Quota BSN, RN

6 weeks isn’t even close to enough orientation for a new grad on any floor let alone an oncology medsurg unit. I think I had 12 weeks, now new grads have a fellowship and 15 weeks. It also sounds like your preceptor isn’t doing a lot to support you...

I work inpatient but we never heparin flush PICC lines, only ports when we are going to de access them. Even pts who go home with a PICC just do daily saline flushes themselves, and home health to do dressing changes.

No advice but the outpt infusion clinic that most of our pts go to when they don’t HAVE to be inpt is basically the same base rate (as far as I know). It’s within the same hospital system and literally across the street from my hospital. I’m pretty...

I work inpatient ONC and only difference I’d have is adding 25mg Benadryl to the pre-meds. Nothing in those vitals would have caused me concern. Same d/c instructions as all outpt neutropenic pts, go to ED for sustained fever over 100.4.

You need to be working on an oncology unit and chemo giving chemo. Even to get biotherapy certified you need to be working on an oncology unit for about six months first. OCN cert after about 2 years, I’m working on mine right now after about 2.5 y...

I’m currently precepting a new grad who missed out on a lot of clinical experience, no capstone either. She went through the same ABSN program I did a few years ago. It was a bit of a rough start as I realized just how lacking in hands on skills sh...

The only work related use my cell phone gets is using tiger text (encrypted service) to message doctors. The nurses on my unit were recently granted access to use tiger text, in general most nurses at our hospital do not have access to tiger text at...

No hazard pay but we did get our merit increases, I got my chemo cert increase, and we just got a retention bonus the other week so $$$ in some form.

I’ve got friendly and fair minded coworkers for the most part. The majority of us are willing to make the occasional swap to help each other out. Things come up sometimes you couldn’t plan ahead for. I’ll use RTO for specific days if I know about ...

I work oncology so I give blood and platelets all the time. We prime the tubing with saline first and our orders are always by the unit so no worries about volume. We do always want to get all the blood product to the patient, our infusion volumes ...

I can be either one depending on my assignment that day, usually I’m in between, I’m occupied most of my shift but not overwhelmed. On days that my assignment ends up being easy and I have lots of free time I spend that time asking coworkers if I ca...

Seems early to be floated to me. Our policy on my unit is you won’t be floated until six months after orientation ends. I was just floated for the first time about two weeks ago so just over a year as a nurse. It was awful haha, made me appreciate...

I work in patient oncology and some of our patients are on the unit for 30 days stretches only to come back for another 30 days 1-2 months later. Certainly develop friendly relationships with some of those patients, they know I’m a crazy dog lady, I...

I work on an oncology floor and previously all our neutropenic pts had their own box of masks either in their rooms or just outside their rooms. With the mask shortage all masks have been moved to the controlled access supply room. Yesterday I coul...

My hospital paid for my chemo certification and I have a raise coming at the six month mark post certification. They will also pay for me to get my OCN when I reach the two year mark which will earn me a bonus. Certification is also required if I w...

Congrats on the job. I just hit 1 year as a new grad on a med/heme onc unit at the beginning of the month. I kinda just fell into Onc as it was not what I was looking for as a new grad but where I finally got a job offer. I have really enjoyed it ...

I generally plan to arrive about 10-15 minutes before 7. I look at my pt assignment and fill out the basics on my brain sheet, print out pt labels, etc. if I’m really early I’ll start filling in what times my pts have meds scheduled. Usually just ...

So I’m guessing you haven’t placed or removed a needle from a port then. It’s not going to fall out, the septum the needle is inserted through under the skin is dense. It takes significant pressure to both place and remove the needle.

At my facility at least once you place the needle and confirm blood return you place a biopatch under the needle hub. Then cover with transparent CVC dressing (non CHG patch).

The only orders I put in are standing order type things, per protocol stuff. It’s understood and already discussed with our MDs that we can place orders for heparin flushes to de-access mediports when they forgot to put in the order. Restart diets ...

All with the same recruiter I had a phone interview canceled/rescheduled by email a few minutes after they were supposed to call. Then they called an hour late for the rescheduled call. I can’t remember 100% which recruiter it was of the two I deal...

My hospital does surge bonuses. So time and a half for the overtime hours and $360 bonus for picking up the shift. I think technically it’s $30/hr in the case you only pick up 4 or 8 hours vs a full 12 hours.

I’m not in DC itself. Working in DC pays a bit higher. The DC metro area covers northern VA and southern MD.

I work oncology. On our floor we don’t apply neutropenic precautions until their ANC drops. Though some of the neutropenic precaution things are default on our floor so I’d look at your hospital’s policy.

Thankfully my actively dying patients usually have q15 minute morphine. We understand dying on the oncology floor at least.