sallen55

Hi everyone, like the title says this will be a long post so bare with me. I’m currently about 6 months into being an RN, I started at the beginning of March. So for background, I was a CNA/tech for about four years before I became a nurse. My most recent job was in a NICU, where I loved my job and loved going into work every day. I also had an internship my final semester of school in a medical ICU at the same hospital. I was offered a job in both departments, and took the job in the medical ICU as I thought the job would give me more opportunities, even though I loved my job as a tech in the NICU. For my MICU job, I was told I would have a new grad residency and then be on orientation for 12 weeks. Also for background, I’ve had two shoulder surgeries on my left shoulder. Keep this in mind. I started my job at the beginning of March. My first week was normal, and then COVID happened. I live in what was a hotspot when the first surge happened. As you can imagine it just got crazy. After six weeks I was taken off orientation and made into a normal nurse role just to handle the surge of patients. I essentially supported the “real” ICU nurses. I saw some horrible things. I had nightmares almost every night. It was hard. Eventually I was put back on orientation for about two more weeks, then told I was on my own. At that point I really had only seen COVID patients as a nurse. I had really only done “disaster” protocol charting. I asked for a longer orientation but they wouldn’t give it to me. As you can imagine it was really rough at the beginning off orientation, but I’ve adjusted some and now it’s just rough. I don’t like my job. I’m downright bitter about it. On my days I have off (that I’m not sleeping trying to recover from working a night shift), I’m dreading going into work. The day leading up to my night shift I have a pit in my stomach all day. I’m learning a lot and I’m working with a great team, but I just don’t like it. I have to take sleeping pills on days I don’t work in order to sleep, and I’ve been drinking more just to cope with me being sad and anxious all the time. Also, my shoulder hurts me every single day. I know I’m using my other shoulder to compensate a bit, because a few weeks ago I hurt the brachial nerve on the other one. I didn’t think it would bother me this much, but it does. A few nurses and techs from the NICU have reached out to me, unprompted, and asked me to come back. That there is an open position and they want me. Every day I’m at work, even on the days that are better, I wish I had taken a position in the NICU. But I know that you should stay at your first nursing job for a year before switching jobs. Would I be totally screwing myself and look horrible to switching jobs so early? My body physically and mentally are suffering horribly, but I also don’t want to put my entire career in jeopardy.

Hi everyone, I wanted to come on here and and talk about how I prepared for NCLEX and the score I got on various Kaplan assessments and quizzes, as well as my actual NCLEX experience. Going into NCLEX I was freaking out because I thought some of my scores were too low, however obviously they weren't! I studied seriously for about a month--I took my test exactly one month after I got my ATT. My school bought Kaplan for us to use, including three CAT tests. We used Kaplan all throughout nursing school, so I was familiar with it. I used the primarily to study, as well as Uworld a little bit (my cousin let me use her old account before it expired after she passed her NCLEX), and I feel as though there are pros and cons of each, but I never would have bought both to study and I preferred Kaplan. My school also hosted an in person Kaplan review course one weekend, which I think helped. My scores were as follows: QT1: 55% QT2: 64% QT3: 55% QT4: 64% QT5: 59% QT6: 57% QT7: 64% Sample Test 1: 52% Sample Test 2: 68% Sample Test 3 (Who Do You See First?): 77% Sample Test 4 (Alternate Format): 32% Diagnostic Test: 69% Readiness Test: 72% CAT1: 150-pass, CAT2: 75-pass, CAT3: 75-pass Average Qbank test score: 60% I did about 75-150 Qbank questions a day. My test was scheduled for 1:30pm on a Saturday. I got there about 45 minutes early, and walked in at about 1pm. I was able to start taking my exam at 1:15pm. I finished at about 3pm, again with the exam shutting off in 75 questions. I did the PVT about an hour and 15 minutes after I got out and got the "good" pop up. About two hours later I tried again, again "good" pop up. The following Monday right before 1:30pm, as I was waiting for my Quick Results to become available, my fiancé actually messaged me a picture of the Board website (Michigan) and asked if the name displayed was me. As soon as I saw that text, I got an email from the board with my license attached! I bawled like a baby! So as you can see, my scores were in the 50's and 60's, and all over the place. My greatest advice is to understand the CONTENT of the questions, not memorize the answers, and go slow when taking the exam. You wouldn't want to get a question wrong on one of the biggest exams of your life just because you didn't read the question! If I can do it, anybody else can--during the exam, visualize yourself opening up that email to your license!

Hello everyone! I have an interview coming up for a patient care technician position in the neonatal ICU at a pretty big hospital near me. I have worked as a "caregiver" in a memory care facility for a year, then as a CNA in a rehab center for another year, but I want to move onto something different! I am currently in nursing school and would LOVE to get experience like this under my belt! Any interview tips? Any idea what it's like to work as a PCT on a NICU floor? Thank you!

Hi there, I'm going to be starting nursing classes in the fall (currently April)! I injured my knee last summer, but wanted to see if it would get better on it's own. It's gotten worse over time, and now is shifting out of place and swelling randomly and causing me a great deal of pain. My doctor referred me to an orthopedic surgeon because she's pretty sure I have a few tears in my knee. I haven't gone to the appointment yet, but I'm just thinking ahead. If they think that I need surgery, should I just get it done and over with? Or try physical therapy first, thereby pushing the surgery towards the middle of the summer and probably starting nursing school on crutches. All I know is is that there is no way I could do the manual labor that is required of nurses in this condition, so I need to get better. Advice?

I was recently accepted into a nursing school, Concordia University in Ann Arbor, and it's a brand new program. The way it's set up is that I have to take one more year of prerequisites, but then will automatically start the nursing classes next fall (2017) with a grad date of December 2019. However, the students that are starting this year will be the first ever nursing students at the university. It will have the same curriculum as the Concordia University of Wisconsin, which is CCNE accredited, but the Ann Arbor campus (the one I'm attending) is in the ending process of becoming accredited because it's so new. Is starting nursing school here a good idea? Or am I making a mistake and being a little too trusting?

I am not a nurse no, I'm not even in nursing school technically yet, I'm still taking the prerequisites. They are in bubble packs, I have no idea what most of those medications to just because I was never really trained on what medications do what. Sometimes the medications aren't even in bubble packs, they're in those daily medication containers and we just dump them out and give it to them. I know I gave her all the medications that were listed in her MAR and that were in the bubble pack chunk for the nighttime med pass, I just get paranoid that "oh perhaps I didn't and now she's going to die".

I currently work as a caregiver in an assisted living facility, I've worked there for about two months, but worked in another one before that for about 6. I'm currently in school to become a nurse. I'm having a huge problem though. I am so constantly afraid of making medication errors. We have the paper MARS still at our facility, and I feel like it is so easy to make a mistake with them. I have never made a medication error yet, but I get so paranoid about making one still. Sometimes I will go back and check then double check to make sure that I gave a medication correctly, will have someone else check to make sure, and even still come home and just worry and worry. Tonight for example, we have a woman in our facility that we take her blood pressure every night. I don't usually do her medication, so I was being extra cautious. He blood pressure was really high, so I made a note for the next shift to recheck it later and gave her all her medication that she needed for the night and left. I mentioned it to another older more experience caregiver, and she said that the medication that I gave her had a blood pressure pill in it so it should be okay. For some reason, I'm freaking out and worried that I didn't give her her blood pressure medication. I know I did, I signed for all the medicines that were due at that time and gave her all the ones that were there to give during that time, but I am sitting at home almost sick with worry! There have been times where I have made a fool of myself by calling the facility and asking the shift after me to double check that I did certain things right, and I don't want to do it again! I can't go on like this obviously, what do I do?

Hello, I need some guidance and advice. I am currently taking my prerequisites to get into nursing school, and I have been working as a caregiver at assisted living facilities in order to gain some knowledge and medical experience. However, I recently quit a job, and looking back, I think that the place was very neglectful, and almost abusive, to the residents. I quit the job at the beginning of December, is it too late to file a complaint? And if so, how do I do it? I keep trying to find complaint forms online but I keep coming across dead links (I live in Michigan)