karmyk

I was making 41/hr with 6 years experience, but we'd rather move north and kill our student loans (in order to live coastal) than live in East County (and the heat).. But to each their own-- I can see why people would live there, so it's all good. Wi...

Ahhhh I stand corrected then.. I think most of the nurses I know who have wanted a position with either the VA, Balboa, Pendleton, or UCSD have primarily been concerned with retirement/pension on their minds.

Scripps La Jolla just built that huge, new cardiac center. Scripps is generally a great system. I've only worked at Encinitas and Green, and the people, including the doctors, are all really nice and awesome to work with. If you're going for scenery,...

It's true at just about any hospital, but positions at ucsd are pretty coveted amongst rns in the area due to the benefits (mainly pension/retirement)... So I know quite a few who have accepted per diem positions in anticipation of being able to poun...

It's called the sunshine tax. If it weren't for student loans and the insane cost of daycare, we'd still be in San Diego, even with the paycut. I miss living 5 minutes away from the beach (and surfing warmer water... Especially since you can trunk it...

Correct me if I'm wrong... But I always thought the rumor was that you usually needed to start out per diem to get into UCSD, and from there you find a way to slip into a full time position once one of them came up... ...at least that's what I've he...

Sac isn't bad. It's more of a family town-- lots of family-friendly stuff here. Most people who think it's boring either equate "fun" to a crazy nightlife scene or have never lived in the middle of nowhere before (being military, I've been stationed ...

I didn't start out in dialysis, but several of the dialysis nurses who work with patients in the acute settings at the hospitals I have worked at started out as new grads working in the clinic/outpatient setting. They later transitioned into the acut...

Hi! Have you tried going through the Kaplan review book for ESL (English as a Second Language) NCLEX test takers? I think it does a pretty good job of explaining why certain answers are correct in the practice tests. The NCLEX can be pretty tricky, b...

UCLA pay is not representative of California as a whole. Pay rate drops the further away from San Francisco that you go. Starting pay is actually lower in San Diego. I started as a new grad in San Diego at $29/hr about 5 years ago. I live/work coasta...

I've seen nurses use the plunger to administer the meds... they always tell me they feel like they have more control over the medication and can stop it if they want to.. ..I've always done it by gravity because it will go down fast enough anyways (a...

Has the head nurse discussed this with the doctor at all? IMHO if a patient is refusing to take any critical medication, it's the nurse's responsibility to inform the doctor to see if the doctor can write an order for an alternative method of giving ...

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One of the two diabetes educators at our hospital is a BSN... that seems to be a bit different from doing floor nursing. Have you considered working outpatient? Med surg is tough, and it can easily burn a person out.. I've seen quite a few nurses-- n...

How are you studying for this? Any sites/books you can recommend with advice?

Size/gerth won't scare them away. We had a male nurse who was bullied by the older female nurses and nurse managers at work because he didn't fit their perspective of what a good (male) floor nurse should look/act like. He was a bigger guy, lots of t...

Someone needs to explain this "nursing informatics" stuff to me because the more I'm exposed to it in the workplace, the more silly it seems... I heard, as far as IT at my hospital goes, a lot of the shots are being called by nurses who specialize in...

Out of curiousity, in the "not-for" case, are hospital administrators (like CEO's) allowed to reinvest it into their own raises/bonuses?

We get that quite a bit (physical attacks on RN's, LVN's, CNA's) on my floor, and we're med-surg. We get a lot of ETOH, dementia, etc... and on top of that, a handful of wealthy customers used to get their own way. Unfortunately, we don't get a whole...

Unfortunately, there are RN's who are like that... it makes it rough when I have to share partners (CNA's, LVN's) with them because they always seem to run my CNA's to the ground, and I end up picking up the pieces from my end. It's always the same r...

Many staff RN's don't work 40hr work weeks... I work 3 12hr shifts/week, so at $37/hr, that's more like $63k/yr... wish I were making that much more.. i'd put it all into my massive student loan bill. We call the lower pay in San Diego the "Sunshine...

New Grad hiring comes and goes in waves... I know that it was frustrating for me at first... and even more frustratingly so, most of the offers came AFTER I already accepted my current job (which I truly am thankful for; I've been learning a lot, and...

edit: never mind. I'd say go with the ADN or the cheaper program. You'll probably get more of your money's worth, with the added bonus of semi-competent administration.

Not quite sure where you're going with that statement... but I read that article, too. I thought it was a lame attempt by Time magazine to promote its ideal presidential candidate. The responsibility of being the President (and Commander-in-Chief) o...

I relocated from Northern California... no connections to the hospital systems here at all. It took me about two months before I started working... but I also hadn't taken the NCLEX yet. If you didn't go to a local school or don't know people in the ...