on the line for the HIPAA violations since she's the one who sends them? I could go on forever. Thanks for any insight you might have!

My advice is to use your team for resources and call your back-up nurse when you're unsure of regulations or when something you haven't dealt with before comes up. As for being an on-call nurse, that goal is quite realistic. Where I work, they just want you to have one year of experience in the field before they'll let you switch over to on-call.

I would take the Biology and Statistics courses. Good luck!

I had a lady whose systolic was 50-60 and could only be heard by Doppler, so I couldn't tell you a diastolic. She was totally asymptomatic for weeks with that BP!

There are frequent raises from what I've been told. I've only been with the company for a month. The benefits and the atmosphere are top-notch. I've never been so pleased with a job before!

I'm also in CT and that's my exact pay rate. Probably the same company :)

In a word, yes. They're terrible. Check out watchinguhs.wordpress.com for more info.