kelbeth

Thanks, but around my area, most CRNAs have to take call. Those that don't usually work at ambulatory surgery centers but those jobs are very few and far between. I'm happy with where I'm at, so no regrets about not going the CRNA route. Perhaps you are correct regarding the BSN being useful in anesthesia school. One of the anesthesiologists I work with is a director/professor at the local school, so I will ask his opinion. They have indeed switched to the DNAP degree and yet according to their website, their admission requirement is still "Baccalaureate Degree in Nursing or related Science (if not in Nursing, must have additional 15 semester hours of biophysical sciences above Nursing Degree)."

I'm late to the party but I have pretty strong opinions on this subject, so I'm going to respond. I feel at least semi-qualified to opine, as I have both a BSN and a bachelor's degree in chemistry. I too had plans to go to CRNA school until I became a PACU nurse and realized just how much I despise having to be on call. Despite not being a CRNA, I am a nurse in the perioperative setting and work very closely with both CRNAs and anesthesiologists. I feel like they would both agree with me when I say that neither a chemistry degree nor a BSN are going to be especially helpful in nurse anesthesia school. What is taught in organic chemistry and p-chem are far more in-depth concepts than what a CRNA needs to know to perform his/her job. What I learned in my RN-BSN program not only is far less in-depth, but an entirely different subject matter than what one needs to know to be successful in the intraoperative/postoperative setting. Perhaps the commenters who mentioned the required critical care experience for anesthesia school have a point. I'm sure in some areas of the country, a BSN is a requirement for an entry-level nursing job, but not in all areas. I got a job in cardiac critical care with a large Nashville hospital as an ADN-prepared nurse before I completed my RN-BSN program. I have to agree with the assessment that my RN-BSN program was far easier than my chemistry degree. My RN-BSN program consisted of writing papers on topics not relevant to the practice of bedside nursing in the perioperative environment. Sadly, it seemed the professors cared more about my references being in the correct order and commas being in the correct place than the actual quality of the content. I could easily bang out a paper a couple of hours before it was due, whereas with my chemistry degree, it required hours of study each day. Nobody should be made to feel less than because of the degree they chose to obtain and everyone should be proud of their hard work, but the simple fact is that at least conceptually, some areas of study are more difficult than others (e.g. STEM). As far as the BSN being a "useless" degree, that depends on several factors including location and future career goals. Someone who wants to move up in nursing management will probably not find a BSN to be useless. For me, however, the RN-BSN has in fact been both easy and useless.

Always wipe front to back.

I have been a RN for about six months. I am currently working in the same ER that I worked as a tech for 3.5 years before I graduated from nursing school. I am looking for some advice from more experienced nurses. Several issues are going on right now: 1. I am becoming very jaded with the population of ER patients. I am dealing with things that I didn't have to deal with as a tech, or I would have thought twice about accepting an ER job. I am tired of having charts shoved back at me when I have patients sign their discharge papers because they didn't get the drugs they wanted from the provider, the provider took too long to discharge them, or what have you. The other night, a psycho mother went ballistic on me after I was completely pleasant with her child, refused to use my pen to sign discharge papers, and said "I saw how you looked at my son. You wouldn't even care if a kid had cancer!" Meanwhile, her boyfriend or whatever is trying to drag her out of the ER so she doesn't make an even bigger scene. I always said I would not tolerate anything in my professional life that I wouldn't tolerate in my personal life, and there is NO WAY I would tolerate that from a friend or romantic partner, yet here I am. I am tired of the vagrants who take an ambulance for dental pain and then expect us to give them a cab voucher to get home, the ones who will steal anything not bolted down, the drug-seekers, the welfare trash who are wasting taxpayer dollars with their nonsense because they refuse to get a PCP (because, of course, the PCPs will actually make them pay). 2. My ER has a 5-minute bedding policy. If there are open beds, patients are placed in rooms within 5 minutes. This means that if multiple patients sign in in rapid succession, the triage nurse puts the patients in rooms, hooks them up to get vital signs, and leaves to go room the next patient, which means that not only I am now responsible for total care of up to four patients (sometimes more if a family gets put in one room), but I am now also responsible for triaging as well. 3. I hate how medicine/nursing has changed from patient care into customer service. It is perfectly acceptable appease druggies (because Heaven forbid they wait more than 5 minutes for their next fix), but I could get written up by the charge nurse if I don't fill out the stupid white boards after every patient (meaning I have to erase my name, and re-write it for every. single. patient.). The charge nurse has to round on so many patients each shift, and asks things like "Did the nurse tell you her name?" "Did the nurse inform you of your plan-of-care?" "Did the nurse inform you of approximate wait times to get your results?" I have a degree in chemistry, and I have considered either going back to work as a chemist or going to pharmacy school. I think I would be happier in an OR or PACU setting, but I have told myself that I will stick it out for six more months, as they have invested a lot of money in training me. I figure I can tolerate just about anything for six months and I can start taking Celexa or whatever to get me through. Right now, the only thing stopping me from opening up a vein is because I know this is temporary and I have other options. So my question to the experienced nurses is: Does it ever get better? Should I stick it out or jump ship now? I am quickly morphing into someone who I don't like being around. Thank you for reading.