NavyVet

Baths! Ugh. Hate them with a passion. We bathe all of our vented patients at night as well, and that is usually when shtf around here. Patient is doing fine, I'm getting the vasopressors titrated down, vitals are looking good....I give a bath and bam! O2 sats down, bp tanks, afib rvr....pretty much anything that can go wrong usually does. Baths kill people ;P

I guess I fall into the Young'ins with phones category, though I don't see any problem with it under certain circumstances. Nurses station at 3 a.m., charting and patient care work done? I'll take a look at yahoo and catch up on the news. If I wasn't doing that, then I'd just be sitting around bs'ing with the rest of the staff at the nursing station as we struggle to stay awake. Either way, nothing of any importance is being done during the down time, so I may as well entertain myself. No different from looking at the internet on the computer, reading a magazine/book, or conversing with your co-workers about your weekend plans or talking about how great your kid is doing in school. I always follow proper cell phone etiquette, phone on vibrate, never out in patient care areas, etc. I have used it to look up a drug on the fly, or a medical condition I wasn't familiar with as well. PDA phones are tools just like guns are, nothing inherently wrong with either, just with people using them improperly. ymmv.

Hiya my4helpers, I graduated from Aultman College of Nursing and Health Sciences last May. It's an associates degree program here in Canton, Ohio. Aultman hospital provides the clinical sites and most of the general education classes are contracted through Walsh University. As I mentioned previously, the tuition is pretty pricey, @$410 or so a credit hour, very overpriced in my opinion when compared to a community college option. The upside of the higher tuition is that I was able to start immediately and graduate in 2 years, versus the community college running a 2 waitlist just to start the nursing portion of the degree.

I realize some consider it crass to discuss/compare wages, but if you don't know what others are making, its tough to determine if you are being fairly compensated. I live in Ohio, outside of any major cities, and hired on a few months ago and got the minimum starting RN wage of $24 base (we're union, so its easy for me to see what the wage steps are in the hospital, I know I got the lowest). I was/am a new grad with no prior healthcare experience. This is the way the system is supposed to work. If wages are being negotiated based on how attractive they are, or their gender, or because they are buddies with a higher up, then things are messed up and its time to look for a new employer. If a new grad is being hired in at the same rate as a 10 year veteran is making....then its time to resign and find an employer who appreciates you.

Caliotter3 makes a very good point here, if you can afford to work as a CNA or patient care tech, you will have a big leg up over other job seekers on your resume. I really wish I would have listened to this advice when I was a student, but I was sheltered in my little academic world and believed employers would be lining up to hire me, so I chose to not work as a CNA. Doing CNA work was beneath me, I was going to be an RN! Well, that hubris and naivety cost me dearly when job hunting with no experience. Five months of job searching cost me @$20k in lost potential income.

I had this same problem transitioning from the military, with a career focused on mechanics and engineering. I had no other experience to include on a resume, so I used my military positions. I emphasized the increased levels of responsibility and leadership I took on, education received and awards earned. My point being, just because a previous job had nothing to do with healthcare doesn't mean you didn't learn something from it and grow as a person. When submitting resumes, there often isn't an option of submitting a second 'non-nursing' resume. You will have to provide a complete resume when you submit your application. Try to highlight things you learned or did, organizational skills, customer service, teaching, leadership, etc. A resume is just a tool to get you an interview, if your resume is weak, or missing information, you won't even get a call back from HR these days. I was actively seeking any and all RN positions for 5 months, I got 2 interviews. I was extremely lucky to get the position I did in Rehab, far down on my list of 'exciting' jobs but I'm happy to be working nonetheless. There were 200 people who applied for the job I got, and that was just the cutoff point from the hiring manager telling HR to stop sending applications. Hope that helps some! Positions for New Grad RN's are tough to come by pretty much across the U.S. right now. See the First Year in Nursing board for how rough the hiring environment is currently.

Ya, my humor tends to run to sarcasm, but its all in good fun. For the record, my wife is an RN as well and over the same 10 year period, she had 1 ticket for not buckling her seatbelt (while driving through a parking lot!) and zero accidents. I forgot to mention that I also hit a guardrail pulling a U-turn with my lights off to avoid a police roadblock/DUI checkpoint (licensed was suspended for unpaid speeding tickets at the time). This happened on our first date. I have never been able to win a "Girls are crappy drivers" argument in my house, for some reason she likes to throw my 'youthful indiscretions' in my face . I think its terribly rude of her to use facts to defeat my attempts at stereotyping and slandering her gender!

I'm sorry to hear your plight Grumpy. Sadly, the manufacturing jobs are all leaving our state and many people are feeling the pain. I don't know what your educational background is, or your feelings/desire/financial ability to go back to school are, but I believe it would be tough to support say a family of 4 on STNA wages. I got out of the military and went to school for my RN associate degree. Two years of school and $20k later and I have my degree making $27 an hour (base of $24). I also live in Northeast Ohio, Canton area to be precise. Nursing is not for everyone, there are some tough general education courses to do and I've seen many a person crying after a particularly hard week and a course failed by less than 1%. However, at the end of the day, I find this profession to be very rewarding and enjoyable with so many different paths to personal fulfillment, that I find myself recommending it to everyone looking for a career change. In my previous career, I was a gas turbine mechanic working on jet engines, electrical generation, hvac, hydraulic, pneumatic and propulsion systems in the Navy. You could always work as an STNA while attending school, but it can be rough. STNA's get a lot of the more labor intensive work for the least amount of pay in the healthcare field, while RN's tend to be responsible for more of the overall picture stuff, assessments, meds, critical thinking aspects of patient care. This is by no means a slight to Nurse Aides, they truly can make a shift run smoother and provide another set of eyes on the patient and bring to the nurses attention things they may have missed on a busy shift. RN's also end up doing a share of the back-breaking labor too, it just seems to fall on the aides more often. BTW, school doesn't have to be as expensive as it was for me, I just wanted to get into and through a program quickly and took out student loans to pay for it. If you have any specific questions related to local RN programs, job outlook, hiring, career paths, loans/grants for your situation or what have you, feel free to ask or PM me. I just went through this process and graduated in May 2009 so its still fresh in my mind. Good luck to you sir.

I can't believe no one has connected the dots on this one.... From Minoritynurse.com (I cannot vouch for accuracy of statistics, but the ballpark numbers sound about right), there are @ 2.9 million licensed registered nurses in the U.S., of which @ 168 thousand are men (@6%). The nursing profession is bound to be on that worst driver list with a predominantly female base , there aren't enough of us guys to counteract all you bad driving women! I'm surprised we're not #1! Well now we have a goal as a profession . Never mind my personal 10 speeding tickets, 1 accident, 1 misdemeanor traffic court appearance and subsequent driver's 'safety' course assignment over a 10 year period. I'm sure I had nothing to do with our inclusion on that list.....

I realize this thread is 4 years old, but since it was getting bumped and this topic was on my mind, I figured I would chime in. I'm a recent grad lucky enough to have found work as an RN. I trained in school on computerized med systems and I'm currently working in a facility that does the scanning the patients and med thing. I've often complained that the extra minute or 2 that the computer adds to my med passes on each patient and dealing with the hiccups of technology seeming to spaz out at the worst possible moment was too much of a hassle. I always thought things would be so much quicker with a paper MAR. After reading about the unfortunate errors some posters have had, I'm actually grateful to work with a system with some failsafes in place to keep me from making mistakes. I can't imagine the extra stress of worrying about being fired for an accident while you're still trying to learn the ropes of a new profession. Thanks for helping me find a little perspective on one of my daily gripes.

/rant I realize you have been poked at by multiple people in this thread, but I just want to drive home the point so you don't continue running around spouting this anymore. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting to be paid well for the work you do. If you have more experience or are better at what you do then the other people you work with, you should be paid the same or better than they are. If YOU want to go be the selfless angel who works for free then so be it, that's your choice. Don't tell the rest of us who have 20/40/60k worth of debt from going through school that we should be happy with low wages. /end rant. For the rest of you reading, my apologies. I've come across way too many self righteous people telling me compensation doesn't matter to them in the nursing field, "the job is the reward", false modesty and the "I'm better than you because I don't care about money" attitude really irks me.

Certainly doable, I took pretty much the exact same position as my first nursing job. I've only been doing it 3 months, and kind of got defaulted the charge position since there is only 1 RN per shift on the unit. My unit is smaller, 10 beds and I get just 1 CNA to help. The unit has only had 5 people at a time due to the economy and fewer patients having elective surgery. If I get up to 10 I imagine management will assign a LPN to help out. You have to keep in mind this is a Rehab unit, the workload isn't too bad. The patients have to be pretty stable and able to complete x number of hours of PT/OT a day (3 hours on my unit) or they can't come there. Pain meds, potty breaks, walking with patients, occasional feeds pretty much rounds out the day. You'll have to work with therapy so both of you can accomplish your goals for the day with the patients, but really, its not a bad gig. With your previous experience, I don't think you'll have any problems. To be honest, I'd love to trade places with you! I need some excitement and challenging work. That being said, with the current economic climate, I am grateful to have any job at the moment:D

I don't know how to answer this without seeming like a jerk, so I'll just go for it. You don't owe anyone anything. I know it may seem like a cynical outlook, but you'll only be unhappy and resentful in the long run if you hold yourself back from your full potential out of a misplaced sense of guilt. Not everyone has the drive, desire, or intellectual capacity to be a nurse. Out of that pool of people who can become nurses, there is an even smaller group that have the desire or ability to become advanced practice nurses. So, if you are one of those with the desire/ability/time to advance your education, you owe it to yourself and your patients to do so. There are new grads coming up behind you to take care of the bedside nursing

You are correct in the hourly cost at Aultman, its a tad over $400 an hour. You do all nursing classes and clinicals at that hospital and all academic course work at Walsh University. I can understand your trepidation in going too much further in debt...it racks up quick! 3 loans totaling $20k works out to be about $300 a month payments. The upside to going back to school is that your student loans can be placed back into deferment since you are a student again. That being said, I don't know off hand if there is a cap to how much you can borrow based on what level of degree you are pursuing? That may affect your decision as well. As for hiring, no hospital in Stark County or any of the surrounding counties that I have contacted, are hiring new grads right now. I've been beating on doors for 2 months and have recently decided to take a look at LTC facilities in the hopes of getting some experience. Everyone seems to be looking for experienced people right now. There is a huge glut of nursing graduates in this area. I know of at least 6 schools pumping out nurses in the Canton/Akron area, with a few more up in Cleveland. So as far as having an 'in' with Aultman, as one of their students you do have a better chance than if you were one of Kent's new grads applying. However, they have been on a hiring freeze for 6 months now. We had a graduating class of 50, and the hospital had 24 part time or casual positions available for our class. Hence my retreat back into the realm of academia for my BSN.....something to do so I'm not hanging around the house all day wondering why no HR is calling. One bit of advice I would give to you, that I wish I would have followed when it was given to me, is to get a job as an STNA in a hospital while your in school. This gives you some experience in the nursing field to put down on your resume, and gives you an 'in' on RN positions at that hospital since hospitals prefer to promote from within before opening jobs up to the public.

Hiya, Hopeful! I don't know how long the waitlist is, but in 2006 when I was looking for a school, the wait list was 2 years. This was when the economy was still pretty decent. In a down economy, a lot of people go back to school to ride out the downturn and be ready for when hiring picks up again. So, I'm willing to bet the wait list is still 2 years or longer. I guess how long a wait is too long is up to you and how you view things. Every year without your license is a loss of 40-50k earning potential. So, 2 years of pre req's and 2 years of Nursing program is too long in my book. With that view, I entered Aultman's College of Nursing and Heath Sciences ADN program (no waitlist) and got to work on my degree. Started in Aug. 2007 and completed May 2009. The downside is this program is more expensive, I have 20k in student loans now, however, I weigh that vs. the 80-100k of missed income from waiting on the wait list for 2 years at Stark. I think I'll come out ahead The crap economy has thrown a wrench in my plan though because I got out of school and no one is hiring new Grads! So, back to school I am going while searching for a part time job. I'll be entering Kent States online RN-BSN program and should have the bachelors done in 12 months, about the time jobs will be plentyful again (I hope!). If you have any questions feel free to hit me up. Goodluck in your school search.