janejoeben

just been reading all those sad, depressive stories on the other thread and thought we need a bit of happiness. so, what are the moments that have made you smile or cry happy tears... mine would be the 7 year old rta with flail chest, midline shift on the ct, leaking cf from both ears, no respiratory effort.... very sick kid, we patched her up best we could and she was transfered to the nearest picu no one expected her to survive, rang up a week later and she was extubated, talking and having physio for a mild left sided weakness. made all involved proud to have saved that little girls life. also a daughter of a friend bought in with meningicocal septicemia, did all we could in er and took her to icu. when i took mum up to icu 5 minutes later walked in and they were doing cpr on the child. left mum with itu staff, walked into the corridoor outside the icu and totally lost it. cried and cried, poor visitors walking past thought i had gone mad! other kind staff member took me back down to the department. what makes me smile is that she is 10 years old now, no ill effects from the whole incident other than a couple of missing fingertips. another example that the work we do in the er really makes that life saving difference!!

worst things for me... 5 year old girl survived a near drowning in the family pool after prolonged resus, yeah!! until the following summer when the same girl came in again, unsupervised in the pool again... sadly didnt survive the second time. made me want to scream at the parents, was the first warning not enough for you.. also last christmas night, around 10pm, 3 teenagers in rta on way back from visiting family, all died in the department. tragic. might start a new thread, a happier one, best stories of survival!!

hi all, i am an emergency nurse in the uk, moving to the us in july. some of the comments on this thread worry me slightly! can you legally restrain and 'force' someone to take charcoal? also, we only use it if they present within 1 hour of ingestion, which in reality is pretty rare. would intubating them and putting charcoal down a ng take longer than an hour? they would have to ingest the tablets whilst sitting in the waiting room. all seems a bit extreme to me.... encourage them to drink it, if not its their choice surely, they have to have some responsibility for their care. :uhoh21:

man came in one morning to my department in london, england with a glass milk bottle up his backside. its ok though, it was accidental you see, he had locked himself out of the house naked and was climbing in through the kitchen window when he slipped and fell directly onto the bottle which got stuck..... yeah, right!!!

i signed with ogp in november last year. passed nclex in april. am sending payment for visas on monday, so that is packet 3. putting our house on the market in next few weeks, after frantically decorating and gardening, lol!! selling the house is really my majour concern now, as need the profit to pay off all the debts and have a few grand cash to go with!!

this will probably start a riot! i am so far, getting on ok with ogp, sent packet 3 recently. i have heard alot of negative things from people about various agencies, sooooooo..... is anyone happy with their completed move with ogp?? would love to hear any success stories to try and balance all the awful stories!

thanks for all that info. did anyone get internet set up straight away or did you wait till more settled? my 10 year old son is keen to be able to chat to everyone online!

Morning all. I have a question for the guys and gals who have arrived in the US already... Realistically, how much money do you NEED to have when you arrive for starting phone line, deposits etc... How long till you got your first pay packet. Also, can you give me an idea what the monthly take home is??? So many questions, I know. We are selling our house, but due to too many years of 'have it now' lifestyle, once we pay off the debts, we wont have loads of equity to take with us. Will also have profit from selling car and household contents. Not sure if that will be enough or if we will need to consider selling one of the children on ebay!! Any info would be great! XX:uhoh3:

He will be pleased!! As will the bank balance, was going to be expensive!! Does he get out of having the MMR as well then??

Morning all, I am getting all organised for the medicals for me, hubby and the kids and have been searching the threads for lots of immunisation info!! One question I cannot find an answer to is this.... Does my husband need to have Hep B, or just the kids???? I understand that the kids do for school etc.. and I am covered, but not sure about him. Don't want to make him suffer jabs for no reason!!

Hi all, I am coming to work in the states soon, have recently passes nclex, waiting for immigration..... Anyway, as I will be ED based with 12 years experience I am reading threads on here trying to get to grips with all the abbreviations that are different to ours! What is the CEN??? I am guessing Certificate in Emergengy Nursing or something similar?? Do you pay for it yourselves, or does you employer fund it? How long does it take to do? Is it needed? Is it aimed more for newly qualified rather than experienced staff? Help!! Forgot to say, am in UK!

Just wondering....do you not use oral morphine?? We (am in UK!) would use that by choice for the paed nasty fractures etc..

Hi, I am an english er nurse hoping to come and work in the us next year. the insurance thing is real wierd to me! It would you be cheaper for you to fly over to the UK and get it done for free on the good old national Health Service! Hope everything works out for you. X:nurse:

Had my nclex today, not getting good vibes!! Loads and loads of questions about drugs I have never heard of, and it stopped at 75. Not looking very good me thinks! Will probably have to pay to do it again. Hey ho!!

Just a question for the ed nurse from london..... How did you manage to swing band 6 for all the e grades???? We are near top of band 5 and the fs are band 6, just wondering if I have some unknown ammunition to get the grading upped!!!

hi, we had a 10 year old asthmatic die in our department this afternoon. i can sympathise. xx:crying2:

road traffic collision, nothing technical! either call it that or rta, road traffic accident!!

hi, welcome to the site. i am currently studying for my nclex exam and am hoping to move to the states with my husband and 2 kids in may 2007! i am going with ogrady peyton and am currently finding them really good. they have seemed really efficient at the paperwork side of things and it is nice having someone who can help guide you through the process. i will only be tied to them for an 18 month contract then we can do what we want and go where we want! the study programme they provide for the nclex is pretty good and i am enjoying it all so far! if you want to contact me then feel free to private message me! good luck, jane. x:)

3 Cardiac Arrests, all died, one only in his 40s. 3 teenagers dead following RTC,( died in dept ) and 2 others from same incident on ICU. What a very unmerry christmas shift in our little department in merry old england!! Hope everyone else had better days!! Heres looking forward to a quiet new year!

hi, i have got to agree with kay, though the flexable hours are great i would feel that i was missing out on the team approach. i also work in a&e and feel like we are a real team here, in and out of work. the other thing i think is worth considering is that you will never get any management experience working agency. this might go against you if you decide in the future to settle to one place and apply for a post. our trust has supposedly got a freeze on posts, but new staff seem to be cropping up all over the place!! good luck whatever you decide and congratulations on qualifying!!

Morning everyone. I have just started on the OGP programme of NCLEX study. I am going to their place on Monday 19th December for the first exam thing! Just wondered if any one else from this website was going the same day, might be nice to know someone when we get there?!?!:)

Thanks for the info. We also have NPs in the department. We also have TNCC, ATLS, ACLS, PALS etc.. So maybe not that different after all!!!:)

Hi, don't know if this is any use but in my dept. in the UK we have a braslow matress rather than a tape, (makes it much less likely to get the head end wrong!) We also have a trolly in the room with colour coded draws with all the sized stuff for that weight, et tubes, cathaters, airways etc.. along with a list of the drug doses for the weight. This makes everything in the right place, you just measure the child on the matress on the trolly, open the corresponding colour coded drawer and everything is there. Works well for us!:)

That was my main concern, the drugs. How does it work with the insurance aspect? Call me nieve (spelt wrong!) but the impression given is that noone gets treated unless they have insurance? Is this right?

Can anyone answer this for me? I am a British nurse currently studying for my nclex. It seems to be my understanding that everything in the US has to have a physician order, drugs, procedures etc... and I was just wondering how true this is? How does that work at triage? Here experienced nurses can do a one day course to enable us to administer emergency treatment at triage, eg salbutamol nebulisers, analgesia, antipyretics.. to make the patient more comfortable whilst waiting to see the doctor. Do you have a similar system in the States??